Before I announce the VN of the Month, I'm going to go ahead and apologize to those who wanted me to play Honoguraki... to be blunt, I don't have the energy for it. Ragnarok sucked me dry, and I need to get away from undead and demons for a while. Moreover, I hate zombies in the first place (so many reasons), so I'd be unlikely to give a pleasant review or comment anyway.
Now... it is kind of startling how so many great games got packed into a single month. December 2016 was a monster month for story-focused VNs, with a relative dearth of charage/moege (with only two released). I played as much as I could, but after six games, including the monster known as Venus Blood Ragnarok, I feel drained and tired. The main reason I don't deny the existence of charage utterly (other than the occasional shining diamond I find in the piles of icarabu shit) is because even I need a break from bloodshed and darkness sometimes.
There were three releases that had the potential to become VN of the Month this time around...
Akiyume Kukuru
Ryuukishi Bloody Saga
Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai!
Now, to be blunt, Ou no Mimi would be my first choice. Why? Because, without the art bigots interfering, it is the most solid of those three candidates by several degrees. In fact, if this were six years ago, all things equal (including art), I would without hesitation have named it VN of the Month. While AXL doesn't escape its own unique formula, there is a reason why this company is a consistent seller despite reusing character art and music constantly.
However, we come to Ryuukishi, which is only a few steps behind story-wise and has the advantage of being an immensely creative story that doesn't fall back on tropes for the most part. It also has a more modern art-style that is highly-detailed, illustrating battle scenes and some of the more shocking guro scenes in loving detail.
Last of all, we have Akiyume Kukuru, which didn't fail to please as the third (and possibly final) game of Sumikko's 'Seasons' series. As usual, it provides the kind of meta-science mystery combined with violent and sexual humor that the company has become infamous for. For a certain type of reader, this VN is pure crack, though if you aren't the type it is aiming for, it will be a huge miss.
So what is the conclusion? In the end it came down to Ryuukishi and Ou no Mimi. I balanced Ou no Mimi's solid, well-narrated story against Ryuukishi's more innovative approach... and in the end I chose Ryuukishi Bloody Saga as VN of the Month December 2016. While AXL's works are really 'at-home' for me, I felt that Ryuukishi will probably have a larger impact on the VN community as a whole in the long run... and they were dead even on how I enjoyed them.
Now... look forward to VN of the Year 2016, which I probably won't finish considering until sometime next month. Fortunately or unfortunately, 2016 was almost as good as 2014 and 2011 for VNs...
I'm delaying playing through anymore VNs until at least Saturday, mostly because I realized my fatigue was reaching its peak. The reason why I realized this was fairly simple... I wasn't enjoying the bloody scenes in Sen no Hatou, which is highly unnatural for me. Normally, I would have been on a blood high after that first scene, but after replaying Evolimit, I was a bit glutted on battle scenes. As such, I came to the conclusion that I can't fairly assess Sen no Hatou at the moment. Also, I was finding Akari unreasonably irritating (political naivete and naivete about basic human nature, taken to extremes, can be unbelievably annoying when there isn't enough character virtue to balance it out, lol).
Anyway, just as a preliminary word... August is following its usual pattern (creating an unbelievably annoying/weak true heroine for a game with such a dark setting) that I recognized from Eustia and Fortune Arterial. Many of August's characters in general tend to not fit the settings in which they are placed (the idol thing with Hotori is particularly worthy of complaint, since it was obviously put in solely to reduce the level of seriousness in the story), and it is hard to ignore this at times. I mean, when you have a nicely screwed up girl like Eris as a sub-heroine and a weak-willed, weakly characterized true heroine like Eustia in the same game... it says a lot about the writers (Fortune Arterial made similar mistakes, with one of the secondary heroines being far more interesting than the main one).
Anyway, enough complaints about the usual foibles of August's writing staff and down to a few specifics...
The setting of Sen no Hatou is actually pretty interesting. I especially find it interesting that the writers were naive enough to think a nation can subsist entirely through conquest during an era of modern technology (for better or worst, the costs of military conquest in modern times are crippling due to the logistics of modern weapons). The Empire (ironically the conquered nation in this case) is a bit more 'realistic' in that it resembles a 'what if' world where Japan's Imperial line never submitted to the control of the nobility or the Shoguns that came after them and kept control to modern times (no Buddhist takeover of religious roles, either...). Instead, the Imperial line maintained its role as the spiritual center of the nation, along with the actual power to go along with it, and they were supported by the warrior caste, who could wield the sorcerous weapons that let them protect themselves from outside threats (along with the barrier maintained by the sorcerer-miko and priests and the Three Sacred Treasures).
The characters... are sadly less so. The protagonist is good so far (think the 'ideal samurai' - the type that only existed in legend - and you get an idea of what he is like), but the heroines range from the simply out of place to the irritating (seriously, the least out of place is Nanami... and maybe Elza). Akari talks a good fight, but she showed her astounding degree of naivete over a dozen times in my first five hours of play. Hotori is... just out of the question. If they hadn't added the idol thing, she would have been a great character, but the first scene where I saw that I facepalmed.
As I began this VN, I decided to change my approach to how I would handle it. My dislike of ladder-style story structures will probably cause me to go berserk when I finish the final (Haru's) route, but for now, I'm going to evaluate the story based on each arc and its associated heroine route, ignoring the VN as a whole until I've gone through the final route.
Now, the protagonist of this story is a pretty archetypical character... a PI who has been scarred and run down by life living in a town ruled by a vampire, controlled by two mafia organizations, and dominated by something approaching a capitalist caste system, where the financial circumstances of the individuals involved determine their social status completely and it is almost impossible to climb up the ladder, though it is relatively easy to fall down.
Technology in this world hovers about the level of the 1980's, with the biggest differences being the existence of real-life magic and magical beings, as well as beast-people (cat-people, bunny-people, dog-people, etc). The protagonist isn't a wielder of magic, if you are wondering. His role is something close to a neutral party in the realpolitik landscape, due to his role as the vampire Rizal's representative, as well as his personal relationships with high ranking members of both mafia groups.
This VN has a lot of situational comedy in it, ranging from Haru 'fixing' machines by hitting them and using magic to Chiroro's (a chibi homonculus that is something like a servant to both the protag and Haru) foul mouth toward the protagonist and fawning on Haru. I honestly enjoyed the back and forth between the characters through most of the first arc, and I doubt that will change through the rest of the VN.
The first arc covers the introductions to the characters and the city of Naoka, and it ranges from non-school slice-of-life events (protagonist and Haru going out to solve problems as part of their work) to moments of tension in the shadowy underworld of Naoka. The first route that branches off is Kazuha's...
