I'm going to be straight about this game... if you liked Kamidori, you'll probably like this game, gameplay wise. It uses a nearly-identical battle and skill system, and it is all about gathering ingredients. For those unfamiliar with the battle system, you essentially summon your characters into a dungeon, which you explore and gather ingredients from while fighting off monsters. Your characters each fight one-on-one for the most part, in a battle system highly reminiscent of Fire Emblem games. The difference is that the exploration phase usually doesn't end after you kill all the monsters... for that, you have to use the green button in the upper right corner (present in most non-story maps) or wait until the turns run out. In each map, there are gathering points. Mineral gathering points (represented by boulders) can only be found and used by those with the 'mining' skill or tanryoshi skill equipped. Herbal gathering points can be found and used by anyone, on the other hand. Each map has certain materials that can be gathered there, and what you gather from those points is entirely randomly handed to you after you leave the map (perhaps the most annoying aspect of the system). Each map also has conditions under which you can win prizes called missions... usually involving getting to all the gathering points in a single playthrough of the map and controlling 100% of the map's territory or similar objectives.
Movement requires FP, which is used at a rate of 1 per space and regenerates at a rate of 1 per turn if you moved that turn (2 if you didn't). There are a number of ways to improve on this, ranging from skills and accessories to buildings and usable items. However, this is the basic element of dungeon movement.
Actual battles occur when you or your enemies initiate combat. If your speed levels are relatively even, you both get two attacks, if they are uneven, the faster one gets three, the slower two. There are four ways to define an attack other than elemental affiliation... physical or magical and ranged or melee. Only ranged attacks can retaliate against ranged attacks and only melee attacks can retaliate against melee attacks. Physical attack damage is based on a combination of elemental affinities and your phys attack stat versus their phys defense stat... you get the picture. It is a simple system to understand, easy to use, and it would be as annoying as hell if there was a bigger penalty for characters being defeated.
That said, it is functional, so I don't have any huge complaints about the battle system or the in-dungeon gameplay besides the randomness of materials-gathering and drops, though I do get tired of going back to maps for particular materials that turned out to be vital in large numbers later on.
Perhaps the most irritatingly relevant and at the same time annoyingly useless aspect of the game is the town-building aspect. If this were a grand strategy game, where building your capital actually had some kind of interesting meaning to it, I'd probably be more forgiving, but the system is annoyingly opaque, despite the values presented on the information screens. Some materials can only be gathered at higher gathering levels (mineral and plant kept separate), so you have to use facilities to get those levels up, and many buildings provide stat boosts when placed properly... However, since you essentially can get away with placing stuff as you become able to make it and have it work fine with only minor alterations, this feels like a forced, almost useless side-issue in the game.
I'm getting pretty late into the game, and it is becoming more and more obvious that the usefulness of land-based units is dropping dramatically with each area (more and more have obstacles that can only be cleared with certain movement types or flight). While super-fast ones like the beloved nekololi assassin Ioru are fast enough to make up for the limitations of a land-bound form, with the others I'm starting to feel I might have to resort to using the single - I repeat, SINGLE - accessory slot for one that grants flight (no jrpg of any sort should ever have less than two accessory slots). This is actually a flaw that existed in Kami no Rhapsody as well, since characters that couldn't ignore obstacles inevitably ended up getting eaten alive late in the game... or rendered irrelevant because they couldn't navigate the map well.
Look forward to my story assessment later.
I'm going to be blunt... the story of Amayui can be summed up in one word... unimpressive. The same could be said for Kamidori and Himegari, but whenever Eushully goes off on one of their item-creation rampages, the game's story inevitably takes a back seat.
Now, that's not to say that this story doesn't have good points. Toward the end it actually starts to resemble an IM world game... the problem is that it doesn't feel like an IM world game until near the end. For better or worse, the protagonist and the main heroine are both inveterate optimists (though Avaro is not supposed to be one, he certainly acts the part through most of the game). For another part, the cast in general is just... small in stature compared to the best of Eushully's lineup. For a goddess, Fia is just a bit too airheaded. Avaro can't seem to decide whether he wants to be a moody craftsman, a half-assed priest, or an idealistic kid. Mikeiu (the white-haired catgirl) is a mage that wields snowmen as familiars. Ioru is a greatsword-wielding assassin catgirl whose favorite hobbies are cooking and pleasing Mikeiu. Rish is a scheming local ruler who intends to bring Avaro to her side with her body. Kisnir is a samurai with no sense of modesty (she and Deet are really the only members of the cast that I liked). Rosaline is a depressed immortal ghost-wielding oppai-loli with horrible luck. Katorite is a weak-hearted loli dragon who cringes at loud noises. Finally, Mikshana is an angel whose stiff manner is due to what amounts to a lack of social experience.
Compared to the grandness of the characters of the IM series, the Genrin series, Madou Koukaku, or even Soukoku no Arterial, this game's characters were just too quirky and light-hearted to fit into the pretty grim setting that first came into being with the first Ikusa Megami game.
That said, near the end the story actually starts to get exciting... briefly. I spent so much time trying to get rare materials near the end that I ended up feeling like the story was a mere one-tenth of the game... and a fragmented one, at that. Not only that, but this game committed several of the largest grind-causing sins an srpg hybrid can commit... indiviidual experience, enemy level scaling, and a failure to scale experience gained from defeating enemies to their levels. I'm sorry, but when a character defeats an enemy ten levels their superior (near the end, several of my characters had fallen that far behind) I expect enough experience to go up a level or two, at the least.
As such, evening out the levels of my party toward the end took over ten hours, aside from the six hours to get them all fitted out with the best equipment I could make (primarily due to the lack of availability for most of the major materials near the end).
So... this game is fine if you just want to make items from a list and fight repetitive, grindy battles against uninspiring enemies. However, it isn't that attractive for someone who wants a good story.
Anyway, as I said in my previous post, I've never finished all of the routes of a Hook Soft game, despite their VNs being almost universally of relatively high-quality as charage go. This one didn't turn out to be an exception, for the same reasons as all the others.
It isn't a horrible VN. In fact, for lovers of slice-of-life, cheap romance, and 'golden road' standard heroine routes, this VN is pure crack. Unfortunately, the excess of any one of those elements without a good balance with something else is almost guaranteed to make me feel like a diabetic without his insulin.
The concept is traditional moege through and through and a continuation of one of Hook Soft's ongoing series, where objects become anthropomorphized all of the sudden and at least one of them ends up as a heroine. The protagonist is your standard 'average guy who is kind-hearted but has no other redeeming traits' harem protagonist. That in itself was enough to turn me off to this game almost from the beginning. His standard-fare reaction to his smartphone becoming a cute girl and the vents that followed basically put the nails in the coffin for me.
I focused on two of the heroines... Maho (his smartphone) and Kanade (the cool-girl classmate who sits next to him). Purely based on the heroines and side-characters, I probably could have gotten into this VN... the first year I was playing them. Unfortunately, while I've become a lot more forgiving of certain quirks of the slice-of-life genre, the first impression of this VN turned me off so completely that I only took the very ending parts of the heroine paths seriously, which means that my opinion on this game is not really relevant to a moege-player at this point. Hook Soft has so many things going in its favor... so why does this company insist on reusing the same cookie-cutter protagonist for all of its games (to one extent or another)? A little non-downward (in other words, don't make the protagonist dumber or less competent) alteration to the character dynamic would be nice once in a while... but I suppose that was too much to ask from a company that prides itself on producing this kind of stuff.
