For those who are wondering, this is a list of VNs I'm planning to at least sample.
Yomegami
Ryakudatsuha no Inen (seriously, despite the fact that it is an obvious trap)
Gokukano (giving this a chance, in case it isn't a nukige)
Natsuiro Koi Uta
Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana (no idea what this is about, since the Getchu and official pages are somewhat vague)
Suki to Suki to de Sankaku Ren'ai
Right now, I'm playing Yomegami, having completed two endings (Iris and Lycoris). Having finished those two endings, I can say that it is something for the fans of serious/moe fusions to look into, since I'm enjoying it immensely.
I'm going to say this straight out... Awesome job, Alcot!!!
There is a peculiar balance needed to make the perfect fantasy story-focused charage... and it has literally been years since the last time a VN has managed it. I should know, since I play everything fantasy that isn't a nukige and some that are.
Alcot's formula of comedy (in particular sexual comedy and situational comedy) is pretty straightforward and easy to enjoy, going across cultural lines fairly easily. As such, it doesn't require much effort to enjoy. That provides one element of this VN that 'completes' it.
Another element is the setting. Is there a solid setting? Is that setting vital to the story and utilized well to enhance it and give it life? That is definitely the case with this VN. The fantasy elements are vital to every aspect of this VN and touch upon every element of the story. I am happy to say that this VN is one of those rare fantasy VNs (non-chuuni, non-rpg) where the setting is so integral to the story as to make it inseparable.
Third is the heroine paths. Are the heroine paths consistent with the setting and the story of the common route? Are none of the heroines overly favored? Is there a good balance between ichaicha, drama, and plot? I can say yes to all these questions with this VN. The heroine paths are universally solid, with none of them exceptionally favored over the others. I was seriously impressed at the creativity of the writer when dealing with the endings, since they pretty much universally deviated from the 'golden road' of charage in peculiar ways while keeping to the spirit of the genre (happy endings for beloved characters).
Fourth is the characters in general. Do they fit into the story? Do the relationships between the characters feel 'alive', even if they aren't necessarily always believable from an excessively realistic point of view? For that matter, does the protagonist 'fit' into his role as the center of the story (and the heroines' affections)? Again, the answer is yes to all. While the protagonist isn't necessarily exceptional in most ways, he has many qualities that both make him attractive enough to make the romance portions feel real, as well as the roundness to justify such a protagonist-centric story.
What this all comes down to is that this VN is fairly close to a perfect example of the best of the sub-genre, as well as being an example of why I still play charage, even though most of them are crap hiding the gems. For people who like a strong element of fantasy in their charage, as well as a strong plot for both the characters and the game in general, this is an excellent choice. For those who prefer to avoid seriousness and stress at all costs, it might be a too much though. Also... SPOILERS BELOW
This month was almost a no-brainer... while there were some halfway-decent charage releases, there weren't any that made a significant impression. I'm afraid I don't have time to read Giga's newest half-hearted-but-pretty-looking charage (work is busy) and I haven't actually played any VNs since i finished Ninki Seiyuu last week.
Silverio Trinity is VN of the Month January 2017. Normally, I wouldn't name a sequel as VN of the Month, on principle. However, in this case, the game itself warrants it. Silverio Trinity is one of those rare sequels I could actually conceive of standing on its own, because even when I extracted my prior knowledge of Silverio Vendetta, I still felt that it was an enormously enjoyable VN. The only point on which it doesn't stand on its own is in background knowledge about the Esperanto and the Great Apocalypse that is only infodumped in incomplete form in Trinity. Of course, not having full knowledge of the events at the end of Vendetta's path in Vendetta is a handicap, but not as much of one as it would have been with another game, lol.
For those wondering about VN of the Year 2016, I'm still reviewing the candidates... I've narrowed it down to three potential winners: Tokyo Necro; Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana; and Amatsutsumi. The most unlikely of those is probably Amatsutsumi, despite its feels (I knocked Floral Flowlove out of the competition last week). For those who complained to me about the fact that I'm not considering Senren Banka or Gin'iro Haruka, I actually have solid reasons besides personal tastes... I just don't feel like making a wall of text to explain the precise reasons why Gin'iro isn't in the running and I never really even seriously considered Senren Banka, lol.