Kazuha is the VN's resident genkikko+doggirl. I honestly fell in love with her from the first (I mean, she is working to support her twelve siblings and is endlessly cheerful and generous by nature... what could you not like about her? Not to mention that she is a mimikko, which automatically skyrockets my impression of a given heroine based on my fetishes, lol), so, while I'm sad she isn't the true heroine, I was happy to get a chance to see her route early on.
And it is a surprisingly detailed route... in fact, it is roughly equivalent to 1.2 times the length of the average charage heroine route, in my experience. It doesn't mindlessly focus on the heroine and protagonist's love affair, instead involving all the characters (a bad habit with many VNs of this type is to sideline the massive cast of characters during the side-heroine routes, weakening the setting in general) in a dramatic mess whose impact is equal to that of the story arc previous to the heroine route.
So, my initial impressions of this VN based on what I've played so far are positive... let's hope they stay that way.
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?
Conquest strategy games, as opposed to RTS, are games where conquest operates on a strategic (large-scale) rather than tactical level and is unconcerned with the activities of individual soldiers (soldiers are numbers, not capable of individual action). They involve the capture of strategic points in order to hold territory and the keeping of order and management of general resources (wealth and troops, as opposed to specific resources like wood, stone, and food).
There are certain rules to this type of game when measuring difficulty level... there are obvious ones such as the amount of money you start with (ideally, on normal mode you should start with enough to secure the region immediately surrounding your starting point without resorting to extreme methods like heavy taxes and plundering). However, there are less obvious ones that are as much matters of real strategy as game rules.
The biggest obstacle to efficient conquest, other than resources like troop numbers and wealth to pay for actions, is the number of points you have to defend and the limits on how much force you can bring on a single point.
The worst possible position to be in, in a continental conquest type, is to be situated inland, with non-allies on all sides and all paths open to invasion or for you to invade through. In this situation, it is difficult to limit the points at which you have contact with the enemy, and this makes it immensely difficult to hold or expand territory, since you can't concentrate your 'iron fist' to smash one or two points (the ideal situation for normal difficulty at the beginning). The best possible position is to be in a 'corner' area with only two points to defends and another two points that can be used to expand your territory while limiting the vulnerability created by such territorial expansion.
Generally speaking, the Sangoku/Sengoku Hime story paths tend to start with you having to unify your own province, with the first few parts after that concentrated on securing one or two other provinces at a time. This is further effectively handled by the fact that, in order to attack from a province, you must hold all the castles/domains within that province, and the same goes for your enemies. Thus, it is possible to preempt an enemy assault by snatching one or two castles in the neighboring provinces with your main forces or judge a province harmless or dangerous by whether multiple factions are active inside. However, this strategy falls apart if the enemy takes castle in the territory you are invading from in the same turn, and things can quickly become messy as a result (one situation I found myself in in Sengoku Hime 5 had me facing off against an enemy that could attack any one of five castles from the castle she'd taken, thus forcing me to concentrate a much larger force than I would have preferred to hold her off).
Public order issues are common to many VNs with gameplay and games of this type. If you capture a province, it is often necessary to rebuild infrastructure and regain the trust of the people during the political phase, and the necessity of recruiting troops to replace those lost is often counter to his necessity (in the Sangoku games, this can increase the possibility of famines and bandit attacks, for instance). Worse, it can sometimes take five or more turns to regain order after a conscription, making you vulnerable to all sorts of messy 'disaster' events (referring to the Sangoku/Sengoku Hime series).
The amount of territory you have in this kind of game directly effects how much of an army you can raise and maintain, as well as how often you can take political and military actions of various sorts. This means that falling behind the enemy in an 'open' scenario can often lead to you being in the worst possible type of position (for example, in Sengoku Hime 3, I once found myself facing a Miyoshi Clan that had taken over the entirety of Eastern and Northern Japan in the time it had taken me to secure Kyuushu and Shikoku, and I ended up facing forces of story generals in overwhelming numbers as a result... and I lost). Grabbing a larger territory early on can often allow you to expand faster later on, even if you haven't yet built up that territory sufficiently (maxed public order and public works, as an example).
Conquest strategy VNs and games are amongst the most satisfying type of strategy games... and time-consuming ones.
First, I should apologize for taking so long (for me) to get around to finishing this game. Despite the fact that Kazuki Fumi games are always high-priority for me, for some reason I stalled after finishing the first arc and two of the paths in the second arc. The main reason is probably because the first arc pretty much satisfied me, and I didn't feel like the game needed much of a second arc or the third arc that comes after.
As indicated above, this game has three arcs. The first arc is a dark and emotional story that focuses on the protagonist, an android programmer and mechanic, the people around him, and a legless abuse victim named Hatsune that is left on his doorstep. The whole thing is emotionally powerful, has a Sharin no Kuni/G-senjou no Maou style battle of wits, and it generally left me completely satisfied with how things turned out....
Then came along the second arc (which will hereafter be named the romance arc). The romance arc shows off the style Kazuki Fumi has put together in the last few years (to varied reactions from otakus, for whom his approach to romance tends to be hit and miss). The romantic formation is abnormal, the romance is strange, and the end result is generally not what you would expect. Is this a good thing? If there hadn't been a third arc, it probably would have been.
Now, let's get down to the third arc. First, the third arc is a dramatic conclusion to the aftermath of the events that occurred in the first arc. This was actually the biggest mistake made in this game's structure and the reason I expelled it from the running for VN of the Month. The first thing you are asked to do upon starting this arc is pick which of the heroines you romanced in the second arc, which essentially just changes one or two scenes and the ending scene. The arc's story as a whole doesn't change at all, and it is short enough that I was able to finish it all in under an hour.
Now, why is this a problem? The reason is fairly simple. It completely screws up the pacing of the game. For better or worse, the second arc's 'endings' feel like a conclusion, even though I knew from the walkthrough that they weren't. They weren't a great conclusion, but if they'd been followed up with individual after-stories or completely customized versions of the third arc, this might have become a solid VN of the Year candidate. Unfortunately, the third arc is what amounts to a 'one size fits all' affair that makes the whole romantic mess of the second arc feel mostly irrelevant. Coming from someone who generally doesn't express a fondness for romance, I know this will sound strange... but this was a horrible way to handle things. This game isn't a kusoge, but I honestly can't recommend it with the current conclusion (hope for a story FD to smooth things out, maybe).
In conclusion, this is a game that shows signs of greatness throughout the first arc, falls back on romance in the second arc, and stumbles in the third arc. It has great characters, a good story and theme... and falls far short of what I've grown to expect from this writer after Nanairo Reincarnation.
This is the second game in Hulotte's Yabai trilogy. It is also, by far, the highest quality of the three. Like the other two, it is a harem-ge/charage with slight rom-com elements. Where it differs from more modern charage/moege is that it is more of an issue of 'who' he picks rather than falling in love in the normal way. The why of this makes sense (and not in totally forced way) within the setting and story, so that isn't necessarily an issue.
