First, I should say that, despite Gamespot's glowing review of this game, I can honestly say that this game's story sucks. This is fairly typical of Bethesda, as the main stories of all their games have sucked. Frequently a side-quest chain will be the best part of the game's 'story'. For instance, the political issues in Skyrim were way more interesting than all that Dragonborn BS, and they never did manage to make the main story of Morrowind seem compelling. Fallout 4 suffers from the usual pitfalls of Bethesda using its own internal team to write the story, and I honestly thought that they completely wasted the settlements. That said, there are some high points in the game, so far... Codsworth is probably one of the most amusing companions they've ever produced, and Dogmeat actually feels like a companion rather than a hindrance in this one. The most jumbled and difficult to use mechanic of the game (and seemingly the most pointless) is the settlements. What do you basically do? You build buildings, fill them with beds, plant enough food and water to provide for the random settlers attracted by a radio beacon, set up a few shops and some auto-turrets for defenses... and basically they do nothing for you, if you don't bother setting up shops (the shops can be useful, obviously). Theoretically, setting up artillery in your settlements can give you an advantage, but I honestly don't think it is worth it. The only reason I bother is to have places to drop my junk after looting various buildings. Power armor in this game is a vehicle... and that has its downsides and upsides, as it is very much like being in a walking tank in terms of unstoppability... and it gobbles fusion cores. Fusion cores are a relatively rare find amongst (rarer than any non-unique item except the power armor itself) the items in this game, though you can buy at least one from every merchant in the game (including the ones you set up yourself)... at a cost of around five hundred caps, which is an impossible amount early on. That said, because you can purchase them in potentially unlimited amounts, power armor has more utility than you'd guess from the concept. I do suggest you keep a solid stock of cores on you and remove any cores from power armor you get out of (so someone else can't steal it). When it comes to dealing with armies of super mutants and other massive horrors, power armor can be a nice powerful crutch, lol. Enemies in this game work a lot better than they did in Fallout 3. Why do I say this? Because ghouls act a lot like fast-running, brain-eating superzombies (they can come crawling out of the weirdest places) and super mutants are even more insane than they were in the other games. Flying insects, moles, and dogs are all more dangerous/scary than they were n Fallout 3 or NV, and Deathclaws are even scarier. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for humans... raiders are weak, there is no really interesting human faction out there (the Minutemen being a bunch of idiots carrying around slow-firing lasers), and there is no even relatively interesting antagonist available. I mean, the entire thing takes me back to the bad Bond movies from the seventies... in a bad way. The idea behind the Institute is way too super-villainy for me. All in all, while the gameplay itself is fun, some parts, such as the settlement functions and inventory management, are clunky, and I honestly have to wonder if they really were trying to tell a story in this game at all...
First, I should say that this is a low-price VN in the same setting as Hatsugamai (one of the better VNs released this year), written by the same guy who wrote that estimable VN, as well as Senren Banka, Love Rec, Satsukoi, Clover Days, Karumaruka Circle (Saga Planets), and Aete Mushisuru Kimi to no Mirai. In other words, this guy is one of those rare, extremely high-skilled writers who regularly pumps out the highest quality moe-bait charage that so many Fuwans love but can also be loved by people with a working brain (nyahaha).
Second, this VN shares echoes of the serious sister-complex that I saw in Hatsugamai (well, not as extreme). Ai is... a rather openly dependent imouto character. About forty-percent of the humor in this game (and there is a lot of humor in it) is her insane statements about the rights of imoutos to marry/love/sleep in the same bed with their oniichans.
The rest is mostly the group interactions in the quartet the characters are forming to let the protagonist keep his scholarship. To be honest, this VN is incredibly short... which makes it rather startling how much they packed into such a small space. This VN openly states that it is a relatively low-budget affair, but the only areas in which it feels that way are the length (about seven and a half hours for me to finish all three paths) and the knife-sharp focus on moving the story forward.
This VN has not a single wasted scene or line... and it never side-tracks. Every single line is measured to create a specific result to better move things forward or amuse the reader, and as a result, this VN is one of a very small group of short non-kinetic VNs that I honestly was able to just enjoy for what they were. In fact, this VN is pretty much ideal for beginners at playing untranslated VNs, as the language is easy and the tempo of the story is quick without feeling excessively hurried.
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.
This is the latest kinetic novel based in the setting created by the 'Uso' series by Campus. The name of this VN says a lot about how it begins - the name means 'How we began our calculating love-comedy'. The protagonist, a young man who managed to pay off his parents' massive debt through hard work after their deaths, comes to Mahoshi Gakuen in order to find a rich girl to marry. This is in part because he is actively suspicious of romantic inclinations due to the fact that his hopelessly inept parents were from rich families and eloped because of opposition from both sides (and he saw his misery as a child being caused by his parents' decision to take love over wealth).
Despite this, he is essentially a good person... and intelligent, despite frequently making facepalm-worthy decisions and taking facepalm-worthy actions in pursuit of his gold-digging goal. He approaches Teidou Shirayuki (a younger relative of Setsuka from the Uso series) and is rebuffed harshly... but his experiences in life have left him more than a little psychologically tough, so he decides to continue pursuing her. It is then that he is approached her maid, Sakura Nono, who offers her help in his plans...
Just to get this out in the open for people who aren't fans of nontraditional or unconventional relationships (or those who are), this VN is a 3P romance story, and it is typical of this series for bucking the common trends in VN romance in a few little ways (that I won't spoil for you). After I got over wanting to bury my head in my hands over the protagonist's actions in the prologue, I quickly took a shine to the three main characters and their odd little relationship (and it just gets more odd as time goes by). The protagonist's overconfident attitude and endless optimism about his own capabilities (sometimes justified, sometimes not) is frequently a source for humor, and seeing Shirayuki's cold attitude melt away is a true pleasure to watch. While Nono frequently takes on a sidekick like role, she still manages to be a solid heroine in her own right, with her possessing almost as much affection for Shirayuki as she does for the protagonist (this is true of Shirayuki as well).
Despite its premise, this game actually manages to be much more believable in some ways than other VNs with a romantic focus, and that is a huge positive, at least in my view. I love the relationship building in this game (both before and after the required and omnipresent 'confession scene'), and I came away from this game feeling some of the built-up negative feelings from playing so many charage with almost identical romances shaved away.
To be honest, Parasol is one of those companies I have extremely mixed feelings about. Roughly half of the games I've played from them, i dropped before finishing out of frustration or boredom. This company is primarily a charage maker, so this probably won't surprise a lot of the people who read this blog, lol.
