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Clephas

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Blog Entries posted by Clephas

  1. Clephas
    Yes, I hate trophies, achievements, or whatever you choose to call them. Why? At least part of it is because I was a gamer back in the NES era, and I liked that sense of private accomplishment it gave me for beating a game on my own. Another reason is simply because I hate the way achievements and the like break immersion, particularly in rpgs and games with a good story. I can say this outright... I almost never finish games where I can't disable trophies. I'm not interested in showing off, and I'm even less interested in people knowing my gaming habits. I hate that someone can look at my steam profile and know which games I own. I hate that people can look at my psn profile and see which ones I've played or am playing. I hate it even more that it feels like the game itself is reporting to the companies that produced it whenever I have the online function on.

    If you hadn't figured it out, I am a gamer that likes his privacy. I had a nightmare about some moron including achievements in a VN last night, so I felt I had to post this...
  2. Clephas
    Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas is the rarest of the rare... a charage that is also a kamige.  In fact, I've only encountered three charage that I consider to be kamige out of the hundreds I've played.  How did that happen?  Well, a large part of it is the writer.  For all that his first VN was a half-nukige with an absurd setting, his style is poetic, his settings deep, and his timing and pacing of events perfect. 
    Another part of it is the structure.  This VN has a very, very short common route... as in the prologue only.  After that, it immediately moves on to one of the five heroine paths based on the choices you made in the prologue.  The paths themselves are about one and a half times as long as the average heroine path in the average charage, with an extremely tight focus on the heroine and the protagonist's romance with her.  They are designed to make you fall in love with that particular heroine, to allow you to empathize with the course their love takes, and to let out the tears when the story demands it.  I cried numerous times the first and second times I played this VN, as the writer's rather poetic descriptions (inside Shin's head) of the heroines only make it easier to care about them and their relationships with Shin.
    The third element of this game that makes it great is the protagonist.  I honestly consider this protagonist - Miyami Mizuki (true name: Mizuki Shin) - to be the best trap protagonist in all of VNs.  First of all, he has been dressing up as a girl for so long that he does it quite naturally.  Second, he is fully voiced... every bit of his dialogue is voiced... and voiced in a manner that perfectly matches his character's personality as written.  Second, he is really, really good at whatever he puts his hand to.  He is a gourmet-level cook, a self-taught art-appraiser, a master of domestic chores (even the advanced ones that the head maid isn't familiar with, lol), and... a brilliant artist, though he has a trauma that prevents him from letting it out.  He is actually more girly than most of the girls in the VN, though he doesn't seem to be aware of it, hahaha...
    Chiharu
    Chiharu is Rena's bodyguard and a member of a family of bodyguards that has protected the Ootori family for centuries (Rena's family).  While she can sometimes take extreme actions, she is at heart a compassionate soul, with an intense desire to protect which led her to become a bodyguard despite certain physical disadvantages she possesses.  When alone with those few she is truly close to, she is rather straightforward in her affections, but she always puts others before her first, leading to trouble at times.  Her path is one of those few charage paths where I honestly felt that the romance was worth experiencing even on its own.  It helps that this writer is really, really good at portraying his characters' inner conflicts and emotions through narrating their thoughts. 
    One thing I absolutely love about this VN is Shin's (Mizuki's) poetic turn of phrase with internal narration.  I believe these lines are the best description of how Shin sees Chiharu.

    瑞希「……目が、きれいなんです」
    Mizuki "... Her eyes... are beautiful."
    怜奈「えっ……？」
    Rena "Eh...?"
    瑞希「お嬢様の隣にいるとき。千晴の目がきれいなんです」
    Mizuki "When she is at your side, Chiharu's eyes are beautiful."
    あんなにきれいなオレンジ、初めて見たんだ。――千晴の涙。
    I've never before seen such a beautiful orange.... Chiharu's tears.
    理屈じゃない。
    It has nothing do with reason or logic.
    仮にお嬢様が大洋だとすれば、千晴はその水底に落ちている、一個の石だと思う。
    If milady (Note: trying out a possible translation for ojousama as a title, lol) were to be seen as the ocean, I think Chiharu would be a stone lying at the bottom of it.
    でも僕はその石が好きなんだ。
    However, I love that stone.
    深い深い海の底で、人知れず輝きを放っている。誰に褒められたいわけでもなく、認められたいわけでもなく。
    Deep deep beneath that ocean's surface, she shines brilliantly, unknown to men.  She doesn't shine so that she will be praised or acknowledged by others. [note: took some liberties here]
    きっと宝石として大衆に愛でられる価値を秘めながら、ショーウィンドウへ並ぶことを拒み続ける。
    Though she is probably worth being adored by the public as a gem, she continually rejects being lined up in the store window.
    千晴は最後まで、海の底で『無価値』の原石であることを選ぶ。
    Chiharu will choose to lie at the bottom of the sea as a 'worthless' raw stone to the very end.
    海に寄り添うために。
    In order to nestle up to the ocean.
    海が広く深いと僕らに分かるのは、あの小さな石が落ちているからだ。
    The reason we can tell the ocean is deep and wide is because that small stone is sinking into it.
    あの不器用な小石が光っているから海は寂しくないし、もし誰かが溺れて迷いこんでも、その明かりを頼りに浮上できる。
    With that clumsy stone shining within it, the ocean will never be lonely, and if someone were to become lost and drowning there, they could rise to the surface, relying on the stone's light.
     
    Anastasia
    In this game, there are technically three 'sides' to the story as a whole... there are the Ootori-focused paths (Rena and Chiharu), the Karasuma paths (Yuki and Shizuku), and the stand-alone Anastasia path.  Anastasia is... a seemingly soft and kind-hearted woman on the surface.  However, it becomes obvious in her path that she is actually a mischievous, somewhat devilish young woman.  She is the curator of the museum seen in the prologue and the overall curator for the art fair that is held in the city toward the end of each path.  She does have a rather... unexpected secret however...
    Anyway, her path greatly differs from the other four paths in focus and rhythm, so I recommend that it be played last, since it partially spoils Rena's path.  While it has a rocky start in comparison to the others, it is nonetheless an excellently-written, high-quality path that is definitely worth reading.  On the popularity rankings, she got the lowest score (probably because her path's tone is so different from the others), and as a result, she doesn't have an after-story in the FD, but don't let that stop you from playing it, lol. 
    Rena
    Rena is the game's main heroine.  She is Shizuku's rival, Chiharu's master, and the daughter of the man who owns most of the town they live in (a fictional part of Tokyo repurposed into an Art Town).  She is very big-hearted, forgiving, and compassionate.  By choice, she wears her emotions on her sleeve, choosing to show her anger, her sorrow, and her joy on her face, restricting the display of her emotions in no way or manner when she is with those she trusts.  She tends to act on instinct, and she has a highly-developed sense of aesthetics, born out of being raised by and as an art-dealer and due to her own passion for art.  While not an artist herself, she nonetheless has an absolute devotion to the art world, and her evaluations of people tend to be colored by how they act toward art.  As such, she doesn't get along with the auctioneer Shizuku and despises Wolfgang (an annoying side-character and occasional antagonist). 
    Her path is perhaps the most complete when it comes to dealing with Shin's issues.  Shin, by nature, shapes himself and his desires to fit his environment, and his primary motivation is always to act for the sake of those he cares about (the heroines, in each path).  This is the one and only path where Shin comes to the fore as himself and the only path that reveals in full certain aspects of his past and current motivations.  At the same time, this path tends to be the most poetic of the paths, as he and Rena's attraction for one another is very... intense. 
    Note: The h-scenes in this path are very emotional and vital to the experience... don't skip them.  Normally I advise the reverse, but I make an exception for this game.
    Yuki
    Yuki is the protagonist's kouhai and a genius of modern art contracted with the Karasuma Corporation.  Shy and more than a little eccentric, Yuki by far has the 'cutest' characterization (right down to the dog-head pajamas she uses for work clothes).  Despite her sweet and innocent appearance, she has long experience with the bitter edge of society's tongue, and she has an intense dislike of the mass media.  She is the only heroine who has almost no relationship with the protagonist outside of her own path (she briefly appears in the common route and as a side-character in the other routes), but, in exchange, in her route, the relationship she develops with Shin is intense and close.
    One element of this game I've failed to speak about until now is the reason why I love the paths in this game... for better or worse, most charage paths involve the protagonist one-sidedly 'saving' the heroine from some trouble or helping her out with some issues.  However, perhaps the greatest attraction of this game's paths is that the relationships are so... mutual.  The protagonist doesn't just one-sidedly save the heroines, but rather he is saved by them in turn, rescued from the intense loneliness he feels even in the presence of others, as well as his bad habit of self-sacrifice.  The reciprocity in this game's paths makes for a far more 'equal' relationship than you usually see in a VN romance of any sort.
    Yuki's route is no exception... while the protagonist undoubtedly resolves the issues that plague her life, she also returns the favor by salving his spirit, saving him from himself in a way that can't help but bring tears to my eyes, even on a third playthrough.
    Shizuku
    Karasuma Shizuku is Rena's rival at school and in business.  Shizuku's family company is a second-line dealer, primarily auctioning off art pieces whose value has already been set by the art community, whereas Rena's Ootori family specializes in discovering and raising up new artists whose works have not yet been given a value by the art community.  In addition, the Karasuma corporation specializes in modern art, whereas the Ootori family specializes primarily in classical-style art like paintings, stone sculptures, and other such works.  Shizuku is extremely sharp-tongued and aggressive... with everyone except Shin.  She and Shin go way back... ten years back, to be specific, and when she sees him as a cross-dressing maid, she goes a bit berserk, jumping to all sorts of conclusions that make for some pretty hilarious events in the other paths.  In her own path... well, let's just say her path is a lot more comedic than the others at first. 
    By nature, Shizuku's first second and fourth priorities are Shin, even when it isn't her path.  She loves him, is aware of it, and she has little to no hesitation about using her immense fortune and personal influence for his sake.  She is also the only heroine that is willing to accept his decision without questioning when it comes to a certain issue... and probably the most passionately focused on him alone, as opposed to splitting their attention between art and him.   For better or worse, Rena is driven by a hunger for art, Chiharu by a desperate need to protect people and to find someone to accept her, and Yuki has numerous issues that are equal in importance to her when compared to the protagonist.  In that sense, it can be argued Shizuku is the most loving of the heroines, because she always acts for his sake, above all other things.
    It does, however, take a bit of effort to see beyond her cold mask in the other paths, lol.
     