The protagonist, Ashihara Daiki, is the descendent of a local mountain god, possessing immense power, and one day he has a precognitive dream about a potential wife whose face he can't make out. His sister, Kirino, points out that it likely involves the Yagami family, whose daughters are the only girls of his age he has had contact with and even then only in his early childhood. Because of this, he ends up going to a larger town where the Yagami family lives to discover who his promised wife is.
Now the thing you need to keep in mind is that most of the heroines are straight-out attracted to him to one degree or another from the beginning. They aren't 'deredere' but because of his inherent honesty, they are aware that he is looking at them that way, so there is none of the usual awkward obfuscation common in these kind of situations (except with Kirino). As such, when the shift to the heroine paths occur, it feels surprisingly natural, unlike many such shifts.
The seven heroines (yes, there are seven heroines) are: Kanna, the middle sister with the soft manner and kind heart; Mihono, the eldest of the three Yagami sisters, a generous young woman with a strong mischievous side that is something of a school idol; Serika, the shy but cute youngest Yagami sister who loves animals; Nanaka, the mysterious senpai who gives advice freely while tempting Daiki; Kirino, the protagonist's brocon (though she hides it) sister; the young fake loli teacher, Shindou Meika; and the ojousama waitress classmate Tamano Yui.
I need to say that replaying this VN opened my eyes to one of the sadder realities of the industry in Japan... the fact that more modern SOL games were a drastic drop in quality compared to this era. It was gradual enough that I didn't really notice (because I was playing so many), but the quality difference between charage/moege of this era and ones even four or five years later is almost ridiculous to contemplate. While my burnout undoubtedly contributed to my negative feelings about latter-era charage/moege, the fact is that most of it was just a general fall in quality.
Kanna
Kanna is the most straightforward of the seven heroines. She is sweet-natured, has a strong jealous streak, and she can generally be trusted to react in an adorable manner, even when she is angry. While she is essentially passive by nature, when she falls head over heels, she is one of the more aggressive of the heroines. Due to a lock on the routes, you have to do her path first. However, that isn't really much trouble, since the romance and ichaicha here stays just inside the lines between 'cute' and 'annoying'. Her path has some drama due to her past with Daiki and Daiki's nature, but the drama is resolved relatively quickly (though not as abruptly as later-era charage tended to be). Her epilogue is just extensive enough to satisfy, meeting the 'graduate' line in my mind.
Serika
Serika is the youngest of the three Yagami sisters, a shy animal-loving girl who quickly develops a crush on Daiki that falls on the line between 'imouto' and 'romantic love'. While her speech is generally slow and halting due to her shyness, this only makes her cuteness a perpetual aspect of every interaction with her. Like Kanna, she is also very kind by nature, subtly acting to try to help those she cares about without caring for recognition.
As a heroine, Serika is about what you'd expect from a shy heroine in a JVN, save that she has moments where she becomes surprisingly aggressive. Serika's path's drama is a lot more serious than Kanna's, and the couple have a great deal of trouble resolving it... thus making their victory all the more poignant for what it cost them. However, I think the epilogue is significantly weaker than Kanna's.
Mihono
Mihono is the eldest of the three Yagami sisters and something of a school idol. She is something of a 'mischievous older sister' character, with a side of 'mimidoshima' (a Japanese term referring to young women who talk about love and sex without any personal experience). Like her sisters, she too is kind-hearted, but her tendency to want to tease her sisters and Daiki can cover that up at times.
Mihono's path is the weakest of the three Yagami sisters. I say this because Mihono's character's limitations become really obvious once you get onto her path. While she is reasonably cute, she pales in comparison to her sisters when it comes to the ichaicha love stuff, and it felt like they pushed the drama into the story solely for the sake of drama, thus making it feel weaker than it should have been. This is because the reasons behind the drama were less solid than those of Serika or Kanna. The epilogue was probably the best of the three, but that doesn't make up for how weak the path was.
Nanaka
Nanaka is available in the 'second round of heroines', along with Mihono and Serika. While she takes an advisory role in most of the routes due to her cool manner and mature personality, her real personality is that of a desperately lonely young woman with a powerful need to find a place to belong that accepts her for what she is. Despite her manner, she is easily the most ero-obsessed of the heroines, openly telling Daiki she wants him from the first time they talked.
In her path, the full reasons behind her behavior are revealed, though she does her best to maintain the 'aura of mystery' wherever she can. She is one of those rare heroines who is difficult to read because she is so used to obfuscation, and as a result, it is easy to misunderstand her. She is one of those heroines that make it extremely difficult to pick any other once you've played the game once, because she is the one that needs the protagonist the most. Of the paths up to this point, this is the only one that made me cry outright... and that was relatively early in the path.
This path is really emotional, but it also has a lot of funny moments, mostly because Nanaka keeps showing unexpected aspects to her personality through the ichaicha period. While there is drama, the drama is actually less impactful than watching her overcome her past. The epilogue in this path is the longest so far, with the most extensive after-time (four years, marriage, child, etc). Honestly, if I play this game again, I'll probably just use the save file to play Nanaka's path again.
Kirino
Kirino is Daiki's little sister, a young woman with immense power (particularly reading minds, the past, and the future). She loves her big brother but she also loves teasing him almost as much. Her role in the other paths is supporting, with her usually popping up right before the drama starts. As such, she gets less character development in the common route and other heroine routes than any other heroine, including the two sub-heroines, Meika and Yui. She is something of a mischief-maker, but whenever he falls in love, she serves in whatever role is necessary to bring about her brother's happiness.
Now this should be apparent from above, but Kirino is a serious brocon. She is subtler about it than most, but the fact that her first obsession is simply helping her niisan says everything. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that her path begins with an almost literal explosion of brocon energy, lol.
Kirino's path splits off at the beginning, for reasons that become obvious when you get onto it. Typical of paths like this the VN world over, Kirino's path is full of foreboding even in the happiest of moments. If I say that one of the paths in Aoi Tori was inspired by this path, those who played it would probably get the point.
In any case, this is a high quality path, though I hesitate to call it a true path (since apparently the harem ending is the true path). The epilogue is cute but isn't as extensive as Nanaka's, which was something I was puzzled about, since you have to play the other four heroines to get this route.
Yui
Yui is Kanna's best friend, a cheerful girl who serves as a waitress for the cafe that serves as the school cafeteria (dressed as a maid, for some reason). She is actually one of the cuter of the heroines even outside her path, which made me question why she wasn't given a stronger path instead of the classic 'side-heroine shuffle'.
There isn't a ton of detail to her path. It is essentially a 'we worked together and realized we loved each other, so we got married' sort of path. Sadly, this means that this path is short and doesn't have any real drama.