That said, this game was a surprisingly good one, wiping away the foul taste left over from Hoshi Koi. It also told me that I'd judged Hoshi Koi about as fairly as I ever do with that type of VN, since this one really is a straight-out charage.
The protagonist of this story is a young painter named Shou who is threatened with losing his scholarship due to his failure to paint... because he has gotten obsessed with making anime figures. Shou is a pretty cheerful and open guy, though he shares the annoying quality of extreme density (denser than lead) when it comes to romantic issues. He is an artist at heart, and it shows in his reactions to the heroines and how he deals with their problems (each of the paths follows a pattern of him resolving the heroines' issues then resolving his own).
True to charage form, the ichaicha in this one is pretty heavy-handed. Honestly, it fell just within the reach of my ability to tolerate dating, sex, and lover's issues in a story. This VN doesn't fall back on the shitty trope of the 'meaningless ichaicha date' that cripples so many moege/charage, so in that sense I can praise the writer honestly and without reserve.
Don't expect any deviation from charage forms though. This VN isn't attempting to tell a story that transcends the characters. However, if you ask me if that is a problem, my answer would be no. While this isn't my favorite type of VN, it definitely served its purpose of helping me recover after the trauma of Hoshi Koi.
Recently, I've had reason to consider precisely what it is that makes the difference between a strong charage and a kusoge charage. There are a lot of important elements involved, from levels of character development to the overuse of the non-person protagonist. However, there was one element - or rather a tool - that seems to get overlooked a lot, despite its ubiquitous presence in almost every first-class charage. That tool is the heroine perspective.
The heroine perspective is where the narrative switches from following the protagonist to following one or more of the heroines. To be blunt, this is probably the single most powerful tool a charage writer has to make you fall in love with the heroine as a person, rather than as a one-dimensional talking doll. If a charage writer is failing to drop you into heroines' perspectives on a regular basis in the common route, it isn't a good sign. A single twenty-line peek into a heroine's head can often mean the difference between a wonderful, round heroine and a flat, boring heroine. Few heroines have the personal charisma necessary to leave memories inside your heart without at least one scene like this one, whether it is in a charage or otherwise. Whereas the everyday interactions between them and the protagonist provide you a broad outline of their character, it is the heroine perspective that is often needed to provide a drop of paint to the canvas, aiding in the process of filling in the lines.
I mean, cute only goes so far.
Yurikago is one of my favorite VNs. That isn't because it so 'awesome' or a kamige. Story-wise, it is actually a bit below the average for Akatsuki Works. No, the reason I like this game so much is the characters and their interactions.
Kiritooshi Hiro, the protagonist (his surname means 'to cut all the way through' lol) is a young high school student who lives every day trapped in a web of his own apathy. Tormented by his 'Knight Frame' (a magitech-type device that replaces his entire skeletal system) and a sense of his own guilt for having murdered his father in order to gain it (this is not a spoiler, it mentions this within the first fifty lines, lol), he feels isolated from the world around him, and he can only really consider those who are - like him - outside the norm to be people (this is a psychological disease created by the implantation of the Knight Frame into a psychologically immature subject). He regularly attends a the Kurohagi Dojo, where he fights with Kangasa Ume, who has inherited an 'unbreakable body' (literally unbreakable... if she falls from the stratosphere, she is unharmed, but she is not invulnerable to disease or techniques that overwrite her original state). He generally spends a great deal of time trying to defend himself (unsuccessfully) from the females of the story, who seem to vary from seeing him as a favorite chew toy to being eternally exasperated by him. He has a bad habit of saying what he is thinking at any given moment in his rare interpersonal reactions, then wanting to bash his head into the nearest wall in embarrassment after reflecting on what he said. When his few truly 'sensitive' spots are touched, he can instantly become a psychopathic, remorseless killer, but those points are relatively few and far between.
Kangasa Ume is the last survivor of the Kangasa Family, who all possessed an unbreakable body. Her body imposes on her a unique and distasteful way of viewing the world, where her reactions to everything around her are determined on whether they are fragile or difficult to break. She also despises that part of herself intensely, even to th point of being nearly suicidal at times. With those few she allows herself to become close to, beating on them becomes a form of interpersonal communication (she regularly breaks Hiro's bones when embarrassed or irritated). She is a student of the Kurohagi style, which focuses on the forceful creation of 'tenketsu' (breaking points) or the use of existing ones to destroy the bodies of their opponents. She is fairly advanced in this, and as a kindergartner she once launched herself into the stratosphere when she tried to kill the planet that way.
Tae is the main heroine of the story and an angel. Angels in this story are summoned into the body of a corpse from a higher realm and are bound to the one who loved the original owner of that body. By instinct, they love their summoner/controller, and will do anything for his sake, up to and including self-harm or mass murder. Since her kind were originally created as a slave race, she has an M streak a mile wide when it comes to Hiro, and she wants nothing more than for him to treat her like garbage and beat the shit out of her... and is unsatisfied that he doesn't do so.
Aria is the last of the three heroines, a young angel who possesses wings made up of iron stakes and whose special ability allows her to overwrite the reality of anything she touches to have already been punctured by one of her stakes. She is very honest and straightforward, a total innocent when it comes to everyday reactions and concepts, and (in her route) she is constantly asking questions, because she is also too intellectually lazy to think things out on her own. She is also a drug addict, due to an existing command from her master that she use a certain drug to eliminate her emotions when they go beyond a certain peak level.
Kurohagi Zenjirou is Ume's adoptive father/grandfather and the master of the Kurohagi Dojo. At one point, he was involved in the religious wars that resulted in the creation of the mystic technology behind the Kishi Kokkaku and angels like Tae, but he is now very much retired. Despite his easygoing attitude, he regularly breaks his best students' bones and will even maim them if he thinks that is what is needed to train them. He loves Ume deeply, but he believes in standing back and letting the younger generation find its own way. He isn't really human anymore (psychologically or physically), and after two hundred years of life, even he admits he doesn't really understand people viscerally anymore.
Tsugumu is an ancient angel (the most powerful one) who performed the surgery to transfer Hiro's father's Knight Frame to him after Hiro killed him. She loves anything interesting, and she sees her abandonment by her master as a very long-term sexual play. She, like all the other women around Hiro, regularly beats the shit out of him for minor infractions (either through teasing or literal blows), but she seems to always be looking on the people around her from the outside. She is very lazy and generally careless (she forgot to 'zip Hiro up' when she implanted the Knight Frame, which was a small part of the cause of his mental disorders, lol).