Sorry, I needed to get that out of my system. I promised a friend I would play this game, but, as I warned him from the beginning, I've essentially been ignoring Hook Soft games whenever possible for this precise reason. I always end up bashing them or giving a really dry account of them as a 'standard charage'. Unfortunately, this one touched my worst button at the worst possible time (I'm currently recovering from a nasty stomach bug), so I just blew up a few minutes ago after finishing my second path.
Anyway, on a more positive point, both of the heroines were interesting, looking at it from a purely non-hate influenced standpoint. Their paths were also nicely-constructed if you ignore the excess of ichaicha and the fact that the choice system in the game is a bit too intrusive (you choose which characters' scenes you watch, rather than having a common route). Maho and Kanade were the two heroines I knew from the beginning (other than the osananajimi, Kikuri, who I had no intention of having anything to do with from the beginning) they were intending to thrust into your heart. The hints that you were supposed to take an interest in them weren't exactly subtle, and the relegation of the remaining two heroines (excluding the aforementioned osananajimi) to places where you don't encounter them outside of their own scenes is an obvious indication of their low priority in the writers' minds...
In any case, a lot of this game is the 'heart-warming' *sighs* scenes with the various anthropomorphized objects as they settle into their lives with the protagonist (you generally pick three scenes in each chapter to watch, with several of them being the sub-characters). Purely for this, I'd say this game does a good job of aiming for people who want this kind of thing and aren't as prejudiced as I am toward the protagonist of this story. If the protagonist was better, this game probably would have jumped another point and a half on my vndb page, but he knocks it out of the running for me being able to remember that I played this VN a year from now.
I'm a fan of the idea of 'all objects contain a kami' idea, but I can honestly say that moe ruins it most of the time, lol.
One thing I didn't notice until recently is that there is a severe lack of (non-nukige) sports VNs out there. The reason I didn't notice? It's fairly simple... I have no interest in conventional sports (martial arts-related sports being differentiated from 'normal' sports). There are protagonists and heroines who are athletic in many VNs, and there are a few combat-sport VNs (like Walkure Romanze and Aokana). However, all-in-all the lack of sports VNs is... amusing on the surface.
When you think about it, the reason is fairly simple. A lot of otakus and otaku writers just aren't sports-lovers or players. Most of the people wanting to use VNs to relive their youth aren't the type that played sports, so few VNs are sports-related as a result. It's a pretty simple explanation when you think about it, but it made me laugh when I figured it out.
I have to apologize for being unable to deliver on one of my promises... to be specific, it doesn't look like I'm going to have time to finish Seiken Tsukai no Proposition this week... although, I could already tell it wasn't going to be a solid VN of the Month candidate.
Unusually, there were actually two solid candidates for May's victor... Sakura no Mori Dreamers and and Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru. It really could have gone either way... both VNs are memorable and interesting, with solid stories and great characters... but in the end it was Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru that won out. Why? There are a number of reasons... the biggest of which being the somewhat abrupt switches between the slice of life portions and the heavier plot portions in Sakura no Mori. It isn't a really startling problem, but it was still a bit awkward. Both stories were extremely emotional, but in the end, Hatsuimouto was just better technically.
Edit: I really, really wish my bosses would stop dumping extra work on me... every time I think I'm done I check my email and find more for me to do.
First, it should be noted that I love the Silverio series, regardless of its flaws. I see those flaws, I recognize them, then I shrug as I realize I don't give a flying fart about how the critical part of myself feels.
First, lets consider the two games that have come out (so far, given that the setting is so insanely detailed that it would be sad if they didn't make more games) in the series separately.
Silverio Vendetta
Silverio Vendetta follows Zephyr Colerain, an unemployed deserter with an inordinate fondness for alcohol accompanied by an inability to handle it. Zephyr, if you take a step back and look at him, is antithetical to every other chuunige protagonist in existence. The cynicism isn't a problem. Roughly half of all chuunige protagonists are cynical on one level or another. The pessimism, while extreme, is nothing unusual. No, what makes him unique is his sheer... baseness. Zephyr, at his core, is a weak man who is perfectly willing to stain his hands with the blood of the innocent and the good to protect what he cares about... in order to protect himself. Zephyr is a coward, he is not only afraid all the time in battle, but his first impulse is to run away whenever a situation gets hard (though that fleeing takes different forms depending on the situation). When he is confronted with someone who sees him an obstacle to their ideals, he wants nothing more than to trample and spit on the glory of the person in front of him. Zephyr is essentially the embodiment of the part of us that is envious and resentful of those more capable than ourselves, with his only saving grace being that he nonetheless can at times drive himself to stand against his own nature.
In other words, in 99% of all the games I've played, he'd essentially be one of those petty minor bosses who got squished like a bug by my level 10 characters. He is also very similar to Rusalka from Dies Irae (if you have played the game, note her Creation spell's essential meaning).
Zephyr is accompanied by Vendetta, an artificially weaponized and resurrected corpse with an unknown purpose who is psychically linked with him, who constantly kicks him in the ass to get him to be a man and be a better person (which is often hilarious in and of itself, since Zephyr has no intention of doing so on his own).
On the other side is Christopher Valzeride, an undoubted hero who gives selflessly of himself, who never gives up, who moves forward with no desire for recompense. In most chuunige VNs, Valzeride would be the protagonist. His intensity of spirit, his iron will, his burning idealism... combined with a realistic understanding of the costs of his path forwar... make him an ideal archetype for a chuunige protagonist in a 'heroic style' chuunige.
However, the fundamental theme that starts out the game and resonates throughout all the paths is 'What is victory?' Zephyr is a man who has been destroyed, carved away, piece by bloody piece, by his own victories, gaining nothing but more pain and the next, even more difficult battle from anything he achieved. He is the picture of a man forced into a role by his talents and utterly unsuited to it by his essential nature. Valzeride is a man who seeks victory above all else and merely accepts the greater tribulations that await him as the price of his path.
Essentially, the two men are polar extremes of human potential that encompass both the best and worst of the two extremes. Zephyr, while capable of kindness and gentleness, is cruel in his cowardice and malicious toward those who corner him with their valor and vivid idealism. Valzeride loves human virtue but is utterly incapable of kindness or personal empathy, as his own nature rejects anything ambiguous and weak. He honestly can't empathize with the suffering others draw from their tribulations, and this is why he serves as a great antagonist, despite essentially being a truly virtuous man in addition to being a hero.
Silverio Trinity
Silverio Trinity focuses a lot more intensely on the nature of the 'Light', as embodied by Valzeride in the previous game. It portrays those who take after him as 'Zombies of Light', men and women who simply move forward because they are incapable of conceiving of any other course of action. As is said repeatedly in both games in various fashions, 'A hero of light continues forward, running over the hapless individuals who get in their way, unable to compromise, unable to consider the suffering of others except as the price for the brilliant shining future they seek to bring about.'
Ashe, the protagonist, is by nature a good and caring young man. He can be driven to anger for the sake of others, and he has a deep well of compassion that is honest in its depth... and contrasts starkly with the other characters aspected of Light, such as Gilbert, Helios, and even Dainsleif. Ashe recognizes and empathizes with the weakness of others, and his understanding of them is more than just the intellectual recognition you see out of individuals like Valzeride and Gilbert. In this fashion, Trinity is more of a contrasting of common humanity with the two extremes of human nature (darkness and light as represented by the protagonists and antagonists of Vendetta). Its narrative, while having a different locale and characters, is a direct continuation of the conversation with the reader begun with Vendetta, and its conclusion is interesting, to say the least (Edit: Though it can be said to be a typical conclusion for such 'conversation' in a Japanese VN).