Edit: Keep in mind that VN of the Year is the competition I spend the most time on every year, using up a minimum of the first two months of the year each year since I started, lol. Not to mention that 2016 was one of the best out of the last ten years in terms of high-quality releases (though the ones that weren't high quality tended to be singularly awful).
List of VN of the Year Winners so far
Hapymaher (2013)
Nanairo Reincarnation (2014)
Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier (2015)
Again, 2015 is probably the single worst year for VNs out of the last ten, and so Kikan Bakumatsu is actually lower in quality than several releases from both 2014 and 2016, so I almost didn't name a VN of the Year 2015, lol.
To be blunt, I'd expected at least a little more from a company that has made something of a name for itself balancing moe, ecchi content, and good story-writing. This company occasionally slips up completely (Girls in Black was one example), and I'm afraid this is one of that type.
Nekonin follows an 'average guy' protag for roughly four hours (reading time) after he meets two kunoichi catgirls who say they've come to serve him. The results are pretty wacky, and I actually had hopes for how things might turn out... until the ending (there is only one). This game doesn't go anywhere. It stops at a brick wall without concluding anything. I'm more than a little frustrated, and I have to wonder why Whirlpool fucked up in such an obvious way...
Because I'm a mystery-hater, there is an even chance I'll drop this VN somewhere along the line, so I'll describe what those who are interested should look at when it comes to this game.
For lovers of the Ace Attorney games who don't mind or like ero content, this game is looking to be an interesting one. Each chapter has an evidence-gathering part, followed by a part where the protagonist and his allies (I say allies because several of them are backed by outside influences or are outright under the control of individuals hostile to the protagonist) talk about who they think the culprit is. Last of all is the judgment stage, where the protagonist uses evidence such as physical objects, the shapes of the rooms, the statements of the suspects and others, and other issues to figure out who the culprit is in a public forum, preferably gaining a confession of guilt in the process (this is fairly standard for Japanese police even today, as there is a strong preference for confessions over going to trial).
There is also violence involved, since not all suspects are willing to come along quietly, lol.
One of the single biggest elements of most VNs in existence is slice-of-life. This entire post is based on this fact, and it isn't one that can seriously be argued against by anyone who has read more than a hundred VNs.
So what is slice-of-life? With VNs, it is a type of scene where bits and pieces of daily life, without any particular conflict, are portrayed. These can be humorous, mildly touching, or informative.
So what is the value of slice-of-life as a tool for storytelling? For one thing, it provides an opportunity to portray and develop the characters in their most 'natural' setting. Do you want to know what a character is like in peaceful times? Slice-of-life scenes are generally the tool used. Do you want to slowly develop a mild romance between two characters? Then slice-of-life is your friend.
In this sense, slice-of-life is a highly valuable tool. While extreme scenes, such as violent scenes or ones with psychological or intellectual conflict, are also valuable for developing characters and their relationships, it is the slice-of-life scenes that form the skeleton to which the conflict and/or drama adds flesh later on.
However, the problem with slice-of-life is that it is basically an exclusion of extremity. It is difficult - virtually impossible - to give flesh to a character with only slice-of-life. For better or worse, people bare their true strength and value (or weakness and uselessness) in situations where they are being tested by circumstance or opposition (whether intense or mild). This applies to VN characters, as well.
Slice-of-life is your friend... unless that's all there is. Sadly, a lot of writers make the mistake of thinking otherwise. I can't count how many VNs I've experienced that make this mistake, to one extent or another. Slice-of-life as a tool is a valuable friend and ally... but as the sole tool for constructing a story, it falls pathetically short all too often.
Edit: Understand, I came to these conclusions as a result of playing numerous VNs that made that particular mistake... and I'm including 'standard Vn romance' as slice-of-life. Romance is something I'll touch on separately in the next entry.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've simply reached a point where playing four VNs from every month's releases is now unfeasible. However, at the same time, I wish to ensure that the role I set this up for in the first place continues to be fulfilled.
The Original Purpose of VN of the Month
The central purpose of VN of the Month is to give people a general idea of what they can expect going into a VN that is untranslated. Is it enjoyable? Who would it be enjoyable for? What kind of genre is it a part of? Is there something that makes this VN special?