    Conclusion
    Along with Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no  this VN is one of my top two charage-type VNs (in Uruwashi no's case, a nakige).  After having played this game a third time, my belief that this is a kamige has, if anything, become stronger.   This game is actually far shorter than it seems when you read it, but due to the sheer 'density' of the events in the game, it feels like a far larger story.  Any one of these paths would be worthy of being a true path in another VN, and it is a VN that is very easy to invest emotionally in.  For those interested in the fandisc, it should be noted that it had a different writing and production staff, and as a result, it is little more than an excuse for extra h-scenes. 
  3. Clephas
    Loli-Clephas recently emerged from Clephas' mouth, beginning a reign of terror in which billions have already perished, their blood staining her massive metal teeth, their flesh sliding down her throat. As the universe trembles at the unleashing of this, the most beautiful and terrible of all the monsters ever conceived in the depths of the Abyss, Clephas himself is busy playing VNs for his VN of the Month blog, having allowed his female self free reign to indulge her hungers for the first time in several billion years.

    Unfortunately for the otakus of the world, because the true Clephas wasn't paying attention, Loli-Clephas began her invasion of the 2D realm, devouring all of the heroines that the true Clephas hadn't claimed as his own, leaving a barren wasteland of VNs, role-playing games, and strategy-rpgs void of heroines, only white spaces and a few drops of animated blood left behind.

    Even now, Akibahara's denizens weep with despair, as their favorite heroines have vanished from their precious goods, the heads of their figures bitten off, their dakimakuras pure white, and their mousepads now flat and solid black.

    While Clephas has become aware of the situation, the power of 2D has tilted toward his loli-self, and the upcoming battle looks fit to erase this universe entirely from existence. The true Clephas rises from the depths of his eroge-hazed fog, his eyes blazing with an infinite hunger and love to match that of his counterpart, and the fabric of reality begins to resonate with the power of the two great monsters.

    Which of the endless devourers shall dominate the Infinite Stomach?!
  4. Clephas
    Shiiba Tsumugi

    Tsumugi is both a transfer student and the game's reverse trap. That said, she has a definite fondness for cute things, and the way she dresses is a special circumstance, so don't go in thinking she is a boyish heroine. She's actually quite the reverse.

    Her path is probably the most focused on the protagonist so far, with an even stronger focus on a certain aspect of the setting that is vital to all the paths. Since I'm avoiding spoilers here, I won't spell it out, especially since it isn't stated in any of the summaries.

    Tsumugi's path is well-written, with a surprising lack of excessive ichaicha, mostly because of the sheer difficulty of achieving an 'ichaicha-state' due to her personal problems. At the same time, the romance is surprisingly straightforward and 'normal', which means that you won't run into anything you wouldn't expect from two young people falling in love for the first time, when it comes to their reactions to the purely romantic aspects.

    I really liked how they touched more strongly upon parts of the fantasy setting that weren't really explored in the other paths, and the ending is quite satisfying, though - like all the others - the epilogue is still only based a relatively short time after the actual crisis of the story.
  5. Clephas

    Tokyo Babel

    By Clephas,

    Tokyo Babel is scheduled to be released pretty soon, so I decided to replay it.  As Propeller is one of my favorite companies and Tokyo Babel has a more or less permanent place in my top fifty (when the number of VNs you've played passes five hundred, fifty is a good place to be, lol), so this doesn't bother me.  Tokyo Babel is one of the few purely all-ages titles from Japan on the PC, and it is a chuunige of rare quality that was obviously written with one of a dozen or so pairs of eyes on Masada and the rest on an internal vision that more prudish Christians would probably call blasphemous.
    Tokyo Babel is not only the name of the game, it is also the name of the setting, a remade version of Purgatory floating in mid-air, where angels, humans, and demons are working together desperately in hopes that they can convince God to stop squishing the universes.  This is not a VN for the excessively religious to play... to be honest, there were moments when even I felt uncomfortable and I've never seriously adhered to any organized religion, though I was raised Christian. 
    Some of the major characters include Astaroth, Belial, Carmael, Uriel, and many other famous or infamous demons and angels.  The three heroines are Raziel, Kugutsu Sorami, and Lilith.  Raziel is the angel who recorded all of creation in her book, the Sefer Raziel (this is partially taken from various apocryphal mythology).  Kugutsu Sorami is the first character you meet in the VN, whose ignorant untainted perspective gives you your first clear insight into the world from a human perspective.  Lilith is the first wife of Adam, who left him and who lay down with demons and produced all the monsters of the world (book of Enoch). 
    Understand, like a lot of stories using Christian mythology, it uses bits and pieces from Milton's Paradise Lost, medieval literature, Gnostic ideas, and many other elements and branching-off literature that went off in all directions since the genesis of that particular faith.  One thing to keep in mind if you are a Christian and were raised to believe that Lilith never existed is that the Bible is not and has never been what we would call 'complete', as each version had bits and pieces grafted on or removed based on what the powerful and influential of an era or region felt was convenient, necessary, correct, and/or all of the above.  The Book of Enoch is one of dozens of 'books' not included in the accepted versions of the Bible, that were considered paradoxical in the eyes of the church of the time.  So... just keep an open mind when reading up on this kind of thing, because Wikipedia isn't exactly reliable when looking up religion-related facts.
    Now, setting philosophical, historical, and other issues aside... this is a pretty enjoyable VN on a lot of levels.  Propeller developed its own (fairly hilarious in my opinion) style of humor that is incorporated into the story, and its effect in Tokyo Babel is one of humanizing the characters.  I don't think a lot of people who read chuuni really understand how vital a few moments of humor can be in giving life to a character, even in this type of VN.  While Masada and his type choose another path, Propeller's writers generally choose to use humor as one of the elements of their characterization.  On another level, this VN is chuuni crack.  The protagonist is a self-hating guy with a dark past and a deathwish seven billion kilometers wide, but he also has an even stronger sense of responsibility toward those he comes to care about, which is seen in the heroine routes.  The situation is one fit to drive even the most optimistic mind to despair, and there are bad guys behind the curtains, waiting to push everyone in the abyss.
    In other words, this is one of those VNs that has almost an infinite capacity for fun in a chuuni sense of the word.
    The art style of this VN is... unique.  In some ways, it feels like an elaboration on Propeller's previously-preferred style, but it was actually done by a completely  different artist from their previous works and it does show in a lot of places.  In particular, the vivid designs you see on the more monstrous demons and monsters in the VN shows this off very well.  Leviathan (the giant serpent) and the Seven Beasts from Setsuna's sword are two of the more distinctive examples of this art-style, and ones that honestly impress me even today. 
    Sound-wise... I'll be straight.  There is no such thing as a bad Propeller sound track... well, until Sougeki no Jaeger anyway.  Tokyo Babel's isn't as good as Evolimit's, but that's kind of like saying that Sasaki Kojirou wasn't as good a swordsman as Musashi (token weabooism, lol).  Generally speaking, the songs in this VN vary to a surprising degree, ranging from techno tunes, to rock, and even a few hymn-like ones.  The one thing that unifies them is that none are poorly used, lol.
    Now... down to the story.  I've already described the basic concept above, but now I'll get into structure.  This VN is split into three major routes after a pretty short common route (the trial ends about the same time you are supposed to head into the heroine routes, from what I've heard).  Raziel's route is the one that keeps you furthest from the 'deepest truths' of the VN, and having played her route is pretty good preparation for Sorami's route, as Sorami's route reveals some things that might make it hard for some people to read Raziel's route and take it for what it is.  Raziel's route has a bad end that is seriously... bad.  However, it is also a highly-detailed and reasonably long diversion from the 'good' (this is debatable) ending.  Sorami's path has a good ending (bittersweet but technically a good ending), a normal ending (really sad...), and a bad ending (like Raziel's, it is fairly long).  Sorami's path has a different focus on the events in Tokyo Babel than Raziel's, and I've heard some people describe Raziel's, Sorami's, and Lilith's paths as the Angel, Human, and Demon paths in that order... However, that is a pretty generalized statement and one that doesn't really feel correct, lol.  Lilith's path... is the true path.  I'm going to be blunt.  If you are silly enough to try to do Lilith's path first, you'll deserve your inability to figure out a third of the references in the path, because it is constructed so that the information from the previous two paths feeds directly into the events in that one.  In other words, if you haven't played the other two paths, Lilith's path has a lot of potential for being confusing.  Lilith's path has three distinctive bad ends, one true end, and one 'Setsuna' end, which is a branch-off from the true one.  Lilith's path has some of the best battles in the VN, and there are no secrets left in shadow by the end, which makes it a great way to end things.
    A few thoughts about Propeller as a company... Propeller doesn't really produce that many overwhelmingly attractive heroines.  I'm pretty sure that this is deliberate, as there is a definite tendency toward the story being more important than the heroines in these VNs.  For people accustomed to the extreme character focus that defines a lot of VNs, this has a potential to be problematic...  Take Ayakashibito, for instance... how many of you really, seriously were obsessed with the romantic aspects of the VN (if you read it)?  There are even heroines in Propeller games that are actually deliberately made to seem bland (the elf in Bullet Butlers, for instance) or somehow unattractive for situational/emotional reasons (Kaori in Ayakashibito).  This is a part of their style, which calls for heroines to not take up the whole of the limelight in the VN, and it is one of the reasons I honestly find their VNs so enjoyable, other than the sheer chuunige nougat that makes my mouth water.
    Overall, while Tokyo Babel is no Dies Irae, it does have a high level of quality, as well as being one of the few chuunige to dare to avoid the 'perfect happy ending' that has become standard even in many VNs of the type in recent years (for some reason, bittersweet endings are less popular these days...).   It can definitely play on your emotions at times (especially the endings), and there is just enough humor to keep the VN as a whole from being unbearably heavy.  Of course, if you dislike gloomy protagonists who don't really understand other people very well, there might be some abrasive moments in this VN for you... but Setsuna comes by that particular set of flaws honestly, so I never held it against him, lol. 
  6. Clephas
    First, I should state that Monobeno is an unapologetic lolige. The extent the writers went to to make this game a lolige (even in Alice's path) is so ridiculous I had to sigh in exasperation. Sadly, it also has one of the best plots and some of the best characters you can see in a VN. Like this company's previous VN, Gothderi, dismissing it because it is a lolige is a huge mistake.



    I played the original version of Monobeno, where all the endings were extremely bittersweet and vague, and what I can say about this is that the after-stories provided give closure and really do remake this into a VN with happy endings, as promised. The actual original story hasn't changed significantly, and thus I'll mostly just note that the events in each path tended to be hectic, and almost universally it ended sadly/badly for certain characters.

    This also adds the story of Hishakaku and Tsumi, which was a huge benefit. Hishakaku (also known as Buppougataki Daisannyou Hishakaku) is the umbrella youkai that helped raise the protagonist and Sumi (the akashaguma youkai who is one of the heroines), and he is a natural protector, who reminds me of Auron from FFX, if you added thirty years, grandfatherly love, and a sense of humor. This story is unbelievably beautiful and sad, and it adds a lot of background to Hishakaku, while also leading you into the after stories of the various routes. (I cried a lot for the end of Sumi's after story because of this)

    Sumi's route focuses on the youkai/supernatural approach to the main conflict of the story, and as a result it varies greatly from Alice's (who is the other side, which focuses on the scientific approach). The romance, which comes to flower amidst the search for the truth of what is going on, is made more interesting by the fact of the protagonist and Sumi's intense interdependence before their parting years before the story began. The main route's ending is bittersweet, causing tears to fall in abundance before you move on to the after story.