Redear is the heroine of Tomoe's side-scenario, a psychopathic loli angel who skins people alive and removes their limbs and organs for fun. She makes little sense when she talks, frequently referring to various fairy tales and old children's books, such as Allice in Wonderland. It is impossible to tell what will make her happy at any given moment, but it is generally guaranteed to include killing someone or doing something similar.
Tomoe is a young man who acts entirely on impulse, living as he desires at any given moment. When he sees bullying, he beats the shit out of the bullies, then he beats the shit out of the bullied one. When someone mistakes him for a woman, he breaks their ribs and jaw, then leaves them for dead.... and when he meets Hiro, he always tries to cause a confrontation with him.
Now, needless to say, the characters of this game are... unusual. I loved their antics, and the game is pretty violent (think pulverized flesh, followed by repeated regeneration, followed by more pulverization). The Grand Route is an excellent follow-up to the other routes, and I always leave this game feeling satisfied.
Edit:
For those who are interested in playing the game, there is a suggested (by me) playing order. Generally speaking, you want to do Tae's route right before the Grand Route (because Tae's route is way too revealing). This is immovable. If you just want to see the true ending, do Tae's route and the Grand Route only, though you'll miss out on some awesome moments. My suggested order is: Aria>Ume or Ritia/Tomoe>Tae>Grand Route. Really, it would probably be best to do Ritia/Tomoe right before Tae's route, but if you want a bit of freedom of choice, that is a good place to put it. I suggest Aria's route because it is the only route where most of the other characters are almost irrelevant and Aria is actually something other than a speechless killing machine. It is also fairly revealing about how extreme the nature of the angels is, lol.
My favorite heroine in this game is Ume. For all that she is the true heroine, Tae (or at least, the Tae in Tae's route) is mostly a do-M pervert who will do anything to get Hiro to smash her face in or treat her like dirt. While she is pretty adorable in her route, Ume's internal conflict is a lot more interesting.
The main reason that I say play Tae's route, even if you play none of the other heroine routes, is because Tae's route reveals several key elements about Hiro that are absolutely necessary for you to know in order to enjoy the Grand Route (really, it would be better if you knew stuff about Aria too, but meh).
The characters in this game, whether villain or protagonist side (note: everyone in this game is crazy on one level or another... hell, the most sane person there is Tae, and that is just... sad) are generally great... but moege lovers will probably run away from most of them screaming (Redear/Ritia is every lolicon's nightmare). Ume is an extreme self-hating sadist, Tae is about as M as anyone can get (so much so that she can get off just on being ignored), and Aria is a drug addict... lol
Story-wise, the game is actually pretty good, but you should know that the writer chose to make Hiro an unreliable narrator and goes out of his way never to just come out and say things directly. I love the setting in this game, and it was obviously designed to contain more than one story. Unfortunately, Akatsuki Works Black produced three great games in a very short time and then got absorbed by Akabeisoft3, so we'll probably never see any more games in this particular universe... or in the Izuna Zanshinken universe (which, considering that the secret ending is open-ended, is sad).
Recently, @Dreamysyu liked one of my older posts, and I felt it was worth revisiting three years later, simply because it has become an even more valid post in light of current events.
At the time I wrote this post, I was pretty angry. Why? I'd had the misfortune to see several fellow otakus who happened to be female being subtly (and not so subtly) denigrated by other male otakus at a small gathering at a local gaming event. The girls were obviously enjoying their cosplay (it was a cosplay-allowed private event for jrpg-lovers of various ages without about fifty people), and they were discussing their favorite games as heatedly as you would expect from the obsessed types that show up at such events (I'm just as bad, obviously). Unfortunately, about halfway through, several male members of the conversation turned the discussion to eroge, and sexual innuendos started flying at the girls mixed in with various poorly-used Japanese phrases that would have made me wince even if I hadn't hated the content of their statements.
This was disgusting in and of itself, but it was obvious that the males in question were losing their grasp on the line between reality and eroge (exactly how is that possible, really?). They started fantasizing openly about what would happen to the character versions of the girls' cosplay if they were put in an eroge... and things just got out of hand from there.
Now, this is just one event that I attended on a whim (under my real name) because I got an invite from an old friend. However, I had to wonder afterwards... how many of us fail to understand just how warped the sexual viewpoints in VNs are? I've always been well-aware of it, but I got the impression that those males (listed as 'kids' in my mind, due to my extreme old age of 34 at the time) had no understanding of just how warped those viewpoints are.
I've always understood that most of the Japanese VNs I've read are fundamentally sexist on some level (some weren't, but most were), but I felt like I was listening to someone born in a different universe at that moment. Perhaps it is because I really don't see rl women as subjects of sexual attraction anymore, but I honestly couldn't comprehend on a gut level falling into that kind of pattern of behavior with someone I was conversing with in a congenial manner only moments before. It bothered me then and it bothers me now that others could.
Since ceasing VN of the Month, I've been slowly recovering from my years of over-reading VNs, the vast majority of them ones I normally wouldn't have taken an interest in. While I still play VNs regularly, I do so at a slower pace, reading more conventional literature and playing normal games as much as I do them.
I recently began to regain some of my VN stamina (though I will never get back to where I was), and I've found that even the SOL VNs I choose to play are far less stressful than before. It is nice to reconfirm that I truly love VNs, after so many years playing far too many charage threatened to make me hate them.
However, I've also noticed that I am far less tolerant of obvious blunders and poor choices on the part of writers, regardless of genre. When something touches on my pet peeves, I immediately drop the VN, and I lose all urge to play it, often for months after. This was the case with Sorceress Alive and it is also the case with Raillore to Ryakudatsusha (dameningen protagonists with no interesting or redeeming traits are one of my pet peeves).
On the other hand, my stamina for 'sweetness' and 'ichaicha' in a VN has recovered somewhat, and I can play a route in a charage with no troubles... However, I no longer desire to play any routes other than that of my favorite heroine. I used to mechanically run through all the heroines in a VN without hesitation or slowing down, but now I only go for the one or two heroines that interest me, ignoring the others entirely.
This change in my own behavior leaves me somewhat bemused, though I can see where it comes from rationally. I simply got tired of plowing through huge numbers of boring heroines that almost buried the good ones, lol.