The current situation
I no longer have the energy to do everything I have been doing. Doing VN of the Month takes up amounts of time I'd rather be spending asleep, being social, or helping with translation projects. Moreover, I'm currently in the middle of an apparent rush season for my work, so keeping up with it has become burdensome in the extreme. However, I remember when all opinions of VNs were basically given off-hand in instant messaging and chat platforms, and no one really had any idea if a VN was any good, because of the troll voting that plagues all database sites. While there are some English language VN bloggers out there, they mostly concentrate on translated entries and titles by companies everybody is already familiar with (such as Favorite, Pulltop, Yuzusoft, Minori, etc).
My solution
I want to ask some of the people who regularly play new VNs on Fuwa to take some of the burden off my shoulders... in particular, I'd like to at least offload two of the charage from each month on some people so I can concentrate on VNs I have a standing interest in. Preferably, I would like four or five people to do maybe one of these VNs each every two months (accounting for other people's reading speed and time constraints). To be blunt, I have no interest in aiding and abetting another person's burnout by forcing them into handling a VN or two every month on schedule, so that is why I want the greater numbers.
The issue
Japanese readers are still a vast minority here, and I don't know if it is even realistic to expect anyone but me to even consider helping with something like this. I know a few people who read fairly fast, but I honestly don't want to make a request directly that is fundamentally burdensome.
If you are interested, comment on this blog post and we'll work things out in a PM.
Edit: Keep in mind that what I want are opinions. To be blunt, I can write up a blog post based on someone else's opinions in under ten minutes if I need to, even if they themselves are terrible at writing or organizing their thoughts. It is what I do for a living, after all. In this way, the focus will shift somewhat... because I'll be handing things over to people who have a preference for the genre they are playing. That's why I'd like to get some charage players on board. While I personally strive for as little bias as possible, the fact is that charage reviews should be geared to charage lovers, and that is something I can't provide, sadly. The same goes for mystery, sports-focused, and denpa types. I have no taste for those genres, so it is best that I leave them to someone else who does like them.
Current new Members-
fun2novel: Specialties are mindfuck, mystery, and chuunige. I'll be depending on him primarily for mystery VNs, which I dislike. For a start, I've asked him to take over Ouka Sabaki, since I can't bring myself to play it. He's got a decent level of experience, and he is reasonably fast.
One of the things I've experienced more and more in the last decade as a part of 'the generation gap' is a difference between our interpretations of the word 'inconvenience', especially when it comes to games and devices.
Understand, when I say 'inconvenience', it generally means 'it doesn't have the functions I find useful'. When I talk to people who were born after the year 2000, it is almost always 'too many functions I don't know how to use/are not intuitive to me'.
Perhaps the most blatant clash of the generations, at least for PC gamers like me who play games from multiple locales, is the difference between versions of Windows. A lot of the young people I encounter are perfectly willing to deal with annoying adverts and intrusive programs in exchange for the convenience of Windows 8 and 10 (and I will admit that, from the perspective of someone who likes to keep their brain as unwrinkled as possible, they can be considered more convenient *smiles dryly*). In my case, those adverts and intrusive programs eat at my RAM, my bandwidth, and record my daily activities to be sent to people I don't know. I my mind, that far outweighs any 'convenience' gained from the simplification of the system. In fact, it is that very simplification of the system (which incidentally makes it more inconvenient to purchase and play games from anyone other than Microsoft) that makes it inconvenient for people like me. Sure, we can download software that modifies certain aspects of the interface to get around these difficulties... but it becomes harder year after year.
I was extremely shocked a few years back when I played Kami no Rhapsody from Eushully and saw a game that had obviously been designed by some moron who didn't understand why touch-screen functions were nothing more than an annoyance for someone without a touchscreen. The 'simplification' of the battle system made the game flat-out boring in comparison to other games I'd played by the company, and the highly-restrictive character progression that gave an illusion of freedom (I'm not exaggerating) only made things worse... because the programmer was obviously someone used to working on games with microtransactions.
That isn't to say the game was horrible, but it was horrifying, in that I saw the worst aspects of mobile apps intruding on a PC experience. I don't and will never like touchscreens. They get dirty too easily, break too easily, and cost more than your standard monitor. To be frank, it is far easier to use a mouse on a PC than a touch-screen and less likely to cost you a few hundred dollars every other year.