    Sumi's after-story is actually about the same length as her original story, with just as many interesting events. Sumi and the protagonist's daughter, Emi, is an adorable little girl who has a nose for trouble and a tendency to run straight toward it... but she also inherited her mother's ability to bless with good luck and it is all directed to herself, so she generally survives it well. The progression of this story is focused on the interactions of humans and youkai, their differences, and why not all youkai can live with humans. A lot of the issues you might not have been able to come to terms with through the original path are much easier to do so here. Most importantly, this brings a full conclusion to the conflict of the original story... and Hishakaku is showed off at his best in a dramatic scene toward the end that had me in tears of mixed happiness and sorrow.
  7. Clephas

    Ryuukishi Bloody†Saga

    By Clephas,

    Ryuukishi is the sequel to Ryakudatsusha no In'en, which was released last month... or rather, Ryakudatsusha is a prelude/prequel to this game.  However, the fundamental nature of the game has changed greatly.  For one thing, this VN lacks the constant rape and mutilation scenes that were so a part of Ryakudatsusha...
    ... well not entirely.  There is only one rape scene, and there are a few guro scenes.  However, those scenes are not nearly as dominant as the ones in Ryakudatsusha.  For those who liked the prelude, this game might be a bit of a shock to the system.
    Anyway, this VN is based some time after the events in Ryakudatsusha, and Roy's manner and appearance have changed greatly.  The grim adolescent of the first game has become a smiling young wandering apothecary, and his sword is now no longer in evidence.  The setting is in a walled city at the foot of a mountain where a fire dragon lairs.  Despite attacks by the dragon at irregular intervals, the city has thrived for several centuries, and its knights have systematized the process of sacrificing their lives to draw the dragon away from the civilians, knowing they can do nothing else. 
    The tone of this game, despite its frequently bloody/gory events, is far milder than Ryakudatsusha.  There is some slice-of-life, which is mostly used for deepening the connection to the setting and heroines, as well as progressing the story.  There are also some seriously good fights in this game, as Roy sometimes is forced to show his old skills in order to protect the four female knights who serve as the harem/heroines for the game (yes, it is a harem, lol). 
    The actual progression of the game is kinetic, with all the choices merely creating changes in individual scenes, rather than the story itself.  The setting itself retains the darkness of Ryakudatsusha, while leavening the blood-soaked dough that is this particular fantasy world with lighter and gentler moments.
  8. Clephas
    One thing I've noticed over the last seven years is that people frequently have subtly different opinions than I do, and I get asked frequently how I can play so many moege/charage despite the fact that it isn't my preferred genre. 
    The answer is relatively simple... I read about 20 times faster than most of the rest of you - with the exception of a few bibliophiles.  What is a true chore, taking up tens of hours for you, might very well only be a short eight to ten hours for me.  Reading that fast - whether in English or Japanese - gives me a greatly different perspective than a lot of the others here.
    1.  Stamina- My stamina for reading in general and reading VNs in particular is far higher than the rest of you.  Fundamentally, the idea of breaking a VN up over the course of weeks or months is alien to me, since even the longest ones will only take me about thirty hours (even in a busy week, I can usually manage to squeeze that in during breaks and meals). 
    2.  Stress- Because VNs aren't drawn out for me, I don't suffer through the slice of life and daily scenes like some of you do.  I can sit back and enjoy what I'm reading without feeling any stress whatsoever from the reading itself, as long as the VN isn't too bad.   In addition, even scenes too difficult to read for the average VN-player are relatively simple for me to read, so i don't get significantly stressed out by that factor either.
    3.  Stimulation- One of the reasons people tend to get tired of VNs is a lack of stimulation due to low reading speed.  I read fast enough that a good VN's stimulation will be close to constant, whereas a slow reader will sometimes come to feel 'in-between' scenes that are meant to be short and informative as painful and long.
    4.  Pleasure in reading- The act of reading in itself can bring me something close to sexual pleasure if what I'm reading is interesting.  The reason I like chuunige is because to me, the stimulation from a good chuunige is actually better than sex.  There is always something going on and that something is usually meant to shake up the emotions or engage the intellect.  Since, for me, reading something like this really does give me so much pleasure, I can honestly say that concerns about length don't bother me at all, lol.
    5.  Burnout- I burnout less often than you (this applies to most people so I'm saying it in general to the community, apologies to those this doesn't apply to).  For me, burnout is a process that takes months, usually when there has been only charage for two to three months in a row (thus leading to insufficient stimulation to keep me sane).  There is another type of burnout that I experience when I play a truly great VN... but this is something that is almost like that feeling you get after a night of good sex, so it is closer to 'pleasurable exhaustion'. 
     
    So, for those who wanted a reference for what it is like to be me when it comes to VNs, there you have it.
     
  9. Clephas

    Ren'ai x Royale

    By Clephas,

    This is the latest game by ASa Project, a company that rose up during the Golden Age of VNs, making a name for themselves as solid comedy charage makers.  To this day, their style hasn't changed significantly, but in some ways that gives them an advantage over modern charage, which tend to be less comedy-focused (actually, most newer charage makers don't seem to know how to make the readers laugh anymore).  
    This game is focused on the harem of a young man named Hirotaka.  The situation is, structure-wise, a classic 'all the girls already love the protagonist' setting, a style that you don't see as often anymore.  Instead of the girls getting along and being friendly (the more common modern iteration of this setup), is almost 90% the girls fighting over Hiro.  Moreover, the girls are so over the top I couldn't stop laughing throughout the common route, to the point where my voice got hoarse by the end of the day.
    There are four main heroines and two sub-heroines with one bad ending extra heroine and two male-oriented 'normal endings'.  The main heroines are: The returning idiot osananajimi who throws everything into chaos with her return to town, Mari; the narcissistic and more than a little perverted (too self-absorbed to realize she is a pervert) Shione; the yandere-ish little sister, Nonoka; and the idol who constantly goes back and forth between being a straightforward deredere heroine and deliberately acting cute, Renna.  The sub-heroines include the popular idol Yuuna and the class president Ikuyo.
    Something important to note about this VN is that the constant byplay with the side-characters contributes a great deal to the comedy and bringing the heroines to life, another technique that requires skill that most modern charage writers lack.  The fact that Hiro is something of a forgetful airhead (who happens to be handsome and subconsciously seduces heroines without even realizes he's doing it) as well as being a bit crazy also helps, since it generally means that things never really ease up or calm down.
    Yuuna
    Yes, I did a sub-heroine first... but most people who get through the common route will understand why.  There are just too many reasons to pick Yuuna for a first heroine, even aside from her being an interesting character.  Though I call Yuuna a sub-heroine, she is actually a strong enough heroine with a long enough path to be called a main heroine.  
    Her path  is mostly straight-up ichaicha and dealing with the main heroines insane levels of jealousy (seriously), as well as planning for the future.  It is generally heart-warming while also keeping the comedic atmosphere of the common route.  I liked that the path had a 'years later' epilogue.  
    Renna
    I had to play Renna's path after Yuuna's, because I wanted a good comparison between a sub-heroine path and a related main heroine path.  Renna is Yuuna's understudy and younger partner in the idol group Gloria Snow.  Renna is a pretty straightforward character who uses a 'cute' persona to seduce the protagonist.  In all honesty, since Yuuna was my favorite from the beginning, I kind of wanted this to be a 3P path, but ASa seems to be ignoring the trend toward such paths, lol.  
    Like Yuuna's path, this one felt like an extension of the common route, with perhaps a bit more in the way of drama (short drama that doesn't really add anything to the experience) and about the same amount of ichaicha.  So, for those who just want the ichaicha comedy, it is roughly equivalent to Yuuna's path in those terms.  
    Shione
    I'm going to be blunt... this is the path that kind of made me stop playing the game.  It wasn't that it wasn't funny... but as a heroine, Shione's clumsy attempts to take control of the relationship made me nearly go crazy.  This path spent way too much time dancing around instead of getting to the point, and as a result, I felt like it took a lot of fun out of the more humorous moments.  
    Conclusion
    For fans of old-style comedy harems where the girls are constantly at each other's throats, this is actually a great VN.  If you want romance, it isn't.  I say this because, except for Yuuna's path, the romance is the weakest part of the game.  The heroines are mostly psycho (makes for great humor and catfights, but not so much for romance), so, while I spent a great deal of time laughing, I didn't get much out of the romance.  I did like that the girls never did stop trying to reclaim Hiro, even after he chose one of them... the way girls always seem to give up entirely in other VNs always struck me as odd.
  10. Clephas