Meika
Meika is the protagonist's homeroom teacher, a loli (yes, a loli) who is apparently of adult age. Like Yui, she plays an excellent supporting role in all the other paths, but she isn't given much of a path of her own. This path is almost identical to Yui's path, in that it lacks any real drama and is basically a smooth road to marriage. As such, there really isn't a whole lot to talk about here.
Harem
The harem route... is pretty much a nukige harem ending with slightly more story to it. This is considered to be the 'true' route in the sense that this is the result the routes were working toward (for reasons that will make sense once you've played Kirino's route). However, it isn't really much beyond a bunch of h-scenes.
Conclusion
A high quality game that set the stage for Hulotte's post-Yabai games. Like those, it has just enough fantasy and a strong enough plot to keep you interested, while romance SOL still lies at the center. I recommend this to people who like the old style of charage where drama was actually present and something that needed to be overcome for the characters' happiness (instead of the essentially smooth sailing that became common as the genre began to rot).
... exactly how many times have I mentioned that I'm busy lately...? Seriously. I'm in the middle of VN withdrawal for the first time in over three years... and I'm realizing how addicted I am. I'd be perfectly happy to play a kusoge for the second time, at the moment... if I had the time. The best I can do these days is drop in for a few minutes and maybe a quick post or two.
Considering that I originally started this style of work because it made me enough money in a short enough period of time to both support me and my habits (gaming, anime, books, and importing VNs) while leaving me time to actually enjoy them... Unfortunately, my choice seems to be backfiring for the second time in five years. If anything, this time is worse, because I actually failed to deliver for the first time in the last decade.
Anyway, enough complaints...
While I have the time, I'm going to list up the VNs I plan to read from July's releases, when they are released:
Tsumikui (maybe, and only maybe because it is an otomege, and good otomege are rarer than kamige charage)
Ojousama no Hanbun wa Ren'ai de Dekiteimasu
Senren Banka (obviously)
Muramasa: Shokuzai Hen (new Muramasa content? Whoohoo!)
Aristear Remain
Floral Flowlove (Saga Planets' games since Hatsuyuki Sakura have been much weaker... but I'll probably still give it a chance)
Amatsutsumi (Purple Software has been on a roll with most of their releases in recent years... so I'm definitely playing this one)
Kimi to Yumemishi (new company... hopefully it will be interesting)
I've had numerous comments from people who were asking, 'Do you still play VNs?' in the last year or so because I hardly post anymore. When I do, it is usually litrpg, random commentary, or maybe one game a month. The short answer is yes. The full answer is a bit more complicated.
First, I should note that a lot of this is about timing... to be slightly more specific, a confluence of factors that created a singularity of me just not posting anymore. The events in question are my increasing intolerance for disinteresting themes and pure SOL (that is, slice of life without a central plot, even if it is loose); Coronavirus causing a dramatic drop in the release of non-nukige JVNs; and the resulting tendency I had for going back and replaying stuff I've already posted about in the past (sometimes multiple times).
While the sheer number of VNs I play per year has gone down from 50-70 to about 20-30, a good portion of those are replays. I'd say about a little over two-fifths of all the VNs I've played in the last year and a half have been ones I've already replayed multiple times, another fifth were ones I dug out of my archives, another fifth were kusoge not worth posting about, and the remaining fifth are the ones I posted on.
A contributing factor to this is Coronavirus and the resulting depression in the non-nukige VN market for PC (which I play almost exclusively, since I don't want to mod my consoles for the sake of VNs alone). Companies that once put out games multiple times a year have maybe released one in the last year and a half, other companies have quietly gone out of business, and yet other ones had to drop projects because they couldn't work around the health restrictions. Charage alone have seen an unprecedented decrease in production, with entire months going by with NO releases (something that would have been unthinkable before Coronavirus).
The last major issue is that my burnout on pure SOL (at least high school SOL) has turned into a complete intolerance. I once thought it would ease somewhat with time, but, if anything, it has gotten worse. If there isn't something besides pure SOL in there to catch my interest (like nakige, utsuge, or plotge elements), I simply won't be able to finish them.
If the protagonist is interesting, I can still (barely) play school life that have something in the way of non-SOL elements, but otherwise, they are unplayable to me.
Yes, I'm going to go there. I've actually been asked this more by my Japanese friend/supplier than anyone else, but I've always refrained from answering except to name one or two that I liked. However, I made the mistake of watching a few imouto anime on a binge a few weeks ago, and I began seriously considering which little sister paths were the best in the VNs I've played up until now. Note that I say these are the best 'paths', not necessarily the best imouto heroines. To be blunt, imouto heroines are a dime a dozen, and I've seen every variation on the concept a dozen times over, so I'm focusing on which paths were best, starting from ten, counting down to one.
First, little sisters in these will not include cousin paths unless they were raised under the same roof as siblings. Adopted sisters will be included, as will blood-related sisters who were parted from the protagonist for long periods of time.
10. Kuguyama Konoka (Prism Recollection by Clochette)
9. Shimazu Akira (Komorebi no Nostalgica)
8. Minori Hikari (Unmei Yohou o Oshirase Shimasu)
7. Kurosaki Sayo (Aoi Tori)
6. Hasuno Saki (Hapymaher)
5. Kaede (Shuffle Essence)
4. Tokitani Shinobu (Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru)
3. Saisu Riku (Floral Flowlove)
2. Asagiri Futaba and Ichiha (Realive)
1. Shimazu Aki (Reminiscence)
Omake Tenseisha is the story of a girl who lived through hell on earth and had a new hell waiting for her when she was tossed aside by the gods and reincarnated again. For those who have read a Snake's Life or Kumo, this will be a story that is somewhat familiar. The protagonist is fairly similar to Kumoko (naturally ruthless, tends to think cheerfully most of the time, ends up eating everything that is her enemy, lol).
The story itself is one long 'driven out of a town', 'ate everything that got in my way', 'accidentally screwed up the gods' plans', etc. Basically, the protagonist's appearance (black hair, black eyes) makes her a cursed child in the eyes of her new world, and she is inevitably driven out of any town she tries to stay in. She also kills and eats anything she can without any real discrimination (especially after she learns how to transform matter into mana in her stomach), and gets ever more overpowered as the story goes along. She also knocks her fellow reincarnators' lives off the rails the gods put before them on a fairly regular basis (without them or her knowing it).
That brings me back to the gods... think of the gods of her new world as a bunch of sociopaths that think of the souls they reincarnate as characters in a reality tv show and you'll get the picture.
Generally a fun and hilarious read with a somewhat hyperactive writer.
Gokudou no Hanayome was released by Galactica (a sister company of Baseson and one of the many subsidaries of Nexton) back in 2011. I originally played it around the first time I started getting tired of charage... which was horrible timing, thinking about it in retrospect. To be blunt, I hadn't yet developed my current style of evaluation, and I didn't have as much appreciation for the good points of charage at the time, so I basically judged it based upon what it wasn't... an action chuunige.