So what is the meaning of convenience to me? I am, to be frank, shockingly old-fashioned in the eyes of many because I don't even own a cell phone. I used to have one, a hand-me-down from a relative, but I disposed of it almost immediately because people were calling me and using money (unlimited texting being a bad word to cell phone companies at the time) to text me on things that could be done more efficiently by email. I also hated it being possible for people reach me when I wanted to be alone, lol.
So what about a smart-phone? I honestly have trouble developing an interest in smart-phone gaming, because microtransactions offend my sense of wanting to have things 'paid for and done with'. I hate subscriptions, I hate monthly payments, and I especially hate having my personal information available to a company that sells info to others (as most cell phone companies do or want to do). I can't maintain an interest in anything that makes me pay more than once to enjoy the experience. If I spend $120 on a game and its season pass, I don't want to find out that there are microtransactions in game that nickel and dime me. I also hate that I have to distrust any game application that cost me less than forty dollars because I can't be sure half the game won't be unplayable without further piecemeal investment of money.
I also hate the dead-eyed look some of the younger gamers give me when they laugh about having spent their entire paycheck on virtual items in an app they'll forget about a month later.
In other words, my idea of convenience has nothing to do with what others seem to consider convenience now. My idea of convenience is playing video games on my retinas with signals from my nervous system, not playing drastically simplified games with flicks of my finger.
Sorry, I rave... but I get tired of all the BS about 'convenient features' that companies use to cover up the building layers of inconvenience in the shit they try to sell me. Convenience has become such a meaningless term in recent years that it makes me want to scream.
I'm going to be blunt... the story of Amayui can be summed up in one word... unimpressive. The same could be said for Kamidori and Himegari, but whenever Eushully goes off on one of their item-creation rampages, the game's story inevitably takes a back seat.
Now, that's not to say that this story doesn't have good points. Toward the end it actually starts to resemble an IM world game... the problem is that it doesn't feel like an IM world game until near the end. For better or worse, the protagonist and the main heroine are both inveterate optimists (though Avaro is not supposed to be one, he certainly acts the part through most of the game). For another part, the cast in general is just... small in stature compared to the best of Eushully's lineup. For a goddess, Fia is just a bit too airheaded. Avaro can't seem to decide whether he wants to be a moody craftsman, a half-assed priest, or an idealistic kid. Mikeiu (the white-haired catgirl) is a mage that wields snowmen as familiars. Ioru is a greatsword-wielding assassin catgirl whose favorite hobbies are cooking and pleasing Mikeiu. Rish is a scheming local ruler who intends to bring Avaro to her side with her body. Kisnir is a samurai with no sense of modesty (she and Deet are really the only members of the cast that I liked). Rosaline is a depressed immortal ghost-wielding oppai-loli with horrible luck. Katorite is a weak-hearted loli dragon who cringes at loud noises. Finally, Mikshana is an angel whose stiff manner is due to what amounts to a lack of social experience.
Compared to the grandness of the characters of the IM series, the Genrin series, Madou Koukaku, or even Soukoku no Arterial, this game's characters were just too quirky and light-hearted to fit into the pretty grim setting that first came into being with the first Ikusa Megami game.
That said, near the end the story actually starts to get exciting... briefly. I spent so much time trying to get rare materials near the end that I ended up feeling like the story was a mere one-tenth of the game... and a fragmented one, at that. Not only that, but this game committed several of the largest grind-causing sins an srpg hybrid can commit... indiviidual experience, enemy level scaling, and a failure to scale experience gained from defeating enemies to their levels. I'm sorry, but when a character defeats an enemy ten levels their superior (near the end, several of my characters had fallen that far behind) I expect enough experience to go up a level or two, at the least.
As such, evening out the levels of my party toward the end took over ten hours, aside from the six hours to get them all fitted out with the best equipment I could make (primarily due to the lack of availability for most of the major materials near the end).
So... this game is fine if you just want to make items from a list and fight repetitive, grindy battles against uninspiring enemies. However, it isn't that attractive for someone who wants a good story.