    Tamayura Mirai

    By Clephas,

    Tamayura Mirai is the latest game by Azurite, the company behind Shinsou Noise and Akumade Kore wa.  Unlike the previous two, it is not a guro mystery.  Instead, it is a fantasy with an extremely similar setting to Monobeno (which had a great setting, even if the lolicon elements were outright disgusting).  It also shares a writer (Touta) with such excellent games as Kin'iro Loveriche, Floral Flowlove, Gin'iro Haruka, and Ojousama wa Gokigen Naname.  
    Before I go any further, I want to speak as to why I compared the setting to Monobeno.  Fukano, the town/valley in which the story is set, is a backwater where youkai, humans, and deities coexist.  Folk traditions, such as deities within the home, are still alive and well, if not entirely understood (the death of the last folk shaman in the area ensured that, from what is said).  The protagonist's role is very similar to the role of the miko in Monobeno (keeping harmony and balance between the supernatural and mortal), and, though the younger generation isn't, a certain level of superstition remains in the older generation.  In addition, the protagonist's choice to live isolated in the mountains in a run-down and modified old Japanese school (think the school from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni) also echoes the isolation of the protagonist's home in Monobeno.  That said, the atmosphere in the game isn't as severe as Monobeno's, though the protagonist's 'duty' is harrowing at times.
    All that said, this is definitely its own game.  The general atmosphere is a bit somber, and the characters all have some kind of serious problem that leaves them a lot less at peace than they seem on the surface (the protagonist included).  The protagonist is a mage who wields runic magic (Norse shamanic style), and he has the role of keeping peace the mixed-origin supernatural community of Fukano, the setting.  He lives in an abandoned school in the mountains with a succubus named Midari, who has the dual problems of being afraid of men and deeply fearing her own nature (though her upbringing shows through at the oddest times).  At the school he attends, he frequently meets with a water spirit information broker named Hanako (one of the heroines).  Occasionally, he meets up with his oppai-loli 'oneechan' (who is very childish and has a really poorly-executed accent that just comes off all wrong in the VA...). 
    The story begins with his encounter with Yukina, a girl with naturally high levels of spiritual energy who is completely untrained (and is thus a danger to herself and everyone around her, since youkai and monsters can gain power by eating such people, and others make assumptions about what she can do based on her spiritual power).  I won't go into details about their meeting, because this is a game best experienced the first time without too many preconceptions.
    This is essentially a nakige, and it does a pretty good job of bringing out the tears.  The protagonist's duty often brings him into contact with situations where he must deal with various tragedies, sometimes from the present, sometimes from the past.  His own previous life isn't exactly bright and flowery either, lol.  The protagonist has a tendency to see himself as weak and selfish, but he has a seemingly endless capacity for getting obsessed with solving other people's problems... which actually makes him perfect for his work (considering the nature of the mountain deity and certain hints given during the common route, it is pretty clear that he was given his role specifically because of that tendency). 
    The heroine routes, quite naturally, focus on the issues with the heroines... to be specific, dealing with the issues that bother them the most deeply.  Equally quite naturally, the first heroine I picked was Midari, the succubus.
    Midari
    Midari is a member of the succubus nobility who was exiled from her homeland because of her fear of men and inability to feed properly (essentially have sex with men...and lots of them, preferably).   Worse (from her perspective), she fell in love with the protagonist on their first meeting, thus dooming her in the eyes of her people and filling her with a constant conflict between her impulses and her love for the protagonist.
    Midari has a very gentle and refined manner, and she has the grace that one would expect from a noblewoman...  However, on occasion, she makes remarks (usual casual references to sex acts or her sisters and mother's sluttiness) that reveal rather blatantly that she isn't human and her basic upbringing wasn't either.  Her path is all about dealing with her internal conflict and its real-world consequences... and this leads to a lot of nice emotional drama and a decent catharsis... though, to be honest, the cathartic scenes two-thirds of the way through the common route were better.
    Hanako
    For those who understand the reference, yes Hanako does hang around in the girls' toilet.  Hanako is a water youkai that came over from China six hundred years before the story began and eventually rose to become one of the top figures of all the water youkai in Fukano.  She is actually pretty powerful, and she serves as an information broker for Mutsuki (the protagonist) as he performs his duty as the Mage of Fukano. 
    Hanako's route is a weird one and it isn't as emotional as Midari's route was.  To be honest, a large part of the reason why is that the relationship part starts really quickly and feels somewhat forced...  Hanako has a reason to like Mutsuki, but Mutsuki doesn't really have a good reason to fall in love with her, so it feels weird.  This is in opposition to Midari, who has been at his side for some time when the story began and is insanely devoted to his well-being (not to mention sexy and graceful at the same time, lol).  This route could have been handled much better by using a tactic similar to the Midari route, where they become closer during the course of him carrying out his duties... unfortunately, the way the route was handled was sadly inept for such a potentially interesting heroine.
    Yukina
    Yukina is a young woman with a natural gift for the use of spiritual power (so much so that she can attack youkai with her bare hands and blasts of raw energy).  Her characterization is a straight out tsundere, so anyone who reads this VN with some experience with the character type will probably be able to predict her reactions in most situations.  I started laughing at a few points when she said something so typically tsundere that I couldn't believe any writer would still use the lines...lol
    Yukina's route is all about her personal issues, both her past and her present ones.  I do feel that this route's romance was far too hurried (like Hanako's) in the sense that their relationship should have had more time to develop into something deeper before things began to accelerate.  
    That said, the actual events after the romance solidifies are well-written and described, and you gain a lot more insight into Mutsuki's motivations and the depth of his personality than you do in the other paths.  I recommend this path be read after the other two heroines available at the beginning, simply because the revelations made here are too overarching to allow you to truly enjoy the other paths without reservation.
    Shiro
    Shiro is the protagonist's loli-oppai oneechan, who speaks with a weird houben (regional accent) that is poorly used by the VA to the point of being wince-worthy (yes, this is worth mentioning again).  
    Shiro and Mutsuki's issues are the core of everything that has shaped Mutsuki to be the person he is.  As such, it was only natural that Shiro would end up as the true path heroine... indeed, her path begins after the end of a non-romantic Yukina path.  I'm not going to spoil what those issues are, but I should note that Shiro was the motivation that drove Mutsuki to become a magus. 
    In the setting, magi are seekers of forbidden truths, similar in some ways to the magi of the Nasuverse save that they don't seem to have a large-scale organization or influence on the mundane world.  As such, they frequently take actions that are amoral in the pursuit of their path of research, and many naturally think in ways that are out of sync with humanity.   The Mage of Fukano is a rare exception, in that the deities of Fukano have made a role for the holder of the position in the natural existence of the valley and mountains.
    Mutsuki's path of research is about as immoral as it gets, even if he still has a conscience and his motivations come from a very human place.  As such, it takes a central role in the major dilemma of the path, as anyone who has read Yukina's path would guess anyway. 
    In the end, this was the path (other than the common route) which drew out the most tears from me.  Shiro and Mutsuki's story is full of sorrow but ends with joy, so I can honestly say this falls into the classic 'nakige' style. 
    Conclusions
    I have a few things left I want to say before bowing out on this game.  First, I wanted a Feles (Mephistopheles) route, since Feles is ridiculously deredere (in a yandere way) over the protagonist.  Another issue is that I thought that leaving the protagonist's deeper issues out of Midari's and Hanako's paths was something of a poor choice.  Yukina is presented as a mirror to the protagonist as well as a heroine, so it is understandable that she would play such a vital role for setting up the true path.  However, I felt that failing to properly deal with his personal issues in either of those two paths was a mistake.  Mutsuki does have VERY serious issues that can't really be glossed over... not to mention that I seriously doubt Midari's issues would end just with what we saw in the path (living with a succubus in a state of perpetual near-starvation will inevitably have its ups and downs). 
     
     
  11. Clephas
    How many of you started reading VNs, manga, or watching anime solely because the girls were so adorable?  I wasn't one of those (I began with Record of Lodoss War, lol), but Ai Yori Aoshi and Love Hina introduced me to the concept of the 'moe-heroine'.  Whether it was their way of speaking, their looks, or their attitude, moe heroines became an integral part of the otaku experience at some point (well, the male-oriented one anyway), and I actually don't have any problems with that.  I have lots of fond memories of moe-heroines (since almost all VN heroines and anime heroines nowadays are done like this, to one degree or another).
    However, as I've dug deeper and deeper into the VN universe (I realized this with anime long ago) I came to realize... all the heroines were beginning to melt together into one big moe blob inside my back-brain.  This is because very few heroines stand out enough to remain distinct in my mind from all the other, similar heroines inside my brain. 
    Understand, I never really experienced the 'blob of moe heroines' phenomenon until the last five years or so... first with anime, then (two years ago) with VNs.  As a result, it is harder and harder to find 'standard' heroines interesting in and of themselves... their situation and setting have to be interesting enough to keep me from abandoning them emotionally. 
    Do you want to know how many heroines remain distinct in my brain from the last three years of playing VNs?  Just thirty-three... and that is from well over seven hundred heroines whose routes I've completed in that time.  Frankly, even if I find an archetypical heroine interesting for a single playthrough, it is a rare heroine who makes an impression strong enough to retain her individuality in the collective VN memory of my under-psyche. 
    I once mentioned this to a newbie VN-player (naturally a moe-gamer) and he essentially blasted me about how I was a blasphemer against the pure love of 2D... 
    My response was, quite naturally, explosive laughter which I didn't bother to put into text. 
    How many people do you actually remember in real life as a distinct human being without meeting them every day (or at least with some frequency)?  Even if you see 2D as a real world, do you seriously think someone who has gone so far down the road of the VN otaku as I and some others in the community have to remember every single heroine they've encountered? 
    I'm fortunate.  I have a natural gift for storing episode memory, so if I start replaying a VN, I generally remember the heroines and their paths almost immediately.  However, expecting me to remember yet another tsundere osananajimi amongst hundreds of others off the top of my head after a year is fundamentally ridiculous, in my opinion (real example... also one of the two most common archetypes, along with the deredere osananajimi). 
    This doesn't necessarily mean the VN in question is bad... it just means the heroine is one I've seen dozens of times before, placed in different situations with a different appearance.  Some of the heroines I forget until I'm reminded about are from truly wonderful VNs... but that has absolutely no effect on whether I can remember them without some serious effort, lol.
    For my fellow vets... are you any different?
  12. Clephas
    Togakushi Touko

    Touko is the 'oneesan-senpai' of the group. She takes pleasure in teasing others, making jokes, and generally maintaining a light atmosphere.

    Her path is perhaps the least straightforward so far... mostly because the issues are a bit less than predictable if you aren't used to seeing potential difficulties based upon minimal setting cues. I will say that I did like her as a heroine... but I didn't like her as much as Meguru or Nene. The simple reason for this is that her presence in the common route is so faint, so you don't really get the attachment to her in advance that you get with Meguru or Nene. In fact, I'm fairly sure about seventy percent of the people who read this VN will say 'I liked her path, but I'm not sure if I really got attached to her.' This leads to a definite lack of emotional impact for the crises in the later part of the path, at least in my case.


    Look forward to Shiiba Tsumugi, next time!
  13. Clephas
    ... I'm going to be blunt about this... I can't  believe this was written by the same guy who wrote Nekopara, Sakura Bitmap, and Strawberry Nauts.  This VN has an overwhelming degree of impact compared to his other works, to the point where I'm even willing to consider it a kamige.  Music, music-usage, story, presentation, art, and art usage are all at their highest levels, combining to create a nakige whose impact is far out of proportion to its length (which is only about seven hours, for me). 
    I honestly wasn't expecting the emotional impact of this VN.  In terms of this quality, it approaches Houkago no Futekikakusha, without being an utsuge... I literally cried throughout the entire game, to the point where my sinuses are swollen and my eyes bloodshot.  From the very beginning, this game makes no pretense at being anything other than what it is... a cathartic trip full of love, despair, sorrow, and loss with a drop of hope. 
    I won't spoil you as to the central concept, even though it is tempting.  Based on the fact that no details of the setting other than the characters are revealed in any detail on either the official website or the Getchu page, in addition to my own experience, I can say straight out that this is a VN best enjoyed without someone giving you details to the setting or situation.  I will say that it is a fantasy setting, based in a world that has early nineteenth-century tech (no guns that I saw though), based on the presence of an ice box and ice sellers in the game.  This is also based on the fact that matches exist but electric lights apparently don't, since the characters are using candles and oil lamps. 
    This game is pretty short, mostly due to its structure, where heroine 'paths' only come into existence after the main story is over, as epilogues for each of the four individual heroines (Haru, Yuki, Kotose, and Ren).  There is no 'true' heroine in this game, for those are wondering.  All the heroines are quite literally equal, though the protagonist is a bit more intimate with Ren and Haru, which is probably more of a reflection of the writer's preferences than anything else.
    This game is 100% 'business', including the slice-of-life scenes.  Not one scene in this VN is wasted on something other than portraying the characters' suffering and joy or progressing the story.  To be blunt, if this game weren't so perfectly designed, I'd probably be calling it 'bare-bones' in that aspect.  That lack of wasted time is actually of immense help, as it prevents the phenomenon of 'contempt due to familiarity' that tends to occur when a VN has an excess of 'meaningless' slice-of-life scenes. 
    This VN isn't humor-centric, so don't expect a lot of laughs out of it.  The heroines have serious issues, and even in everyday life, those issues peek out from beneath the surface on a regular basis.  As a result, humorous situations are relatively limited after the setting's central issue gets introduced to you and you come to understand the protagonist's objective.
    Unfortunately, there is little more I can say about this VN without ruining it for you.  I can say it is a first-class nakige, and I can say it is a cry-fest designed to suck the tears out of you with a virtual vacuum cleaner.  However, that is just a repeat of what I said above.  I do advise that anyone who goes into this VN should do so without excessive prior knowledge, as it is a VN that is best enjoyed with a 'clean slate' the first time around.
    VN of the month November 2016
    Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana
  14. Clephas