Some veterans of reading untranslated VNs refer to the period between 2004 and 2010 as 'The Golden Age of Visual Novels'. However, you shouldn't really take that statement at face value, as the meaning is a bit more complex than you'd think.
There are some significant differences between VNs today and VNs during that period that both made it the peak of the medium's sales in Japan and produced the greatest ratio of quality VNs to crap VNs.
One of the primary differences was that, other than moege, there were no strict genre boundaries and genre conventions had yet to slide into place in the minds of fans and writers both. Companies were mostly experimenters during that time, sometimes basing their projects on previous works (Tsukihime and the Key games got a lot of knock-offs during this time, of varying levels of quality) and sometimes forging out on their own.
Since there were few genre boundaries, companies were more likely to give the creative staff free reign as to what kind of story they could write, and - ironically - this actually helped define the various genres in the years to come, as people explored the boundaries of how they could stretch a concept or theme in a story. Some of these attempts were abortive (ie- thematic moege where all the heroines are of the same type, such as tsundere or yandere, generally didn't catch on) but others were immensely successful (ie- the definition of the chuunige genre and its gradual escape from gakuen battle mania). However, the point is that the writers, directors, and producers of the time were allowed to fiddle with the formula a lot more than they are now. Most major companies nowadays have a 'signature style', that was formed during that period, even if their greatest successes weren't during that period.
This period also killed the 'pure moege' as a genre, ending the majority genre of the previous half-decade (moege having dominated during that period due to the Da Capo series and Key's games). The rise of the charage, a demi-moege genre that was much wider in scope and more adaptable, occurred during this period, mostly unrecognized until after the fact. At the same time, nakige, which had previously been enslaved to the moege genre through Key and others like them, came to define itself as a new, standalone genre that wasn't necessarily dependent on moe stylization. Even Key itself moved beyond pure moe, though it didn't entirely abandon some elements of it (as the existence of Kud testifies).
However, this age was already ending in 2009, as clearly-delineated genre norms began to form, and charage became the driver for the industry, taking us back, in spirit, to the age before that. By 2011, the ratio of truly creative works to derivative works was overwhelmingly in favor of the latter, in comparison to the previous decade.
That isn't to say that the years since haven't produced some great works. That is patently untrue in my experience... but the fact remains that fewer and fewer writers are able or willing to look outside the 'genre boxes' for answers as to what to write. I sometimes refer to our current age as the Age of Stagnation, where there is an overwhelming industry pressure to stick to genre norms and those that break the mold are so exceptional they stand out more than they should.
It is possible to create a charage kamige... but it is much easier to make a kamige out of a game that breaks genre boundaries, lol.
This is an opinion that has been a long time in forming, but I am coming around to an opinion that the more simplistic viewpoints I've possessed on the differences between American approaches to storytelling and Japanese ones are somewhat off the mark. Note: This is a rant, it should be treated as a rant, and if it doesn't make sense to you, that is because it is my brain leaking into text on this blog.
First, my original opinion:
To put it simply, it was my belief that the Japanese had a tendency to go for emotional surrealism (in other words, emotional bombardment) and visual excess (exaggeration) to tell their stories. In opposition, Americans tend to go for the 'gritty and realistic', with straight out bullet to the head realism. This was a generalization that, while based on my experiences with Japanese video games that told a story (both VNs and jrpgs) and Western games that more or less tried to do the same (Isometric RPGs, Bethesda-style games, etc), was never meant to be an absolute statement but just a general opinion of the tendencies I'd encountered.
Second, my new opinion:
First, I've come to the conclusion that American gaming companies don't know how to tell a story anymore (since Bioware has gone crappy, Obsidian is about to get absorbed/has been absorbed by a company that has no idea of what it is doing, and the Witcher was made by Polish people). Second, the Japanese seem to suffer from a similar malaise... and the source is, quite ironically, fairly similar in the cases of mainstream games.
It is the disease I call the 'MMO virus'. Yes, you who actually read my blog know my opinion on online multiplayer games and what they have done to erode storytelling games in general, but my recent conclusion is that this erosion has actually reached a critical point in the last five years. Rebellions against the progression of this disease have occurred (Tales of Berseria, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Nier: Automata come to mind for the Japanese, and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire for America), but these have been relatively minor upthrusts against the toxins released by the cloud of mission-based 'stories' you see in games nowadays. Bethesda has also contributed to this plague (fetch quests and hunt the monster quests being a common plague for them as well), and it seems like every time I turn around, I see another game trying to tell its story through an obvious mission or quest system is sitting right there. Sure, the systems had their roots in D&D games, but the way they've developed is the result of the plague that infected the world using games like WoW as its vector.
I first began to see signs of this disease back in the PS2 era, though it was mostly limited to 'high end' games at the time, like Final Fantasy (XII having essentially repurposed and altered XI's MMO battle system for a single-player model), I was honestly horrified to see how easy it was to let myself get led around by the nose from objective to objective in hopes that I'd find the story in there somewhere. The problem was, once the objectives became my reason for playing (as was inevitable, because that is the tactic they use to draw you in), I increasingly realized that I couldn't enjoy what story was being told, because I was impatient to get to the next objective, even though I didn't find any of that searching for objectives to be fun in the least.
VNs suffer from a different set of problems. While jrpgs and western games suffer from the simple fact that the current generation of makers grew up obsessing over pathetic attempts to graft stories onto multiplayer games, VNs suffer from the fact that the best and brightest of their creators are... getting old. Hell, some of them even died in between projects. Worse, no one of equal capability has replaced them, leading to an unfortunate confluence of near-universal incompetence and corporate inability to grasp the reasons for failure and fix it.
No, I'm not saying that all new VNs suck. Hell, if they all sucked, I wouldn't still be trying to go back and play them, like the burnt-out junkie I am. No, my issue is that there is a sudden dearth of developed talent within the world of VNs that has gotten horrible in the last five years. Most of the major names are retired, have moved on to 'greater' things, or are dead. Shumon Yuu is silent, Hino Wataru seems to have gone underground, Masada is probably off in his own little world, Fujisaki Ryuuta is circling in place, Kurashiki Tatsuya is off indulging his inner sadist with half-assed games, Kazuki Fumi can't seem to stick with one thing long enough to make it great since Akeiro Kaikitan, and Agobarrier is three years dead. That isn't even mentioning all the formerly major names that have just decided to retire without telling anyone or got hired away by mainstream video game companies.
What is replacing them are primarily LN writers... who, unfortunately, tend to write like middle school street kids on crack (and not in a good way). They often have great ideas, but they are fuzzy about execution and lacking in technique. As a result, you get a bunch of third-rate one-off VNs that no one really likes.
Artists aren't a problem. There will always be plenty of skilled otaku artists who can draw h-scenes. The issue is and always will be writers... because it is the writer that decides whether a VN will become remembered for years to come or be dropped back into the dung at the bottom of the latrine.
Clephas's comment
I dropped this VN because I couldn't take the sugary texture of the thing... Sweetness and cute without depth turns me off every time. This game looked to me like your standard yurufuwa food-business moege, and Kiririri's comments haven't really changed my viewpoint, lol.
Kiririri's review (edited by Clephas)
So, I originally played this game because Kasu was the artist for 2 of the heroines and I love her artwork. And well uh, it didn't start well. I started with Fuuka's route, and it ended up being one of the most boring routes I have ever played. Her route was just like her character, very plain. I started regretting I picked up the game, but now I'm glad that I actually finished it, anyway. The other 3 routes were actually enjoyable.