Shirogane no Soleil is the very first Soleil game, and it begins with Ryuuhei - the protagonist - encountering Soul Valkyrie in the ruins of the Ship of Time in Iceland (fictional). There, he contracts with her in order to save his sister and her fellow archaeologists. However, as a result, she constantly drains his lifespan (literally the time he has to live) away in order to use magic, fight, and even just to exist on the mortal plane of existence. Unfortunately, at the same time he discovers that she is really immature as a Valkyrie... when she is barely able to fend off a mere Berserk (a fallen Einherjar from the world of Asgard, which perished long ago), showing off her immaturity and ineptness.
In addition, within Soul exists Hagalle, an older-seeming Valkyrie who is rather obsessed with Ryuuhei and pretty aggressive... which makes for some interesting clashes with his childhood friend and fiance Miori (who is your typical drill-hair tsundere ojousama with a side of impulsive violent behavior). Ryuuhei is... a natural philanderer. I really can't defend him there. He is the type who gets into relationships with women without really thinking about it and doesn't really think there is anything wrong with it... but hates the resulting jealousy and catfighting that results like the plague. He also lies like a rug and makes excuses when lies don't work to distract the girls from his faults.
That said, he is also brave, insanely protective of those he loves (though he can perhaps be said to love too many women romantically, hahaha), and is a disciplined warrior with a good sense of situational awareness.
This series, typical of the Soleil series as a whole, is twisty, full of character corruption, fallen deities, hope followed by despair followed by hope, and plot twists that make even experienced chuuni-lovers blink in surprise at times. It also is deeply steeped in Nordic mythology, though with its own fantasy twists.
The character relationships are surprisingly deep, considering the kind of situation the characters are in, and there is essentially only two endings, one of which is shorter and somewhat truncated/incomplete (Soul's), and one that is immensely satisfying for those who fell in love with the characters and setting (Hagalle's). Really, there are no separate heroine endings, but the walkthrough calls them the Soul and Hagalle endings.
Did I enjoy this game? Yes, I did so immensely. It also helped me make sense of a lot of the background in Shin Shirogane no Soleil, and I'll probably end up re-rating that one after I replay it as a result. For those who like the darker side of chuuni, this is a good game to look into, and it is also attractive for people who like Norse Mythology based stories.
I first played this VN in 2011, having read Accany's review of it (it was on his rather long list of recommended VNs), and at first, I had trouble getting into it. To be blunt, my distaste for mysteries is pretty much the biggest reason why I had trouble with this... but the protagonist is, in some ways, your typical 'stick his nose in everything and anything' detective, meaning that he frequently takes actions that make me want to face-palm. In addition, his unwillingness to put the puzzle pieces together (some parts of the setting come together indirectly really early on, and it always bothered me didn't figure it out then and there) bothered me as well. Nonetheless, I set that feeling aside and decided to replay this, since it is technically a classic VN, lol.
Kurenai no Tsuki is one of those rare VNs (rare even then) where all the characters are full adults with their own occupations and lives. It is also a combination murder mystery, fantasy, and horror story. The game's setting is an isolated village in the mountains, where the protagonist, Kouya accidentally stumbled onto the bathing scene of the two main heroines, Sunao and Hiori. Being old-fashioned Japanese women, they of course demand that he follow the rules and pick one of them (or both of them) to marry. If this VN were to have been made this year, then it would have turned into a series of moe antics, with good-hearted villagers blessing the potential marriage and the mystery being cleared up as something relatively innocent. However, Kurenai no Tsuki was made in 2009, when it was still normal to have this kind of beginning take a different track.
This story has a ridiculous number of choices, most of them you are required to pick eventually and the only thing you can pick is the order, which makes them useless choices in my mind. Objectively, this is perhaps the most negative point of the VN, lol.
There are two arcs to this VN, based on a choice made mid-way through the second chapter, which requires you to pick between Hiori and Sunao. Depending on which you choose, you get to look at a different side of the events and mystery of the story. There are four heroines, two of which are in each arc. The first one follows the villagers' side and contains Sunao's and Akari's paths. The second one follows a second faction and leads you to Hiori's and Kokoa's paths.