I am completely done - though without playing Mirai Kanojo - and I'm not interested in continuing (the new month's releases are already coming out, lol). For those who are interested... the contest between the VNs came down to a four-way fight between Shirogane, Hanasaki, Valkyrie, and Utakata. Naturally, I considered them all as fairly as possible, but in the end I picked Hana no No ni Saku Utakata no as VN of the Month March 2015
For those who were expecting me to pick something else... sorry. I honestly felt it was the best of the crop, though there was nothing god-level in the group.
I went ahead and played my way through this... for the most part, the story is slice-of-life, with a lot more focus on the comedic elements than in the main game. The result is a lot of hilarious scenes... and really little else for most of the first two-thirds of the game. The endgame story is supposed to be a tearjerking final battle... but to be honest, I hadn't developed enough affection for the new characters to feel anything for what was happening. Too much of the content was comedic, and as a result, there was more of an emotional disconnect than there was with the original game. While there were attempts to develop the new characters, the actual events were so... predictable (even by normal standards) that I just sighed in resignation and slogged through the last two battles (which were annoying as heck).
The actual battles themselves are much easier than the original, mostly because you start out with Touka's supreme boss-killer skills... in exchange, a lot of Corona's skills were harder to use because the MP consumption was increased (to be specific, from 35 to 77 for the single-enemy barrier-stripper). Aka is as OP as Corona, though in a more conventional way. She is the most powerful Red Elemental besides Ayumu, though she is more useful, since she has both Red and Black attacks.
For those who want more of Yumina's and Corona's cast's antics, this is an excellent fandisc... but for those who are already tired of the cast, it is probably more effort than it is worth.
So far, the protagonists of this story are its biggest downside. I don't say this to be mean... I just felt I needed to be frank with you all. The story itself is generally interesting, as is the cast of side-characters... but both protagonists definitely leave something to be desired. Kai Kai's side of the story would probably be best referred to as the 'Light' side of the first part of the VN. Why? Because, for all the horrible things that happen during the course of his story, none of them really tarnish or dirty him personally. That is fairly typical of a jrpg protagonist, as the 'natural hero' types tend to never really get dirtied by all the horrible things that go on around them or the people they have to kill in the course of the game. Oh, early in the game he is a little bit more pathetic, but when he loses a comrade, it drives him to 'resolve himself' to the fight to come with the typical guilt-driven passion you see from any number of similar heroes. To be honest, the degree to which his personality and character development is cliched is startling. Most writers make an effort to at least move the protagonist a little away from the 'middle of the road' archetypes... Shizuma Shizuma is a problem for an entirely different set of reasons. Number one is that he is a resurrection of the 'angst-driven anti-hero protagonist who is always irritated with or angry at something'. As I've gotten into his path, I don't see this quality fading all that much. Worse, he seems to have the fatal character flaw of being a smart idiot. He is intelligent, but he is blind to the obvious pitfalls around him. He fails to even consider that a certain delusion early on might be wrong, due to his obsessive personality, and he fails even more to choose an intelligent path to his goal, despite apparently being fairly smart. A lot of this comes from the impatience that is endemic to this kind of protagonist... but that doesn't change the fact that he looks like an idiot through almost the entire first quarter of his path, despite having the typical elitist arrogance of the naturally capable ('What, you can't do that? It's easy though.').
Edit: For those who are interested, Eternal has released an update fixing the bugs stated in the previous post, as well as rebalancing certain aspects of gameplay - the general weakness of combined mechpeople and a few other issues. 11/01/2015 1:33 AM, US Central Time
The Soleil series by Skyfish is one of the weirder VN series out there... all the games are connected, but the connection is so twisty and strange that if you make the mistake of starting from a later game, it becomes incomprehensible. Part of this is that all the protagonists in the series are fundamentally ignorant of the nature of the worlds they are living in, and another part of it is that the nature of incarnation and reincarnation in the series deliberately unpredictable.
Basically, the worlds in the Soleil series are 'branches' from the world where the Norse apocalypse, Ragnarok, occurred... These can be considered parallel branches, except that it is possible - though difficult - to move between them. They range from worlds like that in Primary Magical Trouble (another VN in the same universe) where magic is a part of daily life, to the worlds in the first and second Soleil games, where the world is the same as our own, save for the presence of the Valkyries and Berserks (fallen Einherjar). There is even a world where the Lovecraftian gods play games as their whims take them (seen in Kouyoku no Soleil).
The primary characters of the 'main' storyline are the descendants - both by blood and by soul - of Siegfried, the legendary hero of Norse legend who was Brunhilde's husband and slew the dragon Fafnir. Unfortunately, this generally dooms those descendants to horribly tragic fates. The two Shirogane no Soleil games are direct relations, with Shin Shirogane being essentially the culmination of many worlds where Ryuuhei from the first Shirogane's fate played out in varying ways.
Other games in the series explore various other worlds and possibilities, with the characters generally suffering from terrible curses, agonizing lifestyles, and various other types of misfortune. This is not surprising, considering that a lot of the ideas behind the games are based directly off of concepts from Norse mythology and/or the Cthulhu Mythos. For that same reason, there is a lot of 'corruption of characters' in these games, as well as numerous bad endings. After all, Loki was a trickster and a master schemer, and the deities of Lovecraft's universe aren't exactly... friendly.
Many of the characters in these games - especially Hagalle from the Shirogane series - are 'multi-layered', in the sense that they are connected in an integral way (though they are rarely conscious of it) to their alternate selves. As a result, if you start halfway through the series, the games are insanely confusing. In addition, there are some characters who are reincarnated in multiple universes but are not precisely alternate versions... in particular, the characters of the original Shirogane game are incarnated as twisted fragments melded together in surprising ways in Shin Shirogane. A lot of the issues that confused me when I played Shin Shirogane have become clear as I progressed through the original, lol.
Overall, the biggest problem with the series is that none of them are really complete without knowledge of the others, except possibly the side-game Primary Magical Trouble. This leads to all of them being confusing if you don't have the knowledge the writers built into each story...
For those familiar with me, you know I spent year after year doing VN of the Month and that I ritualistically complained about how tired I was of this or that trope or bad habit that plagued the industry or games. I was asked repeatedly why I could still plow through so many VNs, despite the stress? The simple answer is that I have always been stubborn as hell. I've experienced 'burnout' numerous times in my life, mostly because I have a naturally obsessive personality. Once I start obsessing over something, I literally am incapable of ceasing to do so without something jarring me completely away from it for a time, which usually results in me realizing I burned out long ago and have just been hanging out of stubbornness.