    Baldr Bringer (dropped)

    By Clephas,

    Understand, I loved the Baldr series, before Heart... even Heart still retained a lot of what was great about the series, though it placed too much emphasis on the less interesting elements.  The Baldr series is literally Giga's only good IP, and as such, it is the only reason I even bother with this company.
    Unfortunately, it looks like Giga has set out to destroy its costly but greatest IP, ending it on a sour note.
    Baldr Bringer, from what I have played of it, has very little story in comparison to the amount of battling you do.  I have so far spent twelve hours in battle and a bare thirty minutes of storytelling.  Moreover, most of that thirty minutes were meaningless conversations with the flat, two-dimensional heroines who are partial copies of people from the various game settings of previous games of the series (Elmi is from Zero's world, Carol is from Force's world, and Toiro is from the Heart setting). 
    Worse is that the only part that has felt like story so far is the very first part, where Hyuji is waking up and meets Eris. 
    Like all the games in this series, the battles take a lot out of you, because they are fast paced bullet hells... without the lock-on function of previous games.  Without the lock on function, the controls become excessively complex, and the slow movement of your mech makes it even worse (literally, you are moving at a slow walk the entire time).  Moreover, in order to progress heroine events, the solution is to kill enemies with the weapon they are associated with... a task that can be painfully time-consuming, depending on the weapon.
    I'm going to be blunt, Giga went all-out in order to disappoint the fanbase here.  It had to have been deliberate, because Giga knows very well what people seek from the series.  The interface is junk, you only have the auto-save function, and choices only serve to create slightly different conversation flows.
    In other words, as a VN, this is undeniably a kusoge.  It requires too much battle time to reach sparse story segments that generally last less than a minute each, and then you get tossed right back onto the battlefield.  In previous games, the ratio was a lot more even, with story segments often going on for hours, depending on what kind they were. 
    Edit: To be a bit clearer, the original Baldr battle system, in its final form as seen in Baldr Heart, is something like a beat-em-up with fighting game combos, guns and cool OP special attacks.  While it is easy to play, it is far deeper than it seems on the surface, requiring high levels of player skills to beat the most powerful bosses on normal and masterful skills to beat any of the bosses on the harder difficulties.  The sheer variety of potential combos based on what moves and weapons you have stickied to the buttons made it fun to play, in and of itself.  The system seen in Baldr Bringer is greatly simplified, with you basically equipping one main firearm, one back weapon, and one close-ranged weapon.  Instead of overheating when you use too many moves in a row, you run out of ammo if you use the same weapon too much... but firearms can be recharged just by using the close-range weapons.  There is no lock-on, but the system as a whole is basically a third-person, top-down shooter.
    Unfortunately, in order to make that manageable, both your speed and the speed of your enemies is greatly reduced from what you would have seen in Heart or Sky, and as a result, you end up fighting long running battles that extend across multiple maps, taking far more time than is reasonable for a VN hybrid.  I'd say that the average series of battles in Bringer takes about seven times as long as a series of battles in Heart or Sky.  As a result, you end up spending massive amounts of time fighting, to be rewarded with relatively little, considering the lack of a strong ongoing story. 
    Edit2: One of the biggest problems with this game, besides the overwhelming amount of gameplay, was the way they handled heroine interactions (let's set aside issues with how two-dimensional the heroines are in the first place).  Heroine interactions can be chosen at any point of the game if you have the necessary level with their associated weapon type.  Linking the affections of the heroines to weapon experience is, in and of itself, annoying, seeing as firearms in general take longer to level up than close-range weapons.  However, even more annoying is the way heroine interactions have no place within the story itself.  This 'un-moored romance' leads to even more disconnect with the story aspects mentally and emotionally, and as a whole, makes it feel irrelevant.  I managed to get up to the eighth event with Carol (not a hard task, considering how fast the knife levels up) before I dropped the game, and the disconnect only gets worse the more you progress with an individual heroine.  Overall, the whole thing feels like a regression, even compared to charage.  It feels like the tacked-on romances of some jrpgs that experimented with the like back in the middle of the previous decade, where it was somewhat less than satisfying for similar reasons.
  15. Clephas
    This is perhaps one of the few games from my first five years playing untranslated VNs that isn't a chuunige that I remembered vividly.  I decided to pick this up again because I wanted some good catharsis, and I was tired of waiting for Mangagamer to get off their butts and actually release this. 
    Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta wake is what is called a 'soft utsuge', in the sense that there are no good endings but it focuses more on the bittersweet sorrow rather than the absolute despair of a 'hard utsuge' like Houkago no Futekikakusha.  Each of the first three heroines has a bad and a normal ending, and no matter what you choose, darkness awaits.  The fourth heroine, the angel Aine, is the true heroine and only has one ending (the true ending) which is also bittersweet, though there is some sense of salvation for the protagonist, albeit at a price. 
    The first three heroines are the aggressively helpful osananajimi (who is the only one of the heroines who knows his past) Naruko, the soft-mannered but somehow gloomy Yuri, and the standoffish Minamo.  Thankfully, only Naruko falls into an archetypical role (osananajimi characters have a very limited range of roles), which is nice for someone looking for something with unusual heroines. 
    This game focuses on a sort of tug of war between the apparently apathetic Kirinokojima Tomoe, who actively loathes romance in general, and the optimistic clumsy angel Aine, who believes in romance as the ultimate force for human happiness with all her heart.  Tomoe is kind-hearted under his apparently apathetic exterior, inevitably caring about what happens to the people Aine wants to help, but his belief that romance only brings suffering and is a force for evil in the world is so strong that he is constantly wavering on whether to go along with Aine or not.  This conflict, though it is not one born of malice, defines the main storyline, as the characters worry about what is best for the people involved.
    The first six chapters of the game are the common route, and each chapter covers a different romantic mess that draws Aine's attention.  These messes are never simple nor easily resolved, and regardless of which path Tomoe chooses in the end, nothing turns out perfectly.  The seventh chapter covers the heroine routes, which are much more intimate and have an impact that quite naturally surpasses that of the arcs of the common route.
    Yuri
    I advise anyone who plays this game to play Naruko's route third, regardless of which of the other two paths you do first.  I say this because Aine's (the true path) splits off immediately before you would otherwise head into Naruko's route... 
    Yuri's route is pretty... sick-minded.  Sorry, the writer of this game probably has a serious mental illness, and I shouldn't be insensitive about it, lol.  Anyway, there are hints of what Yuri's conflict is in the common route, but it escalates rapidly once you actually get to her route and her personal issues are laid bare.  Tbh, Yuri's route is the most horrifying of the initial three routes for reasons that become obvious to anyone who plays it, and I wept at the normal ending and was somewhat disgusted at the bad ending (both times). 
    Minamo
    Minamo's route is a bit less psychotic than Yuri's... but in exchange, the issues are more 'worldly' and familiar to the average reader.  The central conflict involves Minamo's work as an idol and a combination of her past issues, family issues, and the inevitable problems of a celebrity in Japan getting involved romantically with someone else.  While this path is milder than Yuri's, it is a lot easier to empathize with, and it also epitomizes Tomoe's nature to a greater degree than the other two paths. 
    I didn't bother with the bad ending this time, instead going for just the normal one.  The normal ending is bittersweet and strikes me as the ending that most fits Tomoe's personality outside of the true ending.  It is sad, though.
    Naruko
    This is by far my least favorite path in the game, though it isn't just because I dislike osananajimi paths.  I won't go deep into why I didn't like this path either time I played it, because I don't want to spoil anything important, but I will go ahead and cover the spoiler-free issues.  This path is the only one of the first three paths that actually touches upon the reason for Tomoe's apathetic/asexual personality, and it also is the only one that touches upon the truth of what the angels work is.  As such, it is absolutely vital that you play it before the true route even if you want to go straight to it, since the explanation isn't repeated in the true route.  Moreover, Naruko's route's normal ending serves as an example of the game's true central conflict that is vital for understanding the true route.
    True Route
    What can I say about the true route/Aine route?  It is by far the best path in the game (though the ending is still deeply bittersweet), and after you finish it, there is a sense of salvation for Tomoe that doesn't exist in any of the other paths.  I say a sense of salvation, but it is salvation at a cost, as is typical of every blessing any character in this game experiences.  This path reveals the fullness of why Tomoe hates himself to the point where he rejects all possibility of happiness for himself, and, to be honest, I replayed the rest of the paths solely so I could re-experience the heart-jerking events of this route in the same manner I did the first time. 
    I can recommend this to someone who wants catharsis and doesn't mind a darker atmosphere than you would see in a nakige.  It is also something I can recommend to utsuge lovers (if you liked Swan Song for the emotional elements, there is a good chance you'll like this).  I do not recommend this for people who want undiluted happy endings.
  16. Clephas
    I'm going to be blunt... for some reason, the 'Otome' series of trap-protagonist ojousama-ge by Ensemble seems to be incapable of fulfilling the promise of Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas in any of its follow-up games.  Koi no Canvas was, for better or worse, one of the single best charage I've ever played, with strong characterizations for all of the characters (including the protagonist) full voices for all characters (later Otome series games all had voiced protagonists, though), and superlative individual paths with an actual story tailor-made to match both the protagonist and the individual heroines.  
    Unfortunately, none of the Otome series games since has gotten anywhere close to doing what Koi no Canvas managed, and this one isn't an exception.  I will say that it starts out really well... the protagonist is fully-voiced and capable in his own field (in this case cooking), and his actions throughout the VN show him to be competent... but the romantic portions, the characterization of the heroines, and the actual development of the heroine paths are all... second-rate.  The few good points in this VN stand out so well precisely because the rest is so poorly-done. 
    As an example, the humor is actually pretty good, and the protagonist's reactions to most situations are either funny or ones that leave you with a positive impression of him.
    Unfortunately, there are certain aspects that absolutely drive me insane reading this VN.  The heroine routes are truncated and devoid of drama (seriously, you can't have ojousama-ge without a controlling parent or a character with major personal issues, but none of that really exists here).  The romance is sudden and makes little sense.  Worse, it is pretty much impossible to develop an emotional connection even to the protagonist, because every time it seems like they might sadden you with his past (he is an orphan, for instance), they deliberately cut it short or interject the protagonist's general lack of care for the issue in question.
    After Koi no Canvas, this series has continually sabotaged itself with this kind of BS, and I'm actually crying right now at the sheer wasted potential of the characters in this story.  It is obvious the writer wanted to do more, as well... because there are a lot of signs throughout the heroine routes of cut scenes or abrupt story movements that seem awkward/amateurish.  Considering the experience of this team, even aside from this series, it seems a bit ridiculous that they would have tripped so many landmines in a single game (I mean, one of the writers worked on Sakura, Sakimashita... and that game is very, very good), and I honestly think that if Will wants to stop hemorrhaging cash, it needs to stop breaking up its best teams (the Evolimit team) or letting total incompetents get involved with story and characterization (referring to the Imouto Paradise writer who was also involved with this and the other Otome series games after Koi no Canvas).
  17. Clephas
    Since I get asked questions constantly on this subject, I'll go ahead and list a few pieces of advice I felt apply to most beginners.
     