Needless to say, judging what amounts to a love-comedy charage by the standards of a chuunige is fundamentally ridiculous. The two genres are about as far apart as it is possible while both are still VNs. However, at the time, I didn't have the right state of mind to properly evaluate this game.
Gokudou no Hanayome centers around Gokudouin Yuichi, the soft-spoken heir to the world-famous Gokudouin yakuza family... of which there are only three members (his father, Tokiko, and himself). Yuichi, having been distanced from the daily business of the family by his overprotective, somewhat yandere oneechan Tokiko, is living a relatively normal life until a young woman named Asahi, from another yakuza group that was once subordinate to the Gokudouin, arrives at his door, informing him that she is his fiance. Soon after, she is joined by the Italian mafioso Fran, Yuichi's cousin Sarasa, and the airheaded American sniper, Amelia.
This VN tends to borrow the older style, with a combative relationship between the heroines (the current trend is toward friendly, non-violent rivals or 'only falls for him in her own path' styles) and a protagonist so dense he puts the anti-radiation shielding in a nuclear reactor to shame.
The heroine paths are split into three arcs... one centering entirely on the mafia/yakuza aspect of things, contains Sarasa's and Fran's path. The second, mixing bits of science fantasy in, contains Asahi's and Tokiko's paths. Amelia's path is... a bit out there. Once you've played it, you go 'wtf', but I can honestly say I enjoyed all of the paths this time around. While the romantic aspects are mostly limited (the girls are pretty obvious about their feelings in the common route, so I guess they felt they could ignore that aspect in the actual routes) that didn't really break the VN for me.
Overall... this VN is generally amusing, with decent comedy (mostly slapstick) and a wacky story. I honestly think that, with a little more attention to the details, they could have made this into a first-class VN, but as a charage, it is still worth playing.
Edit: I meant to say this during the main post, but if I had to compare this to a VN or VN series, it would be the series that began with 'My Girlfriend is the President' by Alcot. The generalized atmosphere and some of the back and forth between the characters is very reminiscent of that and Naka no Hito. As a result, it made me smile more than once.
Tou no Shita no Exircitus (https://vndb.org/v17835 )- This company tends to produce either excellent games or horrible games. Astronauts is constantly exploring the borderline between nukige, normal VNs, and gameplay-focused VNs and frequently tips over into one of the three. However, because they do occasionally produce good games, I can't ignore them, lol.
Tenkiame (https://vndb.org/v17337 )- Because I love kitsune.
Traveling Stars (https://vndb.org/v16459 )- This is the newest VN from Hook Soft, a company known for producing 'iyashikei' VNs, meant to soothe, give you mild catharsis, and bury you in cute/moe. From what I saw, this VN won't escape that, but because the heroines are mostly non-human, I can't resist trying it.
As you can see, this is a pretty quiet month, so I shouldn't have any problem finishing all three of these. If you find any other VNs you want to bring my attention to, feel free (as long as they aren't nukige).
As mentioned above, this VN is a mass of wasted potential. Yes, there are really good points... but between those good points is an interminable amount of pretty much pointless ichaicha, slice-of-life, and a number of other things that made me want to scream.
First, neither Lisa's nor Koharu's routes escaped the trap of mediocrity that Chris and Rie's were taken by. Sadly, both routes are fairly standard charage romance with predictable turns of events... so predictable I fell asleep during Lisa's route, lol. To be honest, at times I really hate the Japanese's fondness for considering being average to be a good thing. That said, I did like that Lisa's, Rie's, and Koharu's paths all had epilogues that touched on a future more than half a decade in the future, when the characters are set on their new life paths. This is a huge plus... that would have been better off in a more interesting VN, lol.
Kureha's route, on the other hand, manages to escape at least some of the difficulties the other routes had, if only because it is the only route where the protagonist actually has a deep history with the heroine beforehand. At the same time, there were some bad moments - the typical osananajimi 'I love you but you don't consider me to be of the opposite sex!' scenario *sighs* - that left me wanting to tear my hair out. The ending was good - for once they didn't chicken out - and the epilogue went twenty years into the future, which was nice. Sadly, it still suffered from an overall lackluster 'intermediate stage' during which you had to wait interminably for the two idiots to figure out that they loved each other, which is a huge - massive - downer.
Overall, this VN is perhaps the most frustrating charage I've played in a year or more, in its near-continuous failure to use the setting and indulgence in the usual anti-exceptionalism and excessive story archetype use (that felt awkward, to boot). To be blunt, Haruto had the potential to be a first-class protagonist, but he showed up as a third-rate one because they were unwilling to make this a somewhat (it would have only taken a little effort) darker themed story. The simple introduction of an antagonist or the protagonist facing his personal issues without the filter o the heroines would have been a huge boost to the plot, overall. They spent way too much time minimizing the vampirism issue.
This VN is an odd duck on my long list of recommended VNs. While its existence as a time loop story is a trope, the way the game's story handles it is pretty interesting.
I went ahead and revealed this as a loop story because you find it out so early on that hiding it as a spoiler is meaningless. The game's story begins with the protagonist meeting (and helping out) Nodoka, one of the four heroines, and her confessing her love to him on the next day when she transfers into the class. While he is at first somewhat bothered by this, he eventually falls for her, loves her... and then suddenly wakes up on the second day of the month, the day after he first met her.
Now, you will go through a lot of route loops before the game is over (you have to see all four heroine loops, plus a bunch of side loops, to get access to the endings), and a lot of these have seriously crazy outcomes. The protagonist, being a young idiot, goes off and tests everything he can find (often to hilarious results), and his 'morality' tends to be rather fragile when it comes to having fun (in one loop he ends up gambling so hard he gets sold to an organ broker, lol). To be honest, the journey through the non-heroine loops is probably the most attractive part of this VN. The music is slightly below the average quality of the industry, as is the art (though that is comparison to the present day), but the game as a whole has a lot of laughs and good moments.
The protagonist, Minato, is essentially your average (slightly baka but not totally stupid) harem protagonist who is kind to everyone and as dense as the lead plating protecting a fission reactor's core. Minato has solid reasons for being dense about the three heroines other than Nodoka (Nodoka being very open), based in his past relationships with the others (Inori being his abusive childhood friend, Korone being his little sister, and Yuuki being so friendly to everyone it is difficult for a harem protagonist to see it in her, lol). That said, that is perhaps the most annoying part of his character, though it gets relieved over time.
Explaining the heroines to this game is counterproductive. I'm not being mean, but if I were to start explaining the heroines, I would probably ruin the experience for you. I really advise you not to read the character profiles (both because they are deliberately inaccurate and because forming your own impressions of the heroines is important to getting into this VN.
There are five endings to this game. One for each of the heroines and the true (harem, no H) ending. The heroine endings are mostly kind of bittersweet, because there are solid reasons why things aren't going to end perfectly, but the true/harem ending is pretty hilarious. Other than the true ending, I liked Korone's ending the best, both because I liked the outcome and because it was the happiest one other than the true one.