The same was the case for VNs. When I first started playing VNs, all VNs were worth at least trying. However, as time went on, I increasingly lost interest in most nukige and eventually my interest in 'everyday teenaged life SOL romance' (or 'the standard charage') began to fade. It was probably about 2016 when this reached the critical point, but it took another year and a two-week bout of flu where I couldn't think well enough to play anything to bump me out of my years-long trance.
Part of it was that I rarely, if ever, took a break from VNs during those years. I was always playing at least one, and I had a tendency to barrel through them consecutively without even a short pause to rest, week after week, month after month. I used most of my free time to play them, I structured my work schedule and habits around playing them, and I generally existed solely to do so.
I dunno how many of you can even imagine what living like that is like... but it was the fact that I am no longer driven to play game after game that is letting me sit back and enjoy the few I actually want to play. I go back and pull stuff out of my attic on a whim, I dig through my collection based on a desire to relive a single scene, and I generally just take pleasure in playing what I want to play.
Would it be strange for you to hear that this all feels unnatural to me, after all these years? I've been playing third-rate charage I didn't want to even see, much less play, for years... and now I only play stuff that takes my interest, dropping them if I don't see any hope for the game to break out of the shell of mediocrity. I don't feel driven to blog about replays beyond when I feel like it or when I think I have something to add to a previous assessment, and I can actually sit back and enjoy the few charage I actually feel like I want to play.
While I do have regrets, they aren't about the years spent obsessing and over-playing VNs, despite my previous words. I set out to do VN of the Month because, at the time, there was no way for people to have an idea of what they were getting into with most VNs. It was a bit startling how few people were seriously trying to let people know what kind of VNs were out there without spoiling everything from beginning to end. Even today, most reviewers can't seem to keep heavy spoilers out of the text, which saddens me. However, I no longer feel that it is my mission to 'fix' this. I've been there, I've done that, and I won't be doing it again.
I will still play VNs, and I will still review them (on occasion), but don't expect me to be as prolific as I used to be, lol.
https://vndb.org/v20314
https://vndb.org/v20339
The games linked to above are the ones I would prefer to leave to someone else for March's releases. For Giga's new game, the reason is that I can't bring myself to play anything non-Baldr by Giga. For the other, it is because I don't like the theme (a k-on club). Anyone who is playing one or both of these anyway, could you do me the favor of sending me your opinions when or if you complete them?
First, I should say that never before, in my seven years playing VNs, has a year been as... stale as this one has been. It is not that there haven't been good VNs coming out... it is just that no VNs I might consider worthy of a VN Hall of Fame have come out this entire year. Generally speaking, I can usually expect about three to five VNs in any given year to make it into my personal 'hall of fame'. Unfortunately, this year has literally produced none worthy of that group. Understand, when I say 'worthy', it doesn't necessarily mean that it is my 'favorite' VN. If I were to go by that standard, Silverio Vendetta would be in there, despite its rather glaring flaws. No, when I say something is worthy, it is that it is a VN that I think has lasting value at least partially independent of purely relativistic values (which tend to be the guides for my ratings in various genres). This bothers me. Last year was actually a pretty good one, with more than five VNs making a solid entry into my personal hall of fame. Only 2011 was better in the last five years, and that year was almost demonic when it came to producing first-rate VNs... I've come to expect that at least one or two VNs will be obvious candidates for my VN of the Year in any given year, and that I'll have at least ten to twelve runner-ups... but this year, I've yet to come across a solid candidate for runner-ups, much less for a struggle for the final VN of the Year. I love VNs, for all the pain they've put me through. I slog through dozens of near-kusoge every year so that I can excavate a few gems... and it is getting a bit depressing how pathetic what gems I do find look like. I do this because I honestly think that there is no better electronic medium for the telling of a good story, though books in general still do a better job in general (mostly because of the pathetic lack of first-rate writers and a willingness to back them up fully with art and system support). However, this year is just a bit too depressing for my tastes. I've had no great emotional explosions from playing a VN this year (other than a few really really good moments in Silverio Vendetta), and while there have been some technically good VNs, there hasn't been anything to approach Semiramis or Nanairo from last year in terms of blowing me away... or even anything approaching Hello, Lady for first class character dynamics and presentation. On the other hand, anime shows signs of making a comeback... which is surprising, considering how stagnant the medium has been for so long. Of course, it is likely to be just another 'peak' before another 'trough', but it is still nice to have that balancing out the lowest point in VNs I've experienced yet. I am a bit tired of playing kusoge though... October produced several good VNs... but that was at least in part because it was the most prolific month in this half of the year for non-nukige. Most of the stuff I didn't bother mentioning in the blogs was... not worth mentioning. I tried it, I wanted to be sick, I dropped it. Hopefully, the November or December releases will redeem this year at least a bit... I'd at least like to see one VN of the Year-worthy VN come out, because even I couldn't honestly name Silverio Vendetta as VN of the Year, despite my fondness for it being an obvious tribute to some of my favorite parts of Dies Irae.
I'll say this first off... this game actually needed locked paths or a true ending. Like most Windmill games, the character interactions are pretty heavily reliant on easygoing manzai humor and running character personality and behavior jokes (in fact, most VN humor is based on that). This game has a cast of four writers (one amateur, one h-scene specialist, and two established names), including Imashina Rio (Gin'iro Haruka and Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai) and Kagami Yuu (ef, Eden*, and Mirai Nostalgia). Unfortunately, the styles of the two main writers are extremely different, and it is rather blatant when things shift... sometimes in the middle of scenes (this can be jarring and disturbs the flow at times).
Understand, I started out liking this game... I like non-city settings (for some reason, city locales always end up being multi-date ichaicha fests even for heroines who wouldn't be interested in that kind of thing), and the interactions with the heroines and side-characters were amusing. I even still liked how things were going early in my first heroine path (Serina), but after I headed into a second path, it became apparent they were abusing the 'osananajimi is scared of friend group falling apart' trope. Oh, the way they abused it is different in each path, but the abuse is so rampant that I had to wince.
Worse, the characters have these pretty much useless powers that only work on each other. All the paths have the powers as part of the central conflict, but, considering how little the characters seemed to care about their powers in the common route (one way or the other) it felt unnatural how they became central in the actual heroine routes.