    1) Use translation aggregator and a text hooker, even if you feel like you should be getting out your kanji dictionary, out of a sense of self-reliance. I'll be blunt, it is hard to enjoy something if you have to refer to a kanji dictionary for every other non-particle word. I am sometimes stunned at people bragging about spending 100 hours on an 8 hour moege because they chose not to use a text hooker. That is not an efficient way of using your time, even if you want to learn kanji. It is actually more efficient time-wise to do kanji exercises separately and read your VNs with a text hooker (you'll still be done with both in half the time it would have taken for you to read it using a kanji dictionary).
     
    2) There are two methods you can choose to start your untranslated career... you can start off easy and work your way up, or you can smash your head into the walls of text of the harder VNs out there. I chose the latter, and most people choose the former. The walls of text method has the advantage of jump-starting your learning... but in exchange, you'll probably end up sleeping more to let you process all the new information you've gathered and you'll get frustrated more often. If you want to use the former method, I made a list here sometime ago ( http://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/3493-for-love-of-vns-for-beginners/ ).
     
    3) jparser in Translation aggregator isn't perfect, nor is Mecab. They are tools to give you a chance to parse the kanji faster, rather than a translation tool. However, there is a good side-benefit to the frequently weird choices of furigana they make... and that is that you'll naturally learn the path to understanding kanji puns without having to look them up later, and it will become ever more easy to dissect more difficult words even without the tools later on.
     
    4) In the end, mastering reading untranslated VNs is an uphill battle for most people. Don't expect yourself or everything you use to be perfect from the beginning, as the very idea is absurd. You'll run into stumbling blocks constantly, and you'll worry endlessly about whether you really understood that last line for most of your first hundred VNs or so.
     
    5) If you read slowly in your native language, you will also read slowly in Japanese. Reading is reading, and it is a skill honed by a simple process of practice, practice, practice that never ends. Yes, learning to read fast in your own language will help you learn to read fast in Japanese once you've gotten to a certain level. If you are barely competent in your own language, I'll be frank in saying that this isn't for you, not to be mean but because it is the same skill, regardless of the details.
     
    6) Last of all, I'd suggest hitting a wide variety of genres early on, not just your favorite ones. Why? Because that sense of wonder and love for VNs is only going to last through your first twenty-five to forty VNs, and once you've gotten past that point, it is going to be harder and harder to grow beyond your limits on your own.
  18. Clephas
    Yeah, I know, this picture is actually nothing like the protagonist, lol.




    True Ending

    Ok, first this game stops well short of being a kamige, so don't expect me to give hands-down praise of it... but I will say this is the first VN I've played that uses the G-Senjou story structure and doesn't short the heroine routes. I can say that conclusively, having finished all the paths. Those who have encountered my virulent hatred of Aiyoku no Eustia will probably be surprised to hear this, though.

    Second, the true route is decent... actually, while it doesn't match my favorite VNs of the type, it is more than enough if you want to indulge in a fantasy story with some mild action (save for the relatively high-quality last battle) and a generally warm atmosphere. This is contrasted with the desperation and sometimes tragic events that occur at or near the end of each chapter. Airu's and Nono's are actually the worst, emotionally speaking, this way. However, once the true route is locked in, there is enough tragic impact incoming that you won't be dissatisfied if you've managed to form an emotional connection with the characters already.

    Final Comments

    Considering what the protagonist says at the end of the prologue, you'd expect this to be a lot darker than it is. However, since the protagonist is rather obviously a softy who utterly fails to be ruthless, you can forgive the game for not being as dark as it might have been, given the themes. Still, this is probably the weakest point of the game. The way it sort of went for a half-assed protagonist whose style of appearance is like Lelouch from Code Geass and whose personality is your average kind-hearted harem-master was kind of... *grimaces* iffy to say the least.

    That said, this game's story is very character-focused, and I have to say - primarily because of the heroine paths - that it is mostly a charage. Yes, it has action, it has conspiracy, and it has betrayal... and there is a solid backbone to the story. However, the way the game consistently shifted focus onto one or the other of the heroines as you got close to the path splits, the fact that the characters spend about half the game in cosplay, and the sheer number of archetypical interactions in the character dynamic just screams 'charage' to me.
  19. Clephas

    Baldr Heart

    By Clephas,

    Now, for those who are wondering, the reason I chose to play Baldr Heart first is fairly simple... it is the VN most anticipated this month, at least by the people I talk to.   Baldr Heart is the fourth game (if you count the Skydive and Zero games as a single game each) in the 'primary series' started with Baldr Force.  This series follows the evolving interrelations between humans, the net, extreme VR, and AIs, storywise.  The gameplay in all the games is a relatively fast-paced battle mech action system that evolves a lot of explosions and bullets flying.  Except for Zero, the series retains a pixelated appearance that is reminscent of the ps2 or psx eras for its gameplay.  The series tends to be heavy on the dystopian elements, as well as transhumanism.  Zero's setting in particular is horrifyingly dystopian, with children selling reservations for their own body parts and dismemberment videos in advance to strangers on the streets.
    Baldr Heart doesn't go that far... though it definitely strays into the area of mad science.  I can't really say a whole lot about the setting without spoiling Skydive and Zero, sadly.  This game is based 200 years after those games and the events in them are the base upon which the entirety of the society in Baldr Heart is constructed. 
    Now, I feel a need to address the biggest complaint from those who were looking at this game.  The fact that most of the characters are students... a definite divergence, as the series has in the past had most of its main characters in their early to mid-twenties, save for a few rare exceptions.  That fact is one of the series' main attractions for many readers, as many VN fans go to the Baldr series specifically to escape the slice-of-life-in-a-school-setting that plagues  most VNs.  So, in the eyes of many fans of the Baldr series, this was a huge betrayal... or at least a turn-off.
    Typical of a Baldr game, this element, that would normally have been a simple way to dumb it down for the 'mainstream' (as so many readers name it contemptuously) is actually used to accentuate the sharp differences between the Baldr world and the modern Japanese settings of most normal VNs.  While it is true that Sou isn't as bitter and broken as a lot of Baldr protagonists either begin as or end up, he nonetheless has his own share of horrifying experiences in his past, and he has taken lives in combat before.  He is a mercenary who returns to his homeland after receiving a brain injury trying to save a young girl trapped in the net.
    There is a play order to this game... Tsukuyomi>Mao>Yuri>Nagi.  With each successive path, more of the game's mystery is revealed, until you reach the core of things in Nagi's path.  I'm going to be blunt... if you thought Yuri's path was a bit screwy, Nagi's is even twistier.  The Baldr series loves its mindfuck plot twists filled with pseudo-science and philosophy, and in that sense, this is the Baldr series at its best.  However, this story structure means that Tsukuyomi's path, in particular, is fairly unsatisfying since it reveals next to nothing about what happened in the past or what is going on during the story.  I also felt that the game fell back on emotionalism a bit too often for my tastes... while it almost always comes down to that in any given Japanese game, I honestly thought the 'Fay' were going a bit too far that way.  I know they were probably searching for a new theme after Zero, but I still found it a bit trite.
    That said, this is still a Baldr game, and thus a mix of filthy human desires and high ideals stain the world crimson with the blood of thousands along the way, leaving me satisfied that Giga didn't abandon the series core precepts.  They were just a bit too obvious when they designed the setting and theme, lol.
    Overall, this game will get mixed reactions from Baldr fans while being perhaps slightly more accessible for those who might have had trouble with the much darker atmosphere of the previous games... in that sense, I think Giga probably made a mistake, as that dark atmosphere is one of the series' attractions.  As a VN, it is very well written and smooth to play... showing off the skills of Giga's writing staff to their fullest.  It reminds me of why so many who read Giga games say 'Giga is great... if you just play the Baldr series.'
  20. Clephas

    Tenkiame

    By Clephas,

    Shiro

    Kon


    Most of you already know that one of my fetishes is mimikko... and kitsune in particular. So, it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that I liked this VN. That said, this VN is so straightforward (in a 'in a straight line' sense) that you probably shouldn't expect anything in the way of twists.

    The two heroines are Shiro and Kon (see the pics above). Shiro is the little sister, a white-haired loli-kitsune who is totally innocent and carefree. She is straightforward both about what she likes and what she dislikes, and she has no problems going after it. Kon is more mature (definitely the older sister type), with a tendency to tease the protagonist in order to get a reaction out of him.

    Overall, this VN has a single purpose... to ease you straight into a romance with one of the two heroines, resulting eventually in love and marriage. There is no room for spoilers because it really is just that straightforward. What drama there is is so mild as to be nonexistent... but considering how warm and cuddly the story feels, it probably won't matter to my fellow mimikko-worshipers.