Anyways the game is about baking and nothing else. The game is full of sweets and cakes. I'm no expert so I had no idea what those French terms meant, but, luckily, the game has a dictionary that explains most of the stuff to the reader. The game is set in a school that has special courses for students: confectionery course, band course, and something I forgot (Clephas: Numerous courses, including art and technical ones and a multicultural division). So our protagonist starts his harem life in the confectionery course! (very moege)
Like said before, apart from Fuuka route, the heroine routes were nice in my opinion. I really liked the lazy Miel, cheerful Nonoka, and serious Yuzuki. Compared to them Fuuka felt just too plain and "empty"... Might be just me, but I don't know. All of their routes were kind of similar though. Just ichaicha, making sweets and cakes, and researching about them. The game had absolutely no drama whatsoever. All the routes had a beautiful ending too, getting married, accomplishing dreams together, stuff like that... except for Yuzuki. I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to make her ending so different. Well, her ending was not bad in and of itself, and it felt necessary, in the end. It fit her route, but, compared to the other ends, it was "small". I will say, yet again, that it was necessary for the game as a whole.
Anyway, Anata ni Koi Suru Ren'ai Recette is a standard moege. Nothing more, nothing less. It is probably a little better than the average. If you like sweets and cakes and want to know some of the theory behind them check it out. It doesn't go into the making too much... but it still does a lot more than games that also have focus on a special thing like confectionery. Usually themes like that are a side issue, but here it was the focus of the game.
VN of the Month, May 2017
There really wasn't much to pick up on this month... Chrono Box gets honorable mention for making Dergonu ooh and aah, but it is somewhat outside of what I'm willing to put up for the actual winner. In the end, I picked Ojou-sama no Hanbun wa Ren'ai de Dekiteimasu! as VN of the Month, May 2017.
A few words before I dig into the common route. Minato-soft is known primarily for its comedy/drama large-scale charages, Majikoi and Tsujidou-san. These two are characterized by a unique style of characterization that goes more for comic relief than is standard with most VN-makers, as well as a tendency toward over-powered heroines who can take on the world by themselves (all three main heroines of Tsujidou, Momoka in Majikoi, and Kirsti in this one). This one is no exception, so those who played Majikoi will probably be unsurprised by the 'feel' of the character and character interactions.
Common Route
On the other hand, unlike other Minato-soft VNs, this one's common route takes up over half of the game as a whole (close to to two-thirds). With another company this would probably not be so much of a downer, but considering the degree to which Minato-soft wrote each main heroine route on a medium to large scale in each of its previous works, this was more than a little disappointing. The common route is fairly long (think about 1.2 times as long as the average moege/charage common route) and is mostly made up of familiar Minatosoft-style fights, slice-of-life, etc. However, despite the fact that the bulk of the game is in the common route, it doesn't feel like there is all that much substance to it, sadly.
Kirsti
I'll be blunt. Kirsti herself is basically a Finnish Momoka with the best elements of Tsujidou and Rena grafted on (in other words, she has Momoka's type of power, with the other two's leadership capabilities). So, don't be surprised if she feels familiar after only a few scenes, because you aren't imagining it. Sadly, her route is... bland. Once actually on her path, I finished it in around an hour and a half... and there was none of the really cool drama I'm accustomed to seeing from main heroines in Minato Soft's games. They are either setting this game up for another huge fandisc or they departed from the best part of their formula, for whatever reason.
For Next time
Look forward to Naoko's and the Harem route next time.
Naoko is the protagonist's adopted big sister. She has an extremely straightforward personality, and she tends to spoil the protagonist rotten while thinking she's doing the reverse.
Unfortunately, her path, like Kirsti's, is lacking in the kind of ending drama that tended to characterize Minato's two big hits. I don't know whether they did it deliberately or not, but the path left me feeling unsatisfied, despite the fact that the VN as a whole is at least moderately amusing.
Harem
The harem path is basically this side-route where the protagonist doesn't choose Naoko or Kirsti and ends up in H-situations with about half the cast of females. There is no real content to it, except for somewhat forced situations that end up in the protagonist having sex with one or another of the girls. To be honest, after playing this, I almost thought the VN as a whole was a nukige.
... well, I guess I was wrong. They do still make pure moege. The only problem with this is that 'pure moege=kusoge' these days, so I honestly can't see a reason to be happy about that.
This VN was written partly by the same guy who wrote Flyable Heart, and it is by a company (Hexenhaus) that has a fondness for producing moe-based VNs focused on eating establishments of some sort (this case, a Cafe Club at a school). I'll be perfectly honest... this VN starts out with all the elements necessary to create a decent charage. It has a protagonist with a face (who can pass as a woman), can cook just about anything, and is generally popular. It has a set of heroines that had the potential to be interesting (a cosplayer, an ojousama, a kouhai who is afraid of men, and a girl that obviously has a hidden side). The idea of the Cafe Club, where they run a cafe inside the school grounds, also had the potential to provide all sorts of interesting situations.
Unfortunately, my experience with this VN was... that they just failed to utilize any of these elements effectively. The heroines are shallow/underdeveloped (even after their routes are done), the protagonist never does anything interesting, and the actual heroine routes are basically - lovers at or near Christmas>sex>ichaicha>more sex>endgame (with easily resolved personal issues). To be honest, I wouldn't have had any problems with this, if they had at least managed to develop the heroine's personalities and routes properly. Unfortunately, it was both a short and boring experience, as a whole.
For those who might have been interested in this... don't bother, it is a kusoge.
Fate/Grand Order is the name of the mobile game/visual novel/card battle game that has become synonymous with the Nasuverse over the last seven years or so. For those unfamiliar with the game, I'll go ahead and describe the flow of events that lead up to this particular chapter-turned-anime in the spoiler box below.
In the game, Camelot is considered to be the first 'serious' chapter and the one with perhaps the deepest link to the other Fate/Stay Night series in spirit (considering the characters involved). The sheer level of scenario quality and artwork that went into the game version was completely different than what you saw in previous chapters, and it lacked the somewhat oddly humorous aspects that went into them.
The anime, split into two movies, is easily one of the top-quality Fate-series anime I've seen, if only because it shows the main reason why a lot of people keep playing FGO, despite the game being a blatant money trap waiting to suck your bank account dry if you aren't careful.
Throughout the last few chapters of the first main volume and the Lostbelt Chapters, FGO continually jerks at the emotions, showing you both the dark and heroic sides of the Heroic Spirits that appear on both sides of the conflict. In a way, I consider Camelot to be the true starting point of the current FGO 'style', and it shows. I cried numerous times during this movie, and while the action falls far short of work done by ufotable on other Fate series anime, the producers did not fail in any way to grab the attention and emotions of the watchers.
Most of the important moments of the original game are presented in an impactful manner, and the only real complaint I have is that certain characters didn't have the time to make an appearance in the first movie (Tawara Touta in particular is impactful in the sense that he and Arash were a team in the original content and brought life to the mountain people settlement part).
The moments that stand out to me most in the second movie are Mordred vs Sanzo, Tristan vs Serenity and Cursed Arm Hassan, and the final conflict (Lion King vs Mash, Ritsuka, and Bedeviere). This is not so much because the fights were awesome but because the lines and their presentation were perfectly designed to produce a result that would remain in memory and impact the emotions.
Overall, while the animation quality of this anime falls well short of the ufotable-made Fate series, in exchange the emotional impact is on a completely different level.