Understand, I'm a fantasy freak, so characters having powers is (of course) fine with me... what bothered me was the artificial-feeling limitations and the way the characters so blithely accepted a revelation midway through the path that would have turned most games a bit gloomy. Again, what's worse is that this was seemingly only utilized conveniently to explain why the other girls (all of whom are latently in love with the protagonist) stop pursuing him once you get on a particular heroine path. I will say the way they did it was mildly funny (the pseudo-yuri in Himari's path was lol-worthy for instance), but it felt very, very forced to me.
Another issue is that Rinka is rather blatantly the main heroine (the scene I mentioned above makes that very clear). As a result, all the other paths proceed without resolving the issue of just why that certain event and the issues it brought to the surface came into being. Of course, as a result, Rinka's path is a very obvious 'true path' and blows away all the others in terms of quality (and length), drawing on elements from the other paths that hinted around the edges about what is revealed in Rinka's path.
Anyone who plays this game should either only play Rinka's path or play the other paths first (like I did). While the paths other than Rinka's have some serious issues (the biggest one being choppy pacing and poor use of the setting elements and plot devices), Rinka's path and the common route are definitely worth playing. Sadly, I can't recommend this one for VN of the Month, but if you want a mildly funny plot-centric charage (yes, they coexist at times), this is a decent choice.
Kamikaze Explorer was the third game from Clochette I played, and even today it remains in my memory as one of the most well-balanced charage/plotge hybrids I've ever played. I say 'balanced' because most games don't achieve hybridization at all. Most charage are essentially character development, light romance, and SOL with little else. Plotge, on the other hand, often tend to go for 'efficiency' on character development, romance, and SOL (exceptions exist), and true hybridization of the genres has become exceedingly rare in recent years (specifically since the beginning of 2015, we saw a general decline in charage with actual stories and a fall in the overall number of plotge).
Clochette is a company more famous for being full of oppai girls than for its stories... but that is mostly because anyone's first impression on seeing the cast of one of their games is that the heroines are all... large, to say the least. That said, except for a few failures like Amatsu Misora ni, this company has produced nothing but charage/plotge hybrids since it came into existence, with the company having a steady, if not huge, following in Japan and over here.
Kamikaze Explorer is based in a future where much of the world has been sunk under the oceans and technological development has stagnated. However, about twenty years before the story began, large numbers of children began to be born with or display supernatural abilities that came to be labeled as Metis. These abilities generally were based somehow off of the hidden desires of the user, and, in the more well-off countries, it was decided to research them in a humane manner rather than the inhumane one you would usually expect.
The protagonist, Hayase Keiji transfers into a school that is centered on researching and training such individuals (such individuals being labeled as Metis-passers). At the school, he is immediately recruited by the pretending-to-be-arrogant-but-actually-shy ojousama Mishio into Argonaut, a club that seeks to help people in general while also acting to solve Metis-related incidents at the same time. Keiji is something of a genius, driven by his sense of curiosity to the point of obsession, and his current obsession is Metis.
From a purely SOL-romance point of view, this game is pretty sappy. There are a lot of really obvious emotional points, and the ichaicha is heavy-handed... However, in this case, that doesn't come across as a negative... mostly because the ichaicha is usually interspersed with relatively serious moments and plot-related issues.
The plot itself isn't huge in scale, but it is dramatic and shows off perhaps too much of a dark side for the average charage at points. However, for the most part, it is not heavy-handed or excessive. Well, I will say one of the antagonists is a bit creepy/scary, but that just made the game interesting, at least for me.
It needs to be said again, but this game is a hybrid of charage and plotge so those who purely want one or the other should think before playing. Like all the games by this company, the H-scenes are mostly mild... but they are also extremly erotic and relatively plentiful for a game of its length.
Edit: Incidentally Miiko (Mishio) is my waifu. Grab one of the other girls if you want a waifu *snarls viciously*
This is the list, as it currently stands, of VNs being considered and those previously considered but disqualified for VN of the Year 2017. While this year hasn't been good for producing kamige, it has succeeded in producing a number of memorable ones.
Being Considered
Ojou-sama no Hanbun wa Ren'ai de Dekiteimasu
Oni ga Kuru. ~Ane ga Hinshi de Pinchi Desu~
Haruru Minamo ni
Suisei Ginka
Additions from 12/30/2017
Bakumatsu Jinchuu Houkoku Resshiden Miburo
Yami to Hikari no Sanctuary
Aoi Tori
Kanojo wa Imouto de Tenshi de
Eliminated/disqualified candidates/Runners-up
Silverio Trinity (Disqualified for being a direct sequel incapable of standing on its own)
Shin Koihime Musou -Kakumei- (ditto to above... with the addendum that it is also a remake)
Hataraku Otona no Ren'ai Jijou (realistically, this VN just hits my sweet spot and really isn't VN of the Year material)
Fuyu Uso (similar to Trinity and Koihime)
Hikari no Umi no Apeiria (funny, interesting, but ultimately falls short)
Additions from 12/30/2017
Kin'iro Loveriche (fun, good feels, but not quite there)
Kizuna Kirameku Koi Iroha (great first job by a new company, but it isn't a finalist)
Junjou Karen Freaks (funny fantasy with mimikko, but not quite there)
Bokura no Sekai no Shukufuku o (great nakige, great story, but not a finalist)
For those who are wondering, this is a list of VNs I'm planning to at least sample.
Yomegami
Ryakudatsuha no Inen (seriously, despite the fact that it is an obvious trap)
Gokukano (giving this a chance, in case it isn't a nukige)
Natsuiro Koi Uta
Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana (no idea what this is about, since the Getchu and official pages are somewhat vague)
Suki to Suki to de Sankaku Ren'ai
Right now, I'm playing Yomegami, having completed two endings (Iris and Lycoris). Having finished those two endings, I can say that it is something for the fans of serious/moe fusions to look into, since I'm enjoying it immensely.
It appears that March is going to be my first death march of this year (as compared to me doing it every month for the five years previous). The simple reason is that, for some insane reason, a bunch of companies released a bunch of interesting games all at once this month (it is technically still March).
First, we have Alpha Nighthawk, a game by Liar Soft that just looked too interesting for me to ignore (which I normally would have). My initial impression from the first scene is... that this is definitely a Liar Soft game. The first scene has the spoken dialogue being completely different from the lines on the screen, so you have to pay attention to both simultaneously to pick up on all the nuances of what is going on, apparently, lol.
Second, we have Purple Soft's newest game, Realive. Now, as a game about a mystical virtual app, I had to sight and go 'now Purple Soft is jumping on that wagon', since it is, on the surface, a departure from what Purple Soft usually does, which is nakige fantasy plotge.