    The motion-animation system that is used for the sprites in this VN is a bit more complex than that used in most boobatron-type and blink-machine ones you see in the average VN, and that does add some life to the characters that otherwise wouldn't be there... especially with the ear movements. Anyway, this VN is definitely a moe-fest... a moe-fest that fits my fetishes, lol.
  21. Clephas
    This game, is to some extent, a redemption of my hopes for Ensemble.  I say this from the beginning because I will inevitably be critical in a familiar way about some parts.  However, this game was far closer to Ensemble at its best than we've seen in the last six years.
    The story is set in an academic city in a school that has a weird setup where individuals who want to get involved with student government join the Knighthood, with Chevaliers and apprentices serving in roles from librarian to student council president all under the same title/role.  The protagonist, a ninja (yes, a ninja) essentially transfers into the school because of evidence that a hacker/political activist/mischief-maker called the Bat is using it as their base of operations.  
    Essentially, the role of the ninja in this setting is as a sort of secret police that exist to stabilize the nation's politics, quietly manipulating things so the worst of the worst get knocked out of power without disrupting things and taking down terrorists and other problems before they surface.  The protagonist is a young member of this organization (which is deliberately nameless) and has several successful missions under his belt.  His personality is serious and loyal to his mission, while having a surprisingly strong sense of decency and justice without letting it get in the way of what is required of him.  He is fairly capable, but, by his own description, he is at best near the middle or somewhat above it in the organization's ninjas.  He is unfamiliar with women in general due to having grown up basically doing nothing but training to become a ninja (honestly, this part of the setting makes the least amount of sense, since classic ninja settings have the ninja deliberately making their personnel familiar with sex to use it as a tool or prevent it from being used against them).
    To be honest, this setting made me rofl a bit, since it almost felt like a 'pirates vs ninja' kind of setup, and he does, indeed, face off against a few of the knights during the progress of the story.  
    One thing that struck me is the improvement in the action scenes from other Ensemble games.  While they are still more generalist than some would like, they are far more detailed than is the norm in non-chuunige, and the CGs are actually halfway decent.  The protagonist shows off his abilities only occasionally during the story (mostly because combat isn't his job), but when he does, it is sufficiently impressive to satisfy.
    Story-wise, this game actually has a story *pauses for screams of shock* which is something most Ensemble games of late have lacked (maybe they finally figured out that while fluff sells at first, it doesn't make for repeat customers... nah, this is a Japanese company we are talking about).  The common route serves as a more than adequate introduction to the heroines, and choices are kept to an absolute minimum - one - which was pleasant (to be blunt, excessive meaningless choices do nothing but disrupt the storytelling).  
    The heroines are: the overly serious but compassionate knight Kagura; the mischievous but pragmatically idealistic Knight Captain Mai; the unsociable but kind-hearted and capable coder Yui; and the overly enthusiastic but troubled (deep under the surface) wannabe ninja and classmate Kanon.
    Kagura
    Choosing Kagura for my first heroine was a no-brainer for me.  I'm a sucker for serious warrior heroines from old families, and she fits the bill nicely.  I will say that I disliked one part of how they handled this part... despite the fact that she has restrictive and controlling parents, there is no actual conflict with said parents in the path.  That said, the actual drama that is present is better than decent, and Kagura is a great deredere heroine once she falls for Jin.  
    In this path, Jin takes up a number of roles other than lover toward Kagura.  He is a sparring partner, a friend, and a protector (despite her being capable, he is moreso, lol) which struck me as unusual for an Ensemble game, where it has become the norm to kill any talents the protagonist might have in the heroine paths.  
    If I have one serious complaint about this path, and it goes for all the paths in this game, is that Ensemble still used the 'we are going to have a fandisc where we tease at adding content but don't actually add anything but H' system for the endings.  While there is a significant climax to the story in this path, there is a distinct lack of after story beyond the usual 'a few days later' copout.
    Mai
    Since Mai shares VAs with Maia from Hapymaher, it is literally impossible for me not to pick her early on.  Okajima Tae (under various names) has voiced a surprisingly large portion of the best supporting female characters out there, along with a number of truly awesome heroines.  She has a particular flair for mischievous but deeply perceptive characters, which fits in perfectly with Mai's characterization.  
    Mai's path is similar to Kagura's, albeit it is more wrapped up in the internal politics of the Knighthood than in the personal issues of the heroine herself.  The role the protagonist plays in this path differs, in that Mai serves in the 'older sister wife' type role, pampering him in a way that his mother doesn't (though she dotes on him too, lol).  He does aid her in similar ways (both with behind the scenes activities and by helping her perfect her swordsmanship), but his role is more blatantly supportive in this path.
    The ending of this path is, again, a decent climax with not nearly enough after story.  This path in particular could have done with a 'five years after' epilogue, because of the nature of the decisions Mai made toward the end of the path and the resolution of both Jin and herself in regards to those decisions.
    Yui
    Yui is a fairly straightforward archetype.  Her character is the overly serious and socially inept nerd with sister issues.  She is kind-hearted and finds it difficult to turn away those who come to her asking for help, but few people get past her tendency to present herself as being a somewhat thorny individual.  
    Yui's path is the first path in the VN that actually focused on the Bat, which is perhaps another area I should have complained about, but since the Bat isn't that interesting in concept as an antagonist, I mostly wasn't bothered by it in the previous paths.  Unlike in Mai and Kagura's path, where there were serious combat scenes present, this path is more about the slow revelation of one aspect of what is going on behind the scenes through solving Yui's issues.  
    Jin's role in this path is very much that of the older partner in a romantic relationship, but it is also a surprisingly equal relationship, perhaps because Jin doesn't need to worry as much about hiding his abilities from Yui as he did from Kagura or Mai.  
    This path does have a good climax, but again, it lacks an after story to close things off.
    Kanon
    Kanon is our wannabe ninja girl... a foreigner (as usual, Northern Europe with no country name given, lol) who got hooked on ninja anime (the hero type) and by accident discovers Jin is a ninja (though not his full identity, which he conceals throughout all the paths).  She is a bright and cheerful girl with a strong sense of justice and a compassionate heart... though she is more than a little bit of an innocent.
    Her path is, like the other paths, full of various incidents and drama with a huge amount of ichaicha on the side.  It was a decent path, but she isn't my type, so I can't say I was emotionally invested this time around.  There are some good - but very short - fights in this path, but they are mostly one-sided affairs.  Like the three previous paths, this one lacks a good after story.
    Secret
    Secret is the name I given to the overall 'incident ending' that you can access after finishing all three paths.  In this ending (basically, it can be interpreted that any of the girls is your heroine), you finally get to discover the antagonist's identity... and it is one that might surprise you.  There is also a really good battle scene to treat you to, and the reasons for the antagonist's actions is a bit of a surprise... 
    Conclusion
    This is, by far, the best Ensemble game made since Ojousama wa Gokigen Naname.  It doesn't make it to kamige level and it shares the ending problem that most of the more recent Ensemble games have had, but it has a decent story, good characters, and enough drama to be memorable.  While I'm probably not going to place this on an all-time favorites list, it is one of my favorites for this year so far.
  22. Clephas

    Clephas Top 50 VNs

    By Clephas,

    For the last two years or so, I've gotten repeated requests to unequivocally name my top VNs made up until the present, ignoring objectivity, my vndb votes, etc.  I've more or less just ignored most of those requests, because it is a pain in the ass to name a 'favorite' VN in the first place.  I've made lists of VNs I loved from various genres, and I've also made lists of VNs for a specific purpose.  However, I've avoided making a list like this one up until now, mostly because my 'favorites' switch out so often. 
    Let's get this straight for those who are going to criticize my choices... these are the VNs I like the most, not the fifty best VNs of all time.  I make no pretense to preeminence of opinion in this case, because I'm also discarding all attempts at objectivity.  What a person likes is ultimately a matter of personal tastes, not a matter of logic.
    Why did I make it fifty?  Because my number of VNs played, setting aside replays and nukige, is over six hundred already (with replays and nukige, it is closer to eight hundred...)... I'd be surprised if I didn't have this many VNs I considered wonderful. 
    Keep in mind that these aren't in a particular order.
     
    1.   Evolimit
    2.   Dies Irae (the one by Light)
    3.   Ikusa Megami Zero
    4.   Nanairo Reincarnation
    5.   Semiramis no Tenbin
    6.   Bradyon Veda
    7.   Vermilion Bind of Blood
    8.   Hapymaher
    9.   Tiny Dungeon (as a series)
    10.  Bullet Butlers
    11.  Chrono Belt
    12.  Ayakashibito
    13.  Otome ga Boku ni Koishiteiru 2
    14.  Chusingura
    15.  Draculius
    16.  Otome ga Tsumugu, Koi no Canvas
    17.  Silverio Vendetta
    18.  Konata yori Kanata Made
    19.  Grisaia series
    20.  Akatsuki no Goei series
    21.  Reminiscence series
    22.  Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no
    23.  Harumade, Kururu
    24.  Soukou Akki Muramasa
    25.  Tokyo Babel
    26.  Tasogare no Sinsemilla
    27.  Komorebi no Nostalgica
    28.  Yurikago yori Tenshi Made
    29.  Izuna Zanshinken
    30.  Moshimo Ashita ga Harenaraba
    31.  Kamikaze Explorers
    32.  Devils Devel Concept
    33.  Suzunone Seven
    34.  Baldr Skydive series
    35.  Baldr Sky Zero series
    36.  Toppara Zashikiwarashi no Hanashi
    37.  Tsuisou no Augment (series)
    38.  Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier
    39.  Shin Koihime Musou (series not including the original Koihime Musou)
    40.  Soshite Hatsukoi wa Imouto ni Naru
    41.  Tenshi no Hane o Fumanaide
    42.  Irotoridori no Sekai
    43.  Noble Works
    44.  Koisuru Otome to Shugo no Tate (series)
    45.  Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo yori mo
    46.  Jingai Makyou
    47.  Sakura, Sakimashita
    48.  Abyss Homicide Club
    49.  Re:Birth Colony Lost Azurite
    50.  Owaru Sekai to Birthday
     