Well, the fourth anniversary of my VN of the Month series of posts is coming in another week or so... and to be honest, I'm a bit amazed at how long I've kept this going. Four years of playing most of the non-nukige VNs that came out each month, writing something on them, then picking one to be VN of the Month (or not, if none met my standards)... to be honest, my opinion hasn't changed much since the last time this time of year came around. VN of the Month is one of the single most grueling tasks I've ever set myself outside of work, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of times when I just want to put it all aside.
However, I inevitably find myself coming back and playing more VNs. If I take a week off from VNs, I inevitably tear back into my addiction with insane glee, and it usually at least takes three or four bad VNs before I finally run down and need a recharge.
I thought about making a poll asking if I should stop, like I did the other years... but the results - and the suggestions - are always the same, so I'm really more interested in what people have to say about this whole thing.
I'm an obsessive VN player, and I doubt there are many here who could match my experience. However, there is one issue I've more or less deliberately closed my eyes to when it comes to VNs... and that is the sheer amount of anti-feminist propaganda inserted into untranslated Japanese VNs in general. There are a number of major, really obvious examples of this, and I'll go ahead and describe them for you.
1. The 'female teacher who never gets married because she acts too much like a guy' archetype. This isn't even a heroine archetype. It is just a side-character archetype... but literally the most common non-heroine, non-protagonist one in existence other than the 'idiot friend' one. How is this anti-feminist? First, it assumes women with certain qualities - hard-working, focused on their jobs - aren't attractive. Second - and more insidious - it assumes that all such women should want to get married, so it is something of a double-whammy.
2. The 'strong-willed heroine who becomes completely submissive the second she and the protagonist become lovers' archetype. This is perhaps the most insidious of the heroine archetypes when it comes to this issue. This is more or less a manifestation of the hidden widely-held Japanese male belief that even the strongest woman secretly wants to be dominated by a man. Yes, there are plenty of otherwise strong-willed women that use mild SM as stress relief, but the same can be said for men...
3. Otome games. Yes, I know some would protest this, but it is really obvious, when you play them. First, almost all otome game protagonists are easily-dominated wilting lilies or women who become so the second they meet a strong, handsome man. Second, even those that aren't spend a ridiculous amount of time being 'rescued' by men (Damsel-in-Distress Syndrome). Third... exactly how many otome games do you see that appeal to women who prefer to be dominant, in general?
There are any number of such themes, archetypes, and concepts that demonstrate this little reality, but it is something you should probably keep in mind when you think you are going a bit over the edge playing moege, thinking real women might be like those on the screen. Remember that while some women really do fill the archetypes, they are exceptions, not the rule. At the same time, assuming that they should fulfill those roles/archetypes is one habit we probably shouldn't import from Japanese otakus, despite our taste in games, lol.
Aoi Tori is Purple Soft's latest project, a VN based in a girls' school in the mountains, where the protagonist, a priest (I'm assuming Episcopalian/Anglican for various reasons), goes to school as an exception, as he cannot live outside of the school without being taken by demons.
Ritsu, the protagonist, possesses the power to take others' negative emotions, thus enhancing their feelings of happiness and joy, and this power works best when he has sex with them. Now, given that he is a young man, you'd think from this description that he was going around finding girls that were in trouble and 'saving' them that way... given eroge culture. However, if anything, it is the reverse... girls that are desperate to escape their personal reality come to him, seeking the happiness he can give, and he has reduced himself to something like an automatic mechanism for giving them what they want. To be blunt, his point of view seems very close to that of a lifelong prostitute, save for the miraculous ability he possesses... moreover, a prostitute who didn't choose the work (his first experiences were all oneshota, apparently).
One day, his monotonous days of sex and quiet prayer (it sounds odd, but outside of school, that is pretty much what it was like), a century-old vampire named Mary Harker appears before him, having intruded into his home behind the chapel, and he lets her stay out of kindness. At the same time, a voice (referred to as the 'demon on the phone') tells him over the phone that he has a rather dark fate awaiting him and his power isn't what he thinks it is.
This night is closely followed by a number of meetings and reunions... a devout girl with a self-destructive streak a mile wide (Akari), the young teacher who stole his virginity (Risa), and the twin sister he never knew he had (Sayo). In addition, you have Mikako, who is Risa's sister and Ritsu's only friend... and who is a genius as well as a pragmatist. Overall, it is an interesting cast of characters, even for a Purple Soft game.
I'm going to be blunt, the part that will put off at least some of you is the sheer amount of sex in the first part of the VN. The game begins with two h-scenes, neither of which involves affection or love, and, while this is a good intro into Ritsu's situation, it also will probably drive the romantics amongst you a bit crazy, judging by my previous experiences. So... if you can't stand a protagonist who doesn't bother refusing sex from women and is used to having sex with girls he doesn't know, you probably won't like this game.
That said, there are relatively few similar h-scenes after this, probably in order to keep you from getting too swallowed up by his attitude toward sexual activity.
Ritsu is a rather strange young man, even setting aside his destined role as the Prince of Darkness (Mary's term for it). As the demon on the phone puts it, 'You are a madman who can only be satisfied by saving others.' That fits him perfectly, and that part of his personality never really goes away. He is fundamentally a giver, above all other things. Even if he can be convinced by the heroines to be selfish in the now, when things come to a climax, he always falls back on that nature. He is also a natural S and a hedonist (though he is not conscious of this most of the time), and he doesn't have it in him to become paranoid or maintain his anger for long. That said, once he decides on the result he wants, he will literally do anything to achieve it.
Mary Harker
Mary Harker, in any other game, would be the true heroine. I don't mean to be mean about Akari... she is creepy has hell sometimes, despite her apparent normality (you'll see what I mean if you actually read the first two h-scenes), but if I began this game without a walkthrough or seeing the cover of the game package, I probably would have assumed she was the true heroine. The reason is very simple... she is the catalyst that sparks the game's engine at the beginning, and, given eroge custom, that heroine usually is the true one.
Now, her personality... Mary is probably the most cheerful and normal vampire I've seen outside of a 'nerfed' vampire setting (this one isn't, since just a bite is enough to turn someone and she takes injuries from her own prayers and the sun). Nonetheless, she has lived a century, and that has had various effects on her psyche, though the biggest one is a growing awareness that maintaining her humanity and human persona is becoming harder and harder. It is only because of Ritsu that she is able to have some kind of a hope for the future, and she is pretty dependent on him during the story. Despite that, she is also sort-of an oneesan character outside of her own path. She does have a lot of experience under her belt, and her attitude toward him at some times skirts the motherly.
Her own path is... a clash of two people destined to live in darkness, her and Ritsu. They are both people who don't understand romantic love at the beginning, so seeing them change is somewhat amusing, but the bigger issue is that their natures press down on them, making a happy romance difficult. Overall, it was a highly emotional experience that I enjoyed thoroughly. I do wish - as I almost always do - that she had a nice long epilogue after story, but I have resigned myself to not receiving what I wish for most of the time, when it comes to that.
Akasabi Risa and Akasabi Mikako
Akasabi Risa was the protagonist's first sexual partner. Like all the girls who had sex with him in the past, she was seeking escape from reality by having him give her happiness, but she, unlike the others, was actually in love with him from the beginning. Risa is a consummate actress, hiding her true intentions behind her feelings, a technique she apparently developed in the years she was away from Risa. She is also essentially a 'giver' type, willingly giving everything for those she cares about.