Edit: Incidentally, Inori is probably the only case I've ever heard of where they handled the tsundere osananajimi realistically (rather than just using the sides as a contrast).
Come into being, oh starlight written across the heavens... for we are a shining falling star.
Oh how foolish, you blind and ignorant master of the throne! How could you believe that you could take from my heart hope for the future with a mere prison at the bottom of the sea and an endless labyrinth?
Look within these two eyes. Know the fierce and undying flame within my gaze. I already fly far into the distant sky, seeking the solemn flame (the sun).
Even though my wings burn and melt away, there is nothing for me to fear.
Fly oh Icarus, that you might obliterate the sins. Rage, smash, and burn everything away!
Let us bring down judgment upon all that is impure as we burn in the light of victory!
Upon my fall, so shall the flames of creation arrive!
For that reason, oh all that is evil. Submit and quietly die out.
Metalnova-- MkBlaze Hyperion!
Shine brightly in the heavens, oh my guardian star, that I might raise up the iron flame.
You are so beautiful, oh treasure that stretches as far as I can see. The jewels I stole when I killed my father, the mount of gold wet with crimson... oh why do they shine as they grab hold of my heart and never let go?
Now nothing is reflected in my eyes but what shines oh so brilliantly. I won't hand it over to anyone, for it is mine! The dragon relishes his joy as he breathes poison breath upon it.
Oh steel sword that pierces and tears apart that joy.
Oh death scream that resonates through my nest. The evil creature is slain, and the epic saga begins!
Oh immortal hero who knows not fear. I acknowledge that you are true treasure of mankind, and the true form of the gold I desire! Before the solemn light, my overflowing desire brings life to my dead flesh!
For that reason, I will devour you whole. For you are mine, I will hand you over to no other!
To speak a prophecy of ruin and endings, I will thrust a sword into your back!
Metalnova--- Sigurd's Bane, Dainsleif! (Demon dragon's war story, the hero-slaying sword of ruin)
First, I should note that this is a series that is right up the alley of people like Dergonu... it were a VN. This series, Under Jurisdiction by Susan R Matthews, mostly follows Andrej Koscuisko, a Drakonij Prince and would-be (though not by his own will) Inquisitor.
Setting
The Under Jurisdiction series is based in a sci-fi future where humanity, at some point, diversified so greatly that sub-specification has occurred (though most aren't quite separate species entirely. In this future, humanity (such as it is) is ruled by the judiciary, in the form of the Bench. All humans are subject to the law as proclaimed by the judicial forces, and punishments are mostly corporal... horribly so in some cases.
In this setting, torture is not only allowed, it is actually carried out by licensed medical professionals trained to inflict the maximum amount of pain to gain confessions of crimes (regardless of how heavy the evidence is), and, where it is justified, to torture them to death in the most horrible of fashions. This legal use of torture as a deterrent to criminals has led to a gradual decay in the morale of the planets ruled by the Judges on the Bench, and rebellions have begun to occur on a regular basis by the time the protagonist, Andrej, takes his first steps into the world of the Fleet.
Andrej Koscuisko
Andrej is an extremely complex man... a man raised in a noble family of oligarchs who believe intensely and with absolute conviction in the duties of noblesse oblige and the duties to those under a lord's protection. He is also a young medical professional, a genius surgeon and chemist with a the kind of skill in actual surgical procedures that is seen so rarely as to be unheard of. He understands the human body (all races) to a degree that is often terrifying, and this is part of what becomes his plague... for when he begins his training, he discovers that, to his horror, the process of Inquisition brings out an intense, sick hunger to inflict pain upon and dominate the subjects that come under his hands. Coupled with his natural understanding of the body and human psychology, he comes out of his training as the most horrifyingly skilled Inquisitor in Bench history, an artist of pain eternally on the verge of madness due to the conflicting imperatives within him. He is only held back from the edge of the cliff by the efforts of his Bond Involuntaries, former criminals implanted with behavioral governors that force them to absolute obedience, so they can serve as his aides, and they are thus under his protection. Their care for him, for his sanity, for his health, and for his honor, is all that keeps the sadistic madness at bay as it fights with his honor and inherent compassion...
The Story
The story follows Andrej from his training as an Inquisitor and first encounter with a Bond Involuntary, to his first duty as a Fleet Inquisitor and beyond... His fight with madness as he tries to glean mercy and justice from the horrors he is forced to perform on others, his fight to keep his honor, to protect his Bond Involuntaries from others who would use them poorly, and his fight with his own, culturally-ingrained sense of filial duty are intense to read. For all the foreignness of his culture, Andrej's journeys through life leave behind an impact far out of proportion for the actual deeds he performs.
Unfortunately, if you have a weak stomach, I can't recommend this story at all. The galaxy Under Jurisdiction is one of the most horrifying dystopian sci-fi systems I've ever seen... all the worse when you realize that it all began out of a desire for justice and fair play in a universe where human racism has, if anything, gotten worse thousands of years after leaving Earth.
I do not regret playing this game.
I needed to say this first, because this game has a pretty high level of emotional impact. The actual characters are quiet for the most part, but the relationships in this game are so twisted that even thinking about them being real would make a saint wince.
This story centers around a young personal servant, Kumagata Arima, and his young mistress, Otobe Supika. It is the Taishou Era (pre-WWII, late teens to late twenties of the twentieth century), and Japan's first age of modern prosperity is at its height. Supika is an apparently sickly ojousama who reluctantly goes to school at the urge of her personal servant Arima, who takes care of all her personal needs (up to and including dressing her and doing her hair). Arima is an apparently devoted servant who can be relied on without reservation by his sickly mistress...
Well, there is a lot more to it, but this is as far as I can go in terms of specifics without spoiling it for you. Tasogare no Folklore is a game where not knowing too much is an important aspect of enjoying the story, so I really suggest you don't read the official site or the Getchu page. Instead, I will explain what kind of game it is.
Tasogare no Folklore's primary attractions are the disparity between the darkness hidden in the depths of the characters' home and the apparent strength of their relationships, particularly the one between Supika and Arima. Their relationship is not as simple and straighforward as it seems on the surface, and the way it twists is the source of a lot of the sick fascination I felt watching the train head for the broken tracks.
To be straight, this is a dark game with no miraculous salvation. Oh, there are a few times when a 'convenient' outcome occurs, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. The characters' feelings for one another are real, but they are also muddied by circumstance and events in the past. As a result, their relationships are twisted to an extreme degree (though Supika and Arima's relationship is so twisted even the other characters can't understand it).
However, the presentation of this game is top tier. I'm almost tempted to cry 'kamige', but that is going too far, lol. This game is a dark fantasy, but it is also a quietly intense love-romance. It also has elements of a number of genres, but in the end, what stuck with me was that I felt it was a romance from the beginning.