Third is Love Commu by Marshmallow Soft, a subsidiary of Candy Soft (like Minato Soft is). Now, ninety percent of those familiar with me will go 'What?! you are going to play a charage?!' However, it needs to be said that I've always played charage that looked interesting... and this is the first one in a while where the protagonist is a teacher and it isn't a nukige, lol.
Fourth is Sakura Iro, Mau Koro ni. This one is Pulltop's latest release... and to be honest, if it isn't a nakige or plotge, I'll drop it like a hot potato. The only things Pulltop does right are nakige and plotge, and when they try to stray into regular moege/charage they always end up giving me a headache.
Fifth is pieces / Wataridori no Somnium, another questionable title despite being released by Whirlpool, which has been on a streak of fetish games that seemed to have been made specifically with me in mind (World Election and Nekonin both being full of nonhuman heroines and World Election being just an overall great game). I say it is questionable because Whirlpool's bad games are REALLY bad. For some reason, Whirlpool sometimes strays from what works for them and tries to do something completely brainless (well, Nekonin was brainless, but catgirls and sex are always positives, lol), and I always end up wanting to go to sleep after the prologue.
There is a pretty good chance there won't be a VN of the month for June, simply because there aren't enough VNs coming out to make it a competition. As far as I can tell, there is only one not-nukige coming out for certain tonight (in our time) and it doesn't look like it will be one that is worthy of the VN of the Month, from the looks of it. I will still play and mini-review it, but please forgive me if you don't see a lot of new posts for the next month or so.
After discussions with the other contributors to this month, we decided that the VN of the Month for March 2017 is Haruru Minamo ni by Clochette.
The reason is fairly simple... nothing else met the standards for a VN of the Month pick from the March releases we played. Now, Haruru isn't a kamige (except that the heroines are kami, lol), but it is an excellent 'charage with a story', and it is definitely the type of VN I'll remember years from now. As such, I didn't really have an reservations about picking it.
As I mentioned, I am still looking for contributors to the VN of the Month. In particular, I'd like at least one person besides myself to play Amayui in May, so that I can have a counter-opinion. My opinions on Eushully's games tend to be either endless praise or harsh condemnations, so it would be nice to have someone to provide a nice companion or counter to my point of view.
For April's releases, I'm also looking for people to provide alternative points of view on the two candidates set for release on Friday... in particular, the one written by the same guy who wrote Nanairo Reincarnation and Akeiro Kaikitan, made by Palette (the one with all the nines in the title). April is pretty bare, but what is there looks interesting, lol.
Understand, I can work from bare opinions, and the more opinions I have, the better a post I can make. My personal opinion is all well and good... but I'm not going to be playing everything personally from now on.
Over the last few weeks, I've gone back through all of the chuunige Hino Wataru was responsible for, and I came up with a number of common points that exist in each of his games, that define his overall style. At the same time, I thought I'd also mention why I usually recommend Comyu to people despite the translation being such a disaster.
Hino Wataru patterns
Hino Wataru has a number of unique patterns that define his style of writing chuunige (some of it spills over into his SOL games, which I plan to replay soon as well). Here, I will describe these patterns and why they are unique in modern non-nukige VNs.
First, every Hino Wataru game has at least one major character (antagonist, protagonist, main character, or heroine) who is sexually open or strongly driven by their sexual impulses to the point of being out of control. In Ruitomo, it was the infamous predatory lesbian Atori. In Hello, Lady, Narita Shinri is himself the one with the overdriven libido. In Comyu, both Haru and Akihito can be considered to be of this type, albeit for opposite sexes. Shizuku (a major antagonist in Suisei Ginka) is pretty much a bisexual succubus. Akeno Shuri himself in Hi ga Nai is the sexually amoral one. (incidentally, the first complaint most people have about Akihito from Comyu is that he is a cheating man-whore... but I always figured they were just being prudes)
Second, every Hino Wataru chuunige has some kind of internal catchphrase (sometimes multiple ones) that plays a vital part in the thought processes of the protagonist. In Ruitomo, it is 'we are cursed'. In Comyu, it is 'koko wa yasashii oukoku' and 'soredemo, to'. In Hello, Lady it is 'Nasu beki koto o nasudarou.'. Generally speaking, these phrases are often loaded with multiple meanings or meanings that are unconventional. Unfortunately, these phrases and a lot of Hino Wataru's other wordgames just don't translate at all, which is one of the reasons why Comyu's translation comes across as flat or awkward.
Third, a lot (not all) of his chuunige involve a group of characters forced together because of circumstance that never quite get over that first awkwardness. The heroines of Hello, Lady never really settle down around Shinri. Ruitomo's group of friends are constantly on the verge of being at one another's throats over one thing or another. Comyu's main cast has so many conflicting personalities it is a miracle they don't kill one another (literally).
Hino Wataru loves to philosophize. All of his chuunige protagonists philosophize or have a moral policy that is slightly or completely out of sync with conventional morality. Narita is capable of valuing life deeply while taking the lives of others ruthlessly for the sake of his goals. Akihito is ruthless at times, excessively soft on women, and actively prioritizes those close to him over what is right. It goes on.
Comyu
During my recent replay of Comyu, I was reminded again of why I stopped playing VNs in English. I played the patched version of Comyu shortly after it came out, out of curiosity... and it was enough to put me off playing translates games entirely for years after. A lot of this has to do with elements of Hino Wataru's style that just don't translate well, so it can't be said to the translator's fault entirely...
As such, it always screws with me when people nitpick the translation then use it to bash the game itself. Calling Akihito a man-whore is fine, but using that as a reason not to like the game always struck me as stupid, since he has a lot more stuff to him that makes him interesting.
Anyway, down to the nuts and bolts...
Comyu, as anyone who has played it knows, suffers because of the way the paths are locked at the beginning. To be blunt, nobody who plays the game likes Benio as a heroine. She is naive, her personality is incompatible with what is going on, and, though she serves as a perfect opposite to Isawa, that doesn't get around the fact that her naivete is frequently annoying. As a side-character, she is excellent, but, like Ruitomo, forcing you to play the least interesting heroine first doesn't make for a good start.
Hisoka's path benefits from being highly emotional... Hisoka's situation is a tear-jerker, and the way you are introduced to it is ideal for ripping your heart out and serving it back to you on a plate. It has one bad, one normal, and one 'sort of good' ending... However, it is also much bloodier and darker than Benio's path, providing a strong contrast.