     
  23. Clephas

    DS Dal Segno

    By Clephas,

    This is a VN by Circus, the company that makes the Da Capo series, which I'm sure most of our resident moe-addicts are familiar with.  It is also based in the same universe (well, I'm pretty sure it is, since a Professor Amakase made an AI with emotions who likes bananas and who is the true heroine of this VN, lol). 
    To put it straight to you... this is a very old style of VN.  It is a lot closer to the old Da Capo games and Key's early VNs than it is to anything else made in modern times.  Like Da Capo, it has its emotional moments... and some decent drama.  However, in exchange, the lateral relationships are almost nonexistent (character interrelationships other than with the protagonist tend to be weak to nonexistent, beyond a few templates).  This is the standard for this type of VN, and it was more than satisfying enough for me when I first started playing VNs... but now that I've experienced more fulfilling interactions between casts of characters, this VN feels startlingly dull at times.
    Both visually and audio-wise, this is a VN that 'feels' like a Circus VN.  Almost all of the tracks are 'honobono' (restful) or playful in atmosphere.  Visually, it is a reasonably pretty VN... but it isn't near the higher end of things.
    I feel a need to mention the ero simply because of the degree to which the spare (short and plain) h-scenes screw up the rhythm of a VN that doesn't have that good of a rhythm in the first place.  This is a VN that was definitely made with an eye toward releasing a console non-H version later on, and it shows.  As such, the ero is fairly meaningless and tends to be more of an obstacle to enjoyment than is usual.
    One more little thing that had me peeved about this VN was the fact that the protagonist is nameable... and that is also the single element that caused me the most difficulty in enjoying the VN as a whole.  I don't say this to be an ass, but this particular trope has a singularly dehumanizing effect on the protagonist of any VN in which it is used.  Considering how weak and pale charage protags are in the first place, this is a really bad idea, lol.  In particular, when there is a blank spot in various spoken dialogue from the heroines where nothing is said or the name is changed to a pronoun, it feels really weird and breaks my engrossment in the story.  Style-wise, this is one of the most abominable tropes in existence, and it is the reason it took me five tries to get into and finish Hoshi ori Yume Mirai, despite the overall high-quality of the VN otherwise.
    Now... this VN particularly shines in its heroine routes.  Those routes are done - as I mentioned above - in the 'older' style, where the heroines have a serious problem that only comes up when they are with the protagonist and the protagonist solves, thus affirming their bond (after some shakeups).  Now, I don't particularly hate this particular archaic type of story, and the heroine routes themselves are fairly high-level... but looking at the VN as a whole, the weak scenario design outside of the heroine paths (the lead up to the romance formation) is absolutely abominable to experience.  This, in some ways, makes the heroine paths an experience in the good slowly carving away at the negativity of the early game. 
    Overall, this VN is a typical Circus experience... good in some ways, godawful in many others.  It is difficult to call most of the games by this company a kusoge, but this kind of BS is why this company isn't anywhere near a favorite of mine. 
  24. Clephas
    This is an utsuge.  For those who don't already know what an utsuge is, it is a VN where the main endings are 'bad' endings.  Generally speaking, the intention with an utsuge is to give the reader catharsis through a sense of despair or sorrow.  Unlike in a nakige, where the sorrow or despair is temporary and everything ends with what amounts to a 'happily ever after', an utsuge's endings tend to be ones where everyone dies, despair goes on unending, or some other kind of bitter aspect.  While most of an utsuge's endings will be 'bad' or 'sad', even with an utsuge, there is generally one or two endings that are merely bittersweet or almost good, though.
    A 'soft' utsuge is one like Konakana or Eden, where the primary emotion is sorrow and the sense of loss is relatively mild.  In a VN like this, the sense of 'bitterness' is a lot lower than in a 'hard' utsuge.
    A 'hard' utsuge is defined more than anything by 'despair' and the emotions that come from it.  The crushing of hope, the end of dreams, and the inevitability of a heavy reality are all popular themes in VNs of this type.  Swan Song is probably the most obvious translated one of this type.  Houkago no Futekikakusha falls into this type.
    I'm going to be blunt... even with this being my second playthrough, I've been crying all the way through my first path.  This VN is an unrelenting well of sorrow, despair, love, caring, and loss.  For every positive moment, the inevitable ending lurks in the background or hangs over the head like the Sword of Damocles.  Salvation comes for some at the cost of heart-rending despair for others, and love is no barrier to the despair that infects the VN as a whole. To put it bluntly, the protagonist and his friends, classmates, and teacher are all lost beyond hope from the beginning.  This isn't a VN where hope is anything more than a blade gouging at the hearts of those involved, and those who don't benefit from this level of catharsis should keep away from this VN.  The narrative presentation in this VN is of the highest quality when it comes to describing the characters' emotions and unique perspectives, and the writer seems to take a certain pleasure in creating a situation that gouges the heart of the reader, using those perspectives masterfully.
    Now, to address the biggest complaint people inevitably have about this VN... the setting in this VN is horrible.  I don't mean the characters' immediate surroundings, but rather just why the characters had to end up like they do in the VN is never made very clear.  Part of this is because the characters who might otherwise reveal the source of the conflict in the story simply aren't present, acting through pawns rather than in person.  Another part is that I think that while this writer is excellent at emotional writing and skilled at manipulating the reader's emotions, s/he honestly has no idea of how to create a coherent setting.  It is a mark of the VN's impact that I never really felt like seriously complaining about it... but it does make it stop short of kamige level.  It is also the primary reason people use to bash it (when they really just want to lash out at someone for what happens to the characters in the VN, lol). 
    Edit:
    The Protagonist
    Tokiwa Itsuka is pretty much your normal, overly kind-hearted harem-building protagonist at heart... but the situation he is in has made him into something very different.  He is broken down, shattered by his taking on of the heaviest role in the characters' collective fate, and he is unable to give up, as doing so would doom all the others to a fate far worse than death.  He is their one, sad, brittle hope and the only reason they haven't all succumbed to despair.  About 60% of the VN is told from his perspective, relatively frequently switching perspectives with various other characters, including the heroines.  For him, the very kindness and capacity for love that is default equipment for an eroge protagonist is a blade gouging at his heart, leaving him hopeless and helpless before the grinding gears of fate.
    Shiori
    One of the the heroines and the class's teacher.  As the only adult in the group, she bears the heaviest burden, after the protagonist.  She is the kind of 'young teacher' who tends to become an 'extra' heroine in various older VNs.  She is gentle and kind, as well as being something of a dojikko.  She is easily influenced by movies, and this generally leads her to impulse-buy expensive things like cars and cameras (her family is apparently rich, lol).   During the story, her primary role is as the 'mother' archetype, giving love freely and without reserve to her students in general, and Itsuka in particular.
    Suenaga Haruka
    The only one of the heroines in the VN that isn't a direct victim of the fate that is swallowing them.  She transfers into the class at the beginning of the story and watches over the events that occur with a kindness and compassion that makes her the equal of any of the other heroines.  In many ways, she is the representative of hope in the VN as a whole, though her actual role with the characters tends to differ.
    Asagao
    The tomboyish, older of Itsuka's twin-sister osananajimis.  She is also one of the heroines.  When she isn't down in the dumps due to what is going on, she is bright and active, but she is fundamentally more fragile and sensitive than her younger sister Yuugao, not to mention a bit on the dim side.  She, along with Yuugao, are representatives of the precious 'daily life' the protagonist lost forever before the story began.
    Kanade
    The class president, a friend to most in the class, and the last remaining heroine.  She tends to be kind to everyone and is something of an optimist, though the fate they are enduring makes it harder for her to be so.  She learned the piano from Yuugao.  Despite the stark knowledge of what is coming in the near future, she has a deep well of strength that allows her to continue on, unifying the class where it would have otherwise long-since broken apart.
    Yuugao
    Asagao's elegant, quiet younger sister.  The story starts being told from her perspective.  Her deep love and compassion are impressed upon you almost from the beginning, and her comments on the characters in the class are your first impressions on them all.  She is actually much stronger mentally and emotionally than Asagao, but people tend to underestimate her based on her manner and appearance.  She loves everyone in the class, and it is through her that the bonds between the members are  most obviously seen.  Without her perspective, the emotional bond I felt toward the characters would have been much weaker.
    Kousuke and Rika
    A couple born within the class after things fell apart.  Kousuke was once a delinquent, but through the efforts of Itsuka and friends before the disaster, he was settling down.  He is devoted to his friends and deeply in love with Rika, despite lingering feelings for Shiori.  Rika is a 'normal girl' who fell in love with Kousuke despite his rough past and got up the courage to confess despite the inevitable end that awaited them.  Their bond is a bright point for a class that tends to be more than a bit gloomy.
    Anna
    A high-strung former member of a music club, she is one of those most obviously effected by the knowledge of their fate.  She and Ryou are the characters who have the most difficulty adjusting to the facsimile of 'daily life' while the axe of fate hangs above their necks.  At heart, she is a weak and vulnerable young woman, but she covers it up with her somewhat harsh manner.
    Ryou
    A quiet young man who nonetheless feels a strong bond with his few friends.  Like Anna, he is a bit high-strung and has a lot of difficulty adjusting.  To him, the wait for his inevitable fate is an unendurable terror, and he isn't able to relax enough to really take the feelings of the others around him into account.  However, his introverted personality tends to make him less... caustic than Anna.
    Jun
    The former ace of the soccer team and Itsuka's best friend.  He used to play soccer with Itsuka, with Itsuka as the team captain.  He cares deeply about his friend, and he is hurt deeply by how helpless he is to do anything for him.  He has many friends but Itsuka is his best one.  He is in love with Yuka, but due to the situation he has been unable to bring himself to confess.
    Yuka
    She has been friends with Itsuka since middle school and at one time was on the verge of falling in love with him, but Itsuka's closeness with the twins made her back off.  Now, she is close with Jun, though they are not yet lovers.  She is a bright and easygoing girl who is very good at hiding her emotions regarding the fate they are all living with.
  25. Clephas
    OK, I started playing Gears of Dragoon 2 about four days ago (I've only managed twenty hours so far, due to work), and I have a few comments on the game.
    For better or worse, Gears of Dragoon 2 Reimei no Fragments is a dungeon crawler/rpg/VN hybrid, and like most VNs of this type, it is pretty big.  To be blunt, in 20 hours, I've only managed to get to level 24 and get halfway through Chapter 2.  Considering that with the same amount of time I was already halfway through (or farther) with each of the Venus Blood games, that means that I have long way to go.  As such, I'm excluding this and Sengo Muramasa from VN of the Month for January.  I'm not really seeing anything glorious enough to surpass the experience of Tokyo Necro, anyway. 
    The battle system is a pretty straightforward turn-based one, though it has a limited-size skill palette that makes the game a bit inflexible at times as I've gained access to more skills.  The leveling system is an experience-based one where you gain levels by defeating enemies, then use skill points to increase skill levels or progress farther on the skill tree.  The game experience is added to somewhat by the presence of a guild-leveling system (where you get guild points for finishing missions, then use them to increase the levels of the four guilds - (Warrior - which affects the item shop-, Thief - Which effects item drops and dungeon mapping -, Priest - which effects damage and healing, as well as drops for certain types of items - , and Mage - which effects drops for certain items, etc), making the game more convenient.  I started out focused on the Warrior Guild, but the Thief Guild is a lot more utilitarian... if the Thief Guild's level is one above the current chapter, every dungeon in that chapter will come pre-mapped, thus making planning a lot easier. 
    Story-wise... it looks like it could be interesting, but the ratio of dungeon to story is a bit too lopsided toward the dungeon, thus making it hard to connect with the characters and story overall.  This is a problem some of the Venus Blood games also had, but I honestly think this is a bit worse.  The protagonist stumbles a bit too often for his apparent confidence, and the main heroine is once again a ditz (why is it that rpg/dungeon crawler heroines almost always are?).  To be honest, I do wish we could customize how the characters level up their stats, as some of the characters have really, really half-assed statistics despite their roles, whereas others have ones lopsided toward roles other than theirs.  I think this is mostly a matter of poor design, so I honestly can't be really complimentary about the game so far.
    Now, for the reason why I'm going ahead and announcing VN of the Month early... to be blunt, Fire Emblem Fates is coming out, and I'm probably not going to touch a VN for a week at least after it does, meaning until February's VNs release.  Also, except for this one and Sengo Muramasa, there really isn't anything left to play that is interesting.
    VN of the Month January 2016
    January was a month of extremes... I played two kusoge, one kamige, and one high-quality one.  Obviously, there is no other candidate for the VN of the Month except Tokyo Necro, but it should be mentioned that Hataraku Otona no Renai Jijou would have had VN of the Month potential in many another month.  It isn't a kamige, but it was solid enough to remain in memory.  While having to plow through two kusoge was painful, the other two were worth it.
     
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