Mikako is a pretty unusual character. If it weren't for her fondness for Ritsu and her love for Risa, I would be tempted to call her an emotionless sociopath, based on her surface actions. I called her a pragmatist above, but this isn't despite her emotional reactions... it is her natural state of being. Pragmatism is usually a product of socialization and rationality being prioritized over emotion. However, in Mikako's case, she is able to (and does so automatically) completely analyze and render meaningless her emotions before they reach the surface. Her love for Risa is pretty much the only exception, and it is that emotion that renders her as almost human (her fondness for Ritsu exists because she loves Risa and Risa loves him).
Now, the demon on the phone takes on a rather more direct role in this story than in Mary's, where he/she is merely speaking to the characters. In fact, the demon's interference is what brings this path's conflict to the surface, and overall, it made this path more interesting than it otherwise would have been. To be blunt, without the demon's 'help', it is highly unlikely that Risa, Mikako, and Ritsu would get together, based on the revelations in this path. There are a number of reasons, but the biggest one lies with the fact that Ritsu quite simply doesn't have strong emotions toward his sexual partners normally (once he actually loves them, it is different)... not even remnant lust.
Kurosaki Sayo
Kurosaki Sayo is Ritsu's twin, separated from him at birth. She is a cynical, emotionally twisted young girl whose only love is Ritsu (though she does have affection for others based on whether they make Ritsu happy or not) and whose hobby is toying with him and Mary. She appears on the scene shortly after Mary's arrival, guided by the demon on the phone. She is also a part of the demons' plans for him, and that plan is the center of her path.
This path is an utsuge-style path... don't expect a happy ending. There is a good reason why Sayo was given to a different orphanage by their mother, and that reason becomes apparent fairly early after Ritsu chooses her. I enjoyed this path and it has some really good cathartic moments... but I honestly thought they were a bit excessively obvious in foreshadowing this one.
Afterwards (read this if you don't mind a bit of spoilers)
Remember, this is a spoiler.
As techniques go, it is interesting, and I felt the need to mention it before Akari's path because of how it leads into it.
Umino Akari
Akari is... the girl whose outer personality and inner desires are most in conflict. Akari is a devout Christian (Ritsu's assessment), kind-hearted, gentle, and takes pleasure in giving of herself to others. However, she is also strongly driven to seek out danger, corruption, and self-destruction in every way, shape, and form. As one of the milder examples... she is afraid of heights but she willingly participates in the school swim club's high dive competition. A more extreme version is the one you run into at the beginning, in the first scene, where, after watching her friend have sex with Ritsu, she is drawn to him and has sex with him as well.
Akari's path is... interesting. Actually, the beginning of the path is slow, because the story refrains from going to the extremes you saw in the common route and the other paths. However, that slow build up is a near-perfect lead into the solid drama leading up to the ending. There is actually very little I can say about this path without spoiling it, but I can say that I liked the ending. I cried numerous times throughout the path, and the ending itself satisfied me completely, a rare event in and of itself.
One thing I should note is that there is a distinct Chrono Clock reference in this path, which startled me a bit. It was actually a stronger link than the mention of the kotodama-users early in the common route. For those who are interested, I'll respond in a PM, but I'm unwilling to spoil this. I did laugh though. I'm unsure if this is an affectation or not, but it is interesting.
Overall
I'm seriously tempted to scream 'kamige!!!' to the sky... but in retrospect, they game does have some distinct flaws. The main one of these is the somewhat haphazard approach to the beginning of Risa's path (it felt kind of like they were shoving things along a little too forcefully in that one). However, even so this is one of the better games that have come out this year, and, in its own way, keeps the Purple Soft fantasy nakige tradition started with Mirai Nostalgia alive and kicking. Where Chrono Clock fizzled and Amatsutsumi committed the sin of using the ladder-style progression system, this game manages to both satisfy and feel like it treats the non-true heroines well.
This is the second game in the 9 -nine- series, a half-chuunige series that began last year. For my comments on the first game, look below.
I'm going to be blunt... all my complaints about the previous game in the series still apply here. While a little more information is revealed in the second game than the first, and two of the characters (Haruka and Sora) come to life a great deal more than in the first game, it has to be said that the sense that I should have waited for all the games in the series to come out before I played it is unchanged. Oh, I liked Sora as a heroine (the interplay between her and the protagonist is frequently worthy of laughs). However, I absolutely hated the way it trailed off at the end, right after revealing something of absolute importance.
The battle scene in this one (there is precisely one worthy of the name) is good, and the writing (of course) is first-class... but playing a game like this in pieces is immensely frustrating.
Yes, I did this game first. This is one of those games that is a bit hard to define. It is part moege, part nukige and part charage... and part surrealist story. It is about cats being reborn as humans being reborn as cats being reborn as humans (it gets ridiculously complex, to the point where there is no point in keeping track).
There also isn't a whole lot to say about this game... it is mostly at-home SOL, h-scenes, and reminiscence of past lives. As a VN, it is a bit hard to read because it jumps around in time so much, and I'll probably forget this VN before long. However, I gave it an extra point for making me cry several times, lol.
Yay! Two catgirl harems in one month!!! lol
Anyway, this is the newest game by Moonstone's crappy subsidiary, Moonstone Honey. It is a straight-out catgirl harem moege from beginning to end... which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The game is set on an island that has been completely built up with leisure facilities of various types (amusement park, pool, beach, a mall, etc), and the protagonist is a young man in his early twenties who is given a chance to take charge of resurrecting the stagnant pool business.
I'm going to be blunt (as usual) here... there really isn't a lot to this VN except endless ichaicha between the protagonist and the three catgirls. The protagonist accepts the catgirls' presence and change to a human form with relative ease, and within a few days, he has them working part time at the indoor pool he is running. While problems pop up along the way, they are solved quickly and with relative ease, and the girls make the transition from 'just pets' to his harem rather early on (albeit without h-scenes).
The catgirls' names are Mikan, Lime, and Lemon. Mikan is the innocently affectionate type, constantly trying to be helpful and showing her love for her master in an honest and straightforward manner. Lime is a mischievous type, showing her affection and trust by teasing and playing small pranks on the people she likes. Lemon is... a classic tsundere.
Don't expect a real story or any kind of drama in this game. The whole point of the game is to enjoy the ichaicha between the protagonist and the catgirls, so there isn't a whole lot extra outside of that. How the girls transformed is never explained (in fact, it is pretty much forgotten ten seconds after they first emerge), and there is no step-up of affection from them toward the protagonist, as they already love him pretty much from the beginning (it just changes to romantic love later on). This is a kinetic novel, the choices only deciding whether you see a CG or not. There is no H content during the main part of the game, but the rather long after story contains about twelve h-scenes for those who are interested.
Overall, if you just want some catgirl harem action, this is a decent choice, but if you don't want what amounts to an old-style moege (not a charage) this probably isn't a good choice.
First, I'll say that this game is pretty much based on the concept of using the concept of templates and archetypes in the story. The protagonist bumps into a girl with toast in her mouth, gets woken up by an osananajimi, catches a maid falling from the sky, is frequently scolded by a fake-prude iinchou, and he even has an ojousama fall in love with him at first sight.
Now, the attempt to turn all the classic template happenings of a moege/charage into a joke sort of falls flat in this game. The common route is pure dirt in that sense (the lack of any original content plus a failure to fully play up to the game's theme ruins things). I will straight out tell you that the common route is boring. I've encountered similar happenings in literally hundreds of games in the past, and I never really felt a bond with most of the characters in the common route. As a result, I only went off on one heroine route (and don't plan to bother with the others).