There are two endings (and one extra story based off the 'good' ending) in this game... a 'good' ending and a 'normal' ending (in Tsukihime style). The good ending is a happy one... but I say that with the caveat that it is still bittersweet. The environment Supika and Arima are forced into is not one that goes for charage-style 'purely happy' endings, after all.
Ototsuki is one of the few, in fact the only, Ensemble trap protagonist game I hadn't at least tried. There were a number of reasons for this, but the biggest one was that it came out after my burnout on SOL reached its peak. By that time, I had no energy for any kind of SOL VNs, even ones in genres I normally liked. In retrospect, I'm glad I waited until I recovered before playing this, because this is the game that proves that Ensemble still has potential as a company, despite the last five years of mediocrity.
Ototsuki focuses on a servant-ojousama pair, to be specific, Yuuki Touya (the protagonist and servant) and Shijou Ran (the ojousama). Ran is a genius in science and maths, as well as an extremely capable athlete. She is also extremely eccentric, walking her own path to a degree that would probably drive most of us crazy. Yuuki, who grew up beside her, is used to dealing with her eccentricities and acts as the ideal servant for her type, occasionally restraining her and at others merely assisting. However, one of Ran's bad habits becomes a central point of the game's story, when she goes to an all-girls school and forces Yuuki to cross-dress and come with her, and while they are there, Ran and Yuuki regularly switch places (they have mastered dressing up as one another) as needed to make Ran look good, lol.
The choice to create such an intimate situation for the main heroine and protagonist was, in my mind, the reason why this game stands out from the rest of Ensemble's games made in the last half-decade. Ran and Yuuki's synchronicity and odd couple dynamic make for an ideal situation for this type of game. There are downfalls to this approach (such as it being difficult to consider heroines other than Ran), but the benefits are rather obvious.
Still, this game is rather straight-out as a charage, albeit with a few minor twists to make it feel like it actually has an overarching plot (technically, there is something going on behind the scenes, but its relevance varies by path).
Ran
I knew that Ran was the main heroine of the game, but I couldn't stop myself from playing her path first. The intimacy of Ran and Yuuki's relationship and how it deepens into romance is the major draw of this path, though it probably doesn't happen the way you would think it would. Ran's tendency toward being straightforward to the point of bluntness and unapologetic about it (she isn't the type to be bothered by others' reactions to her) is one of her major draws as a heroine. The climax of this path has some nice drama, and I honestly liked how it concluded. However, typical of Ensemble and its endless fandisc-preparation, there was not a significant after-story/epilogue.
To elaborate on Ran's personality, since she is a relatively rare type of character, she technically falls into the 'arrogant genius' archetype. However, her character doesn't come across as being abrasive, most likely because there isn't even a scrap of contempt or prejudice on her part. Rather, she simply doesn't have a humble bone in her body... which, combined with the fact that she really is as capable as she says she is (for the most part), makes it hard to be offended by her personality.
Shizune
Shizune is one of the ojousama heroines in this game, the daughter of the head of the school board of directors, and a member of the student council. Despite all these titles, she is fundamentally a humble, kind-hearted girl who always puts others first. Unfortunately, her family name and tendency to be strict with herself make her somewhat less than approachable for common students. She is paired with the game's 'other' servant, Iroha, who serves her with obvious affection and devotion. Shizune is pretty much the picture of the 'total innocent' when it comes to life outside of the wealthy old families of Japan, to the point where she honestly had never experienced such common things as shopping for herself or using a bus.
Shizune's path probably isn't what anybody would expect from this description, lol. I won't spoil it for you, but I appreciated the departure from tradition in this path, though in another way it uses a common trope (drawing a 'special status' character out of their usual life). The romance is fairly cute and relatively innocent for this type of game, and I appreciated the 'revelation drama' as being just right. It isn't at the top of my list for trap protagonist game paths, but it is pretty good. I did have to laugh at how she found out, though.
Iroha side-story
After completing Ran's and Shizune's paths, Iroha's side-story popped up, and I read it, curious about the details. This path is an H-scene free path that focuses mostly on what was going on behind the scenes of Ran's and Shizune's path, and it also has a pretty big revelation with some mild catharsis along the way. Honestly, it was nice to have the gaps filled in, though the game as a whole probably would have been better if these revelations could have been somehow integrated into the main paths instead of being told in a side-story.
Conclusion for now
I blasted through two paths of this game, but I'm pretty sure I'll come back to the other paths eventually, if only to experience the commoner heroines' stories. My current conclusions based off of what I have played are that this is one of Ensemble's more memorable games, taking third place overall behind Koi no Canvas and Gokigen Naname so far. While the story in this game is not spectacular, it provides enough variation from the usual norms of the niche trap protag genre without alienating the fanbase. I liked the heroines, and I felt their paths were well-designed. I am a bit annoyed, as I usually am, that it was made with fandiscs in mind, but the quality of the heroines I bothered with is such that I didn't mind as much as I usually would have.
Tbh, there isn't a lot to say about this episode. For those who were curious about Haruto's past, this pretty much reveals everything (well, since it is non-ero, it doesn't touch upon my suspicion that there was some classic Grisaia oneshota in there somewhere). It is pretty bloody - again, as usual - and it properly spotlights Haruto and the group of adults who raised him (questionable whether you can really call them adults, though).
That said, it should be noted that this is obviously setting things up for the plot of the series to take a big leap forward in the next entry. As such, we can hope that the next one will be longer and the final episode of the Phantom Trigger series, so Front Wing can produce something unique (in other words, a new series, hopefully), instead of throwing us tidbits of action once or twice a year.
This VN is the second game in Whirlpool's short, low-price mimikko fetish game series... and I have to say my impression of it hasn't changed from the first one. This is a direct continuation of events from the end of the first game, and basically it increases the number of mimikko-ninja in Haruki's harem... and nothing else.
Oh, it is moderately funny, the h-scenes titillate my mimikko fetish, and you get hints of a deeper setting once again... but its short length means that the game never really goes anywhere beyond what I mentioned above.
Yay, I've been summoned for jury duty... *makes a face*
That said, civil duty is civil duty, so I have to live with it interfering with my life. The first day of my summons is tomorrow, and I've spent the last four days adjusting my sleep schedule so I don't have to do something drastic like pull an all-nighter just to get there on time.
Anyway, I got all but one of the VNs I planned to play for the month done, and that last one is being a pain in the rear, so I'd have to wait anyway.
Right now, for my own amusement, I'm replaying Shukufuku no Kane no Oto wa, Sakurairo no Kaze to Tomo ni, another Studio Ryokucha game... and I'm planning to hit Minamijuujisei Renka after that. I'm most doing this because this studio is one of only a very few that knows how to do non-annoying, truly adorable tsundere, lol. I'm trying to recapture why I put up with so many tsundere routes over the years.