Mayuki's path is significantly more light-hearted and SOL-focused than the previous two paths, but it too has a number of strongly emotional moments. It has one bad and one good ending and only one major fight.
Now we come to Kagome's path (Ayaya's not being worth mentioning). Kagome is, very obviously from the beginning, the true heroine of the game. She and Akihito are inseparable in all the paths, and the one thing she never does is abandon him. This path reveals the 'area behind the stage' in its entirely, and as a result, it is exponentially more bloody than all the other paths combined. Kagome's own truths are about as dark as they come, and all the characters are pushed to their very limits, many of them dying in the process.
Kagome is one of the major reasons I come back to this game on occasion. She is also the heroine who sparked my recognition of the phenomenon of the 'absolutely connected' heroine (the type of heroine who is so close to the protagonist that she is still by his side in all the paths, unless she dies). Not to mention she is the only heroine I've ever encountered who honestly loves the protagonist to the point of being truly deredere and yet has a semi-permanent sneer/contemptuous smile on her face (I consider her to the ultimate spiky tsundere). Well, she is also truly contemptuous of him... it just doesn't get in the way of her loving him.
Farnese
This review was written by fun2novel and edited by me. fun2novel's tastes run to complex settings and stories, with a strong preference for mysteries and a fondness for chuunige.
Let me start of by saying that Farnese is a good game. It has all the elements that make a great Phoenix Wright style mystery game. Much of the story is inhabited by murders, corpses, clues, trials, murderers, witnesses, and other characters involved. The game is divided into several chapters with route splits at certain points. So the game is above average to good.
On the other hand, the game doesn’t do anything different or even better than any other game with a similar bent. The problem is especially compounded by the fact that many other very similar games that were already released this year. 2017 is definitely not a good year for Farnese to come out, as the market is already a bit glutted for this type of mystery. From an objective perspective it’s a fun and good game, but if you'll forgive me being subjective for a moment... I have to say is that I feel like I’m already burned out when it comes to these these murder mysteries and Phoenix Wright style games, and, at the end of the day, Farnese is as basic as they come.
To be fair, the characters are pretty fun and there’s some funny comedy in Farnese. Though, very little of it actually made me more than smile slightly. If all you want are some fun characters you could do worse than Farnese. Each of them are voiced by good voice actors as well, which makes the experience of hearing their voices very pleasant.
Like any other game of this type the game starts to tell a story, then murder happens, you gather clues by clicking around the crime scene, then go to trial and present your case. Which will hopefully help you convince that the witness is lying or telling the truth and win the case. The more you progress with the trial and get closer to proving your case the more undressed the witness gets until she is (or in one case she and he) completely naked (Clephas: I thought he was joking when I first read this). While they are naked you get to touch them in various places, yes, you heard me right. In the middle of a court, a witness, depending how suspicious they are, will be in various stages of undress until they are completely naked and you get to touch them (Clephas: Yeeew... I am glad I left this to him). Now, to be fair, you need to do it to find a certain mark on their body. However, you are also allowed to touch their tits, pussy, and asshole. The places you can touch depends on the character but… WTF?! REALLY??? The developers couldn’t think of anything ELSE?! Trust me guys, it sounds better than it really is. It really isn’t worth to play the game just for those naughty moments. It’s more shameful than arousing.
The game also has a TIPS system, called Astropedia here, with information about items, terms, people, and the constellations. You’ll need to use the Astropedia to solve some mysteries and answer the questions correctly. The game also has system voices. System voices are a voices that play whenever you do things like save/load or turn of the game. In games like Grisaia the voices are quick and short. Games like Vermilion and Electro Arms also used system voices but the developer decided against that in their subsequent games, even if the voices were very short and unobtrusive. In Farnese on the other hand, the system voice talks for far too long and it gets very annoying, you save a game and the voice talks for like 10 or 16 seconds while you want to continue playing and listen to what the characters are saying, but you are forced to either wait or hear both the character and the system voice at the same time. Same thing if you just loaded the game, the system voice keeps talking for a few more seconds, you're just forced to sit there and wait for the voice to finally shut the hell up.
The presentation isn’t that good either. The main characters are well designed, but they still don’t look that great. However, if the main characters are passable then the other characters are just hairy ass ugly trolls. The designers didn’t even try to make them look presentable, and, in fact, I don’t think they ever drew a human in their life. The difference between the main and non main characters is almost like the difference between night and day. The backgrounds are ok, not bad but nothing that stands out as special.
The music on the other hand is good... but it also sounds like a generic copy of something from Phoenix Wright. To be specific, the music during the court scenes.
Farnese is not a bad game. In fact, it’s average to good. If you hunger for more of this style of game and you already played Ouka Sabaki then you should go ahead and try it. But if you haven’t played Ouka Sabaki yet then go play that first... and if you still want more, you can try Farnese. However, there are much better alternatives out there.
VN of the Month, September 2017
First, to address the two VNs reviewed by fun2novel... I'm going to be blunt. His reactions, both in private and in the reviews were lukewarm at best. Mono no Aware suffers from ambitious overreach and Farnese from the Japanese 'virtue' of complimenting something by imitating it. As such, I more or less eliminated them from the running after reading their reviews.
The three main candidates that survived to the final choice were Omokage Railback, Yuganda Uso to Koi no Letter, and Oni ga Kuru. To be straight with you... I knocked off Yuganda Uso rather early on. While I rated it the same as Omokage Railback on vndb, my opinion of Omokage is somewhat (clearly) higher. I did rate Oni ga Kuru higher than Omokage on vndb... but I did so because it gave me precisely what I wanted... a nostalgic trip into my early days playing untranslated VNs.
Now... there are reasons that could have pushed either one to the top, but there is one huge reason Omokage falls somewhat behind even when I set aside my rather perverted preference for the incestuous oneechan and onigami girl of Oni ga Kuru. To be blunt, I never did figure out what Omokage Railback's protagonist was thinking. No internal monologues, very limited speech from him, and a general lack of insight into what lay behind the eyes of the characters were reasons to be both attracted and repelled by the VN. Oni ga Kuru, on the other hand, takes what the charage genre does best - slice-of-life - and combines it with some seriously twisted heroines and a protagonist who has enough issues to make him interesting. Moreover, the entire setup is almost constantly hilarious, save for when it goes completely insane at a few points along the way. As such, Oni ga Kuru. ~Ane ga Hinshi de Pinchi Desu~ is VN of the Month, September 2017.