While I enjoyed this VN and liked its characters, the fact is that it doesn't really meet my tastes, even now. I love Sunao and Hiori, and so I always felt that this VN could have done without the mystery elements, since the protagonist is so paranoid he is willing to doubt those pure-hearted girls at the drop of a hat. That's probably my problem, since I was already thinking of those two as my waifu inside the first ten minutes of the VN each time I played it, hahaha...
Anyway, this VN's atmosphere is frequently gloomy and the villagers are insanely xenophobic (violently so at times), and the deaths that keep occurring only make things worse. Nonetheless, as a story it is very well-made and has a really interesting setting. Kokoa's scientific approach to the mystery of the village is also helpful, since it provides some perspective when you find yourself falling into baseless superstitious paranoia, haha.
I recommend this to fantasy mystery lovers, though don't expect that the mysteries will all be solved in a single path.
Edit: Oh, and the true path is the harem path, lol.
For those wondering why I haven't posted recently (two weeks without a blog post is about the longest I've ever gone since the Fuwa blogs opened, save for the Fuwapocalypse periods), I've simply been too busy with work and playing Mask of Truth to bother. This review was written up by Dergonu before then, and I only just got around to editing it.
Bishoujo Mangekyou -Tsumi to Batsu no Shoujo- was my first Mangekyou game, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect of it. The limit of my knowledge of the series was that it has nice art and animated scenes. In short, I went in blind.
As I started reading, my first impression was that the game didn't feel like a nukige at all. The introduction felt like one you'd see in a story driven game. The writing, music and backgrounds set up a pretty heavy atmosphere, and the first real H-scene doesn't happen until quite some time into the story. Although H is definitely a central part of the game, I'd honestly say this reads a lot more like a "story driven game" than a nukige. In addition, the game touches on a lot of things that doesn't exactly get your mojo going, like death, incest, rape and mental illness. Needless to say, the game was a lot darker than I had imagined.
The story is centered around the twins Yuuma and Yuuri. The main character, Yuuma, harbors some pretty complicated feelings towards his sister. He has spent the last year in a hospital, for reasons yet unknown to the reader, and during his stay, his feelings for his sister only grew stronger. Clephas: Spoilers contained in the box below. Since I generally don't post anything that can't be guessed or read from the Getchu or official page of a VN here in terms of actual details, I'm taking the liberty of sticking this section into a spoiler box. These are minor spoilers, so don't feel like you absolutely have to avoid reading them. I'm just doing this for the peace of mind of the more obsessive members.
The writing in this game was surprisingly good. It even felt poetic at times, and the true ending really had me thinking for a good while. As you might be able to guess by the title, (tsumi to batsu = crime and punishment,) the story delves a lot into morality. It's the type of story that gets you thinking about right and wrong, and how every person has a dark side hidden within them. I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers, but, in conclusion, there is a lot more to this game than what meets the eye. So, I almost feel bad calling it a nukige. I'd say this is definitely worth a read. (It made me very interested in the prequels. I'll go ahead and read those sometime soon. Hopefully they are as good as this game was.)
Clephas Note: The Bishoujo Mangekyou series is only technically a nukige series, since it has too much h-content to deny it, but each game has a solidly-written and interesting story.
First, I should define what I consider to be 'old' VNs. I essentially define 'old' VNs by the 'ten year rule'. When ten years have passed, generally the cultural references, the artwork, and even the sound styles have changed enough to be almost completely distinct from the most modern VNs. At present, that means VNs made before 2007.
Now, next I need to make a statement... I am not an art bigot. One of the most negative issues I've run across in dealing with newer VN readers is art bigotry. To be blunt, there are lots of people who won't read anything made before 2010 simply because the art style is so different. To those people I say... 'every era has its own taste'. While VN art has indeed gotten more refined in the ten years, to the point where it has gotten to where you hardly even notice the characters are drawn in the first place, I can straight-out say that quality art is quality art, regardless of the era.
Now for sound... setting aside music, which really hasn't been refined at all in the last ten years (if anything, it has regressed, especially usage), voice-acting and sound effects have actually evolved a great deal in the last ten years... at least to the point that you are less likely run across the 'comical' sound effects common in a large portion of VNs ten years ago. Voice acting has mostly evolved in the sense that people that once would have become pros don't make it anymore, so the industry has become higher cost (for the developers) and higher quality (for the consumers). In that sense, I can understand some degree of prejudice.