This route was Miori's... and Miori's route is the only reason I didn't just drop this game and give it a 4 on vndb (points for visuals and audio, negatives for storytelling, average characters). To be blunt, Miori is of a template I didn't realize I had missed in recent days... the eccentric fushigi-chan. In recent years, this kind of character has mostly fallen to the wayside (probably because Key got such joy out of overusing it), so having this particular template make a comeback was a definite positive for me (as opposed to the older osananajimi oneesan, the osananajimi imouto, and the secret pervert iinchou, which have been constants in charage since forever).
If there is one thing Circus does well, it is moe. Miori's moe point is the traditional gap between her nearly emotionless everyday and her dere. This is shown briefly when she deals with a cat in the common route (incidentally the point at which I decided to pick her), but only really comes into play in her heroine route. Her route is traditional down to the last detail (deep love after confession>frequent ichaicha>gets found out by father>confront father>betrothal) for her second character type (not going to reveal this, though it is fairly obvious after you see her and Matsuri in the same scene). However, since I was just sitting back and enjoying fushigi-chan deredere action, I was perfectly happy to ignore the archetypical ending.
Overall, my advice to anyone looking at this game is... if there is a heroine type in there that you like, go ahead and just play that heroine's route. The common route is pure crap, but the heroine routes will likely push a lot of positive buttons for those in love with their particular type of heroine, as they did with me. I did make an attempt at starting the other heroine paths... but I just got bored at the endless stream of predictable occurrences. For a veteran of charage/moege, this game can be a painful slog or a joy, depending on where you are in it.
Edit: It needs to be said, but the main reason I give this game a failing grade on the common route is because they went for a spoof theme but didn't make the common route wacky enough. When it came down to it, except for the protagonist's complaints, it was just a weaker version of a normal moege common route.
Now, considering that all the games Mint Cube made up until now were kusoge (personal experience speaking here), I didn't expect to be especially impressed by this game. Thankfully, I was surprised a little by how this game turned out. In the world of this VN, the light and darkness, embodied in the Maou and Hero, fought one another ten years before... and no one knows the outcome. Since then, the world has settled into a relative state of peace.
This game focuses on the amnesiac Tarou, who is taken in by the witches running a cafe in the middle of the forest. Tarou possesses powerful light and darkness abilities, and he is generally an intelligent young man who is utterly up front and honest about his feelings (including his ecchi ones).
The game uses a combination of a chapter flow chart and a ladder-style structure, but since each heroine's ending/path makes sense/is consistent within the greater setting, it didn't bother me as much as it might have. Most of this game is ecchi antics and peaceful SOL in the cafe, with occasional battle scenes (one-sided against monsters) sprinkled throughout. The 'common route' leads straight toward one of three endings for Rufuna, who is the main heroine (Dark, Light, Neutral), and at the end of each chapter two heroine paths are added to the flow chart.
If I had something to recommend about this game, it would be the fact that the side-heroines all get a substantial path that is worth reading in and of itself, taking away my usual objections about heroine neglect that come up with ladder-style story structures. In addition, most of the game alternates between wacky and 'hohoemashii' SOL that generally keeps a smile on your face.
That said, by the end of the game, I was starting to feel SOL fatigue (the fact that I had only just started to feel that way says everything about the relative quality of the SOL in this game). However, people with a higher tolerance than me shouldn't have any problem with this.
One group of people likely to have problems with this VN are the monogamists... Tarou, the protagonist, is very ecchi and indiscriminate until he actually chooses a heroine, and even in the 'common route' he has relations with several of the heroines in a very casual fashion. That said, he is, at heart, just a more open and ecchi version of the average harem protagonist, so that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Despite the dramatic turns of phrase used by some of the characters for the events that occur within the VN, this game rarely falls into seriousness. The characters themselves are generally amusing (if not laugh out loud amusing), so people who don't want a lot of drama and darkness messing up their SOL will probably like this game.
Edit: For those who are interested in this game, you should know that the Getchu page spoils what story there is badly. I've basically stripped all the spoilers I could have legitimately dropped here (based on my policy of using information from the official site and Getchu as a guideline) because it becomes rather evident (in my eyes, anyway) that you aren't in fact, supposed to know certain things about Ruhuna, Peko, and Assam (there are actually spoilers for Peko's path in her character description, to my exasperation). While it is possible to guess at some of these things based on hints early in the story, I would suggest avoiding reading up in advance on this game in the official site and Getchu page. This is particularly egregious when it comes to Ruhuna, as her secret is stated outright in her character profile, and is treated as a big reveal in the story itself (relatively late in the game).
This VN is based a few thousand years after Tou no Shita no Exercitus, and without the background knowledge of that VN, it is a bit hard to get into the details of this one. Unlike that game, this one has no gameplay and is instead a kinetic novel in the 'standard chuunige' style... which basically means that it isn't a high-detail wordsmith and CG artist's playground like the stuff by Light and Nitroplus. Sadly, since this VN's setting had some nice potential to make such a game in.
I'm going to be straight... this game isn't really that unique, and the actual flow of the story feels more than a little forced. The antagonists (save for the 'real' antagonist) aren't really... antagonistic, for the most part. A lot of that is because the protagonist and his group of friends were also friends and coworkers (most of them anyway) with most of the antagonists, so there is a lot of back-and-forth talking about memories of old times even as they fight.
This isn't a horrible game, though it is being given horrible ratings by some people. Unfortunately, it is undeniable that, rated as a chuunige, it falls below even stuff like ExE. It is just too predictable and obvious in all the wrong ways, when it comes right down to it. A part of this is that they didn't even try to make the motives of most of the antagonists' opaque at all, and practically nobody dies during the course of the story... a huge flaw for any chuunige. Disgusting as it might sound to anti-violence people, but violent deaths of bystanders are a must-have in any halfway-decent chuunige. Without that tragic element forcing the story into the realms of the emotional, a chuunige story won't even get off the ground.
The protagonist, Seigi, makes this worse in some ways. Normally, I'd love to have this guy as a protagonist... he is a hot-blooded martial artist who has had half his body replaced by mechanical parts. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, here. To be blunt, he is a 'punch them out and let someone else sort it out' type of fighter, and while he is an excellent teacher (as evidenced by Mai and Anzu), he can be surprisingly stupid sometimes about stuff even I could figure out just looking in from the outside, lol.
A final nail in the coffin of this VN is the dearth of action CGs. All of Seigi's battle CGs save the last one are color-switches of the original, and the same goes for most of the other characters (additions onto existing CGs and few of those too). The character that had the best CGs, Elza, isn't even the main heroine, lol.
That's another thing... this game commits the fatal sin for a chuunige with a harem setup... overfocus on the main heroine. While it can be made clear that one of the heroines is more important than the others, when you are creating a harem situation, she can't be too much more important than the other heroines (of which there are a total of five). Another huge problem is that personal scenes with the other heroines besides Ruru are restricted to ones viewed from the Extras section... and many of them occur in the middle of the story and would have served to enhance the experience at least somewhat (well, not the h-only ones, but the character-development ones would have done nicely) if they had been put into the main story in their proper chronology.
Overall, this was a game that had enormous potential that was brutally stunted by getting stingy on CGs and the decision to relegate important character and relationship development scenes to the extras section. I'm normally not a guy to bash a game based on artwork... but when your narration isn't up to the genre standard, art is usually where you are supposed to try to fill in the gap. I didn't have much hope for this game, but I did have some, so I'm pretty irritated right now.