November 2017
I delayed this one so I could get fun2novel's input on Yurameku Kokoro ni Michita Sekai de, Kimi no Yume to Yokubou wa Kanau ka (As he put it, this game is boring as hell and spends way too much time implying things without actually doing anything). While November had some surprisingly great leases (Kizuna Kirameku being primary amongst those), Aoi Tori was the only conceivable winner for the VN of the Month, November 2017.
December 2017
You might think me a bit premature, naming a winner before I played Koi ni, Kanmi or Natural Vacation... but I'll be straight with you when I state that the latter, from the samples I played, is nowhere near the quality of the main two candidates for the month (Miburo and Loveriche). The latter... I'm just not interested in (yet another sweets shop charage... why are there so many of those, especially on VNs simultaneously released in English and Japanese?). It was a straight-out competition between Miburo and Loveriche this time around. I briefly considered disqualifying Miburo, on the grounds that it is a sequel, but it can stand on its own nicely without being propped up by its predecessors, so I went ahead and considered it. Loveriche, for all that it isn't the best Saga Planets game (that's a competition between Flowlove and Hatsuyuki), is still one of the better games released this year.
In the end, I concluded that Bakumatsu Jinchuu Houkoku Resshiden Miburo was the stronger release, if only by a hair. Akane as a heroine and the lack of Ayaka as a heroine were the two negative elements that pushed Loveriche below Miburo after the foreshadowing issue and Miburo's historical infodumping cancelled one another out. So is decided the December 2017 VN of the Month.
I love 'psychologically challenged' characters, whether they are heroines, protagonists, or antagonists. That said, I don't mean those cookie-cutter 'villains' and 'serial killer' types when I say this. I mean characters who are twisted up inside and as a result have a completely different outlook on life or appear inconsistent on the surface as a result. Villain and serial killer types, who just cause harm because they want to, just aren't that interesting. Here is a shortlist of good VNs that also have a few psychotic characters that are interesting to me.
Ojou-sama wa Gokigen Naname (Yuuzenji Tsurumi)- Antagonist of the story, she is passionately and with utter seriousness in love with money. She will honestly and totally love anyone who gives her money, but that love disappears the moment that they have nothing left to give her.
Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier (Okada Iori)- Iori is the partner heroine of Ryouma. She is the very picture of someone twisted by her job, as she is an assassin for the anti-Shogunate forces who is more than a bit yandere. Her twisted need to be controlled and have sex with the one who tells her to kill is a primary personality trait for her.
Devils Devel Concept (all heroines and Sora)- Sora is a young man with a domineering and tyrannical personality and an obsession with transactional interactions with others in the form of 'contracts' (not to mention a psyche that reacts to violence, pain, and inflicting pain with joy). All the heroines are a bit broken in various ways, though each has a different broken point. There are also a lot of other broken characters, lol.
Draculius (Jun and Belche)- Jun is normally an easygoing and kind-hearted young man, but he is insanely protective of 'family', to the point of extreme ruthless cruelty if he feels it necessary. Belche is an ancient Irish vampire who bases her entire worldview on her service to a master and just how much she can give to him, while also being a coldly ruthless monster who would willingly kill entire towns if her master asked it of her.
Grisaia trilogy (seriously, does anyone need me to point out all the broken characters here?)
Comyu (Kagome)- ... anyone who has played this game knows Kagome is crazy, so I don't know any reason why I should continue.
Silverio Vendetta (Zephyr and Valzeride)- Zephyr is a cowardly deserter who is normally happy to drink himself into a stupor and engage the services of easy women, but when cornered he becomes a sadistically brutal monster who will happily torment and slaughter those who oppose him using any tool that comes to hand. Valzeride is on the surface the ultimate, perfect patriotic hero. However, his hard-working nature goes beyond the norm, as he is quite literally incapable of not pushing his own limits and enduring the most hellish of experiences solely to be the 'Enemy of Evil' as he terms it. He fundamentally loves destroying evil as the root part of his nature, and he naturally seeks to turn the ruined lives he leaves in his wake into the base for his nation's prosperity.
Silverio Trinity (Gilbert and Dainsleif)- Gilbert is a hero-obsessed strategist who always has a scenario ready to get the best result out of any situation. Dainsleif is also obsessed with Valzeride and those like him, desiring nothing more than to be the one to oppose and destroy heroes as a self-styled evil dragon.
Dies Irae (Reinhard Heydrich and friends)- That there is something wrong with the psychology of every single person on Reinhardt Heydrich's side, as well as most of Ren's side is a self-evident reality.
Tokyo Babel (Setsuna) - Seriously, talk about overweening arrogance hidden in a huge lump of self-pity and self-hatred, lol.
Yami to Hikari no Sanctuary (Souji)- With Souji it is mostly a result of his upbringing, but he seems so normal... even as he kills.
Yurikago yori Tenshi Made (everyone)- No normies in this game, nothing but psychos.
Izuna Zanshinken (lots of people)- Lots of crazies and oddballs in this game.
Vermillion Bind of Blood- Toshirou, Ariya and Tri-finger. Figure the rest out yourself, lol.
Hapymaher (Maia)- Say what you want about Maia, but she is probably one of the most internally conflicted characters I've seen. The reasons make perfect sense, if you know what to look for. Tohru is a bit crazy too (anyone who has to fight that much with his own desire to dream forever is a bit brain-screwed).
Butterfly Seeker- Another game with a lot of messed up people.
Psychologic Love Comedy- Craziness everywhere
All the Smee Seasons games (Harumade, Natsukumo, etc)- craziness is this series' selling point.
Foreshadowing is one of those elements in all forms of literature and entertainment media that is pretty much unavoidable. To be specific, it's been around since at least the time of the Greek tragedies, lol.
However, how a story uses foreshadowing says a lot about its style. In a lot of chuunige, for example, it gets laid on pretty thick, though they generally choose their moment for 'grand effect' and melodrama. In nakige, it is usually as a prelude to a tear-jerking event in the immediate future. In an utsuge, it is a hint of disaster... and in others, it is an overused tool of a hack author.
It just depends on how you use it.
Understand, I have nothing against it as a tool in and of itself. It's unavoidable if you read fiction, unless you actually go out of your way to avoid stories with narrative and dialogue that hints at a potential future.
However, I occasionally run across games (not since a year ago, so this isn't a recent thing for me) that transform foreshadowing from a mere element of the story to an intrusive alarm bell constantly ringing in the background. For some reason, the more meta the theme of the story, the more the writers want to constantly bash you over the head with various levels of cues to be ready for what happens next. I/O does it, Subahibi does it, and even Futagoza no Paradox did it sometimes.
Why is it that VNs that are trying to fool you do their level best not to fool you?