However, when it comes down to it... I'm a story addict. Yes, I became an otaku because of the way the Japanese treated animation art. However, it is the stories that have kept me going. Now, in my less than copious spare time, I've been re-reading some old VNs... and I've noticed a few things I probably would have missed a few years ago.
1. Slice-of-life was less oppressive ten years ago- I don't think I would have realized this if I hadn't taken this little trip to the past, but the excessively long slice-of-life scenes that define modern charage have been getting longer and longer per scene with every year. Part of this is probably because of the nostalgia quotient rising for the long-time otakus in comparison with how it was previously. However, it is a poisonous trend that is actually making the experience less pleasant and more tedious as time passes, unfortunately.
2. A well-drawn line can be as pretty as any hyper-quality modern artwork if done right- This is something I always asserted in private conversations, but I wasn't sure if it was pure nostalgia until I went back and actually re-experienced a few old VNs. Yes, the styles were somewhat cruder back then... but the aesthetics were, if anything, more distinct and beautiful in and of themselves.
3. Ero was weaker... except when it wasn't - To be blunt, the emphasis placed on erotic content and the effort put into it was far lower in non-nukige VNs ten years ago. Less interest went into making heroines more erotic and more was put into making situations erotic, probably to let the libido-poisoned brains of the average male actually look at the characters before they saw them naked, rather than focusing on projection oppai. That isn't to say the erotic situations weren't erotic... but there was a far stronger emotional element involved because of the way they handled the character designs outside of h-scenes.
4. A good story might age badly, but the ones that don't, don't- Some VNs lose all their attraction as they age and more modern VNs exceed them in every possible way. However, there are still gems out there that are as awesome now as they were the day they were made. Rejecting VNs simply because they are old is a short-sighted approach that makes me feel nothing but contempt, after my experiences of the last few months.
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.
This game is the one I've been waiting for... a mimikko nakige that doesn't ignore the setting or human nature.
At the beginning of the story, the protagonist, Kazuki takes in a puppy he finds abandoned in the park, feeds her, and then falls asleep with the half-feral cat he feeds occasionally watching. When he wakes up, they've both transformed into mimikko, a catgirl and a doggirl... Soon after, it becomes apparent that shortly after this event, pets around the world began turning into humanoids, resulting in the kind of mixed reactions you'd expect in the real world if that happened. The reactions, as described, vary between fanatical religious obsession and fetishism to xenophobic psychopathy and upsurges in racism... and everything in between.
Now, this game has a really odd balance... there is almost enough H content in this game to call it a nukige, but the emotional narration, the characters' actions, and the way it is written is pure nakige fare. Kuro and Hana (the cat and dog) are really obvious deredere characters, and Hana is the obvious main heroine. However, Kuro and the three other heroines are not neglected in any way, shape, or form... they all have their unique story/paths.
This game is big on the feels. Kazuki is a young man with an intimate knowledge of loneliness and isolation and a sense of compassion that is close to saintly. In addition, he is wise enough to do what will prepare the two girls in his care for the world they've come into, rather than simply protect them from the knowledge of what is is like (which would be typical for the average VN protag)... For the example in the prologue, he takes them along when he goes to the local animal shelter to help pick out the animals that will be taken to the place he works (a charitable organization that takes in abandoned pets and trains them for adoption, similar to organizations in 'no-kill cities' in the US, such as my own Austin), where they will be trained so as to make them more adoptable... and makes it clear to them the inevitable results for those who aren't chosen (note: I only chose to spoil this part because it is vital to understanding the difference between this and your standard moe-fuwa mimikko game).
This is one of three games I've encountered of the type, each approaching things from a different perspective (for one thing, this one is fantasy). Those other two are Sakura Iro Quartet and Otomimi Infinity. Nekopara ignores human nature a bit too often to make it into that particular rarified company, lol.
Anyway, for those interested in a mimikko nakige with really good feels, this is a good choice. This is a great emotional story. However, don't expect extreme levels of depth or dark motives from the main characters, since they are all essentially good-hearted people.
Maho Roba is the latest release from Akabei Soft 3, the subsidiary