Edit: Did I mention that one of the reasons I was pissed off was because the main heroine wasn't even a mimikko when there were all those mimikko (including a kitsune) to choose from? lol
AXL is a really weird company.
I don't mean that as an insult. AXL produces VNs with very little variation in quality, consistently producing stories and characters that are fun to read about... However, when I take a step back and really think about it, their characters are the same between products, right down to the voices and (to an extent) their appearance.
AXL is probably the only VN company out there that hasn't radically changed its visual style in the past ten years... in fact, it hasn't changed at all, save to get slightly sharper due to HD technology. Where most companies abandoned old styles or melded them with new ones, AXL has remained the same, utilizing variations on the same character models, the same character personalities, and even the same music.
So why does each game they produce feel fresh and interesting?
It is perhaps one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had with a company, but AXL manages to be interesting despite never changing. Its games have decent stories, interesting settings (ex: The PMC-run military school in Mamorikata and the Search and Rescue school in Dolphin Divers, or its line of fantasy VNs), and generally enjoyable VNs. Honestly, just because they never just do the 'go to a normal school and obtain a harem' style charage is a plus point in their favor. I'd put up with a lot from them just for that, but the fact that they maintain a high level of quality in their narrative is perhaps the second-biggest point in their favor (the biggest one being their penchant for unusual settings).
In the end, my last conclusion is the same as my first... AXL is a weird company. It is interesting precisely because it doesn't go adventuring with anything but the setting. Normally, I'd be the first to condemn a company for refusing change, but in this case, I have nothing but praise for them, since I hardly even notice that lack of change unless I take a second to look at it objectively.
Before I start this, I should probably explain the company known as AXL to the newbies. AXL, which is known for Shugotate, as well as a number of other high-quality VNs, is an 'old-hand' company that was started pretty soon after the turn of the century. They developed an extremely beautiful art style, as well as a penchant for high-quality fantasy and romance stories. The thing most people will notice upon playing any two AXL games is that the art-style is exactly the same... it still possesses somewhat thicker lines than is the norm for VNs nowadays, and the actual character faces and poses tend to be reused heavily between games. The saving grace of this is that the actual quality of the original art is so high that it still looks pretty today, so you find that you don't really mind, for the most part.
Common
The common route of this game is a lot closer to what you would have seen in their best games, in that it is heavy on the story and the character development. From the very beginning, you are encouraged to enjoy the protagonist breaking out of his shell and developing a relationship with the heroines, the youkai, and his new male friends. The youkai, looking like adorable stuffed toys for the most part, are mostly comedy elements, and the protagonist's relationship with the tanuki Shouji is perhaps one of the most consistently amusing aspects of it all.
There is a definite serious element to the story (AXL doesn't believe in completely drama-free main stories, apparently), but that makes for much better character development during the common route. It certainly made the heroine choice about something more than who had the biggest breasts or the cutest nose! lol (this was nice after the somewhat... disappointing heroines that resided in most of the VNs I've read so far from May)
Minagi
I'm regretting, in some ways, choosing Minagi first. Why? Because I can't imagine a better heroine to have picked for the main/true one, haha. Minagi is the VN's 'fushigi-chan', a girl who prefers the forest to school and who avoids others' company like the plague. However, underneath her lonely mask, there lies an incredibly adorable girl that is unbelievably easy to love.
Her actual route is actually one that would not have been out of place as a true one, in another VN. Right from the beginning, straight through the end, you are learning more and more about the setting, about Minagi, and about how she and the protagonist are related to it all. The drama that takes up the last part of her route is particularly fitting for a canon/true/main heroine, and I honestly think it was worth it to play this, even if just for this route. Most importantly, the ending/epilogue actually goes into detail about what happens to the heroine and protagonist afterward, concluding better than five years after the events in the main story.
If I had to classify this game so far, I'd have to put it in the 'nakige' category, simply because of how deeply emotional it gets at vital moments and the fact that I spent most of the ending and epilogue crying (in a good way).
Haruka
Haruka is the traditional 'older woman' heroine that used to be included in just about every VN, as a token to those who preferred that type. Of course, they don't come out and say how much older she is, but considering that she was in her teens when Tsumugi was a toddler...
Anyway, she is a spiritualist/youkai hunter who comes to the town with the intention of hunting down a man-eater that is supposedly hidden in the populace. She gets wrapped up in the events of the main story in the common route and ends up settling in the town (and incidentally falling in love with Yukiya).
She has some serious emotional scars, and overcoming those is a big part of her path. In this case, most of the obstacles that tend to be put in the path of her type of heroine and a younger protagonist don't exist, so don't expect much trouble from the outside about their romance. Rather, this path centers around her work, her personal traumas, and how she overcomes them with Yukiya's help. Like Minagi's path in the previous post, her path's ending is quite excellent and extends several years after the actual ending of the story, which left me feeling satisfied, needless to say.
Anna
Anna is the protagonist's younger cousin (who of course calls him oniichan, lol). She is a bright, energetic young girl with an eternal smile. Her path tends more toward the mundane, with a focus on rejuvenating the town through her and the protagonist's activities. The drama in her path is less tear-worthy than Minagi's or Haruka's, but in exchange you get a really hilarious scene in which the path's antagonist gets his just-desserts.
Perhaps the funniest part about this path is the clashes between her father and Yukiya, though, lol. Similar to the other paths, it touches on events well-along the line after the endings, when Yukiya and Anna have settled down and begun living their non-student lives. Not only that, but it ends on a really sweet (cute-sweet, not cool-sweet) note that I'm sure soft-VN lovers will like.
Midori
Midori is the mayor's daughter and the story's serious, straight-laced heroine (of the 'iinchou' type). She is the most negative toward the youkai of all the heroines, and her start with the protagonist is about what you could expect with a lucky-sukebe event and a straight-laced girl, lol. The actual path is focused on the need - and it is present - to balance the needs of the forest and the youkai that live there with those of the people of the town. This search for a middle path is the source of most of the drama in the story, and it leads to some tense moments. Similar to Anna's path, this one isn't really tear-worthy, but it has enough laughs and normal emotional ups and downs to satisfy most readers.
Her path goes the least distance from the end of the story and is thus the least fulfilling, from the perspective of those who love after-stories.
Tsumugi
Tsumugi is your typical 'wannabe' spiritualist. You know the type that you see in various anime/manga/VNs that love the occult and want to get involved with it but have absolutely no talent for it, right? Well, she's the typical one of that type.
Similar to Haruka's path, this has a focus on the spiritualist side of things, and there is plenty of foreshadowing for those who are used to the typical patterns of VNs in modern fantasy settings. That said, it is carried out well, and the characters, setting, and events are all used to paint a really good picture. You'll probably cry at several points near the middle of her path, and the ending is quite satisfying (and adorable, lol). Like all the paths but Midori's in this VN, the after-story is quite satisfying and emotionally fulfilling.
Overall
The word that comes to mind with this VN is 'complete'. It is fairly rare to come across a VN that a company obviously has no intention of fandiscing to death or even hinting at some sort of side-story addition. This VN is designed to be one complete set of heroine stories, and it does everything it sets out to do about as well as you ever see. Those who like fantasy mixed with romance but without the intense violence of a chuunige will like this VN, as will those who like nakige.
This is also my current prime candidate for VN of the Month (though Sumire would have been worthy if this hadn't been around). I know that most people will go 'eeeh, but I thought you disliked this kind of obvious moe-appeal VN?!' However, the fact is that any VN genre can be pleasurable if it is done as well as this one was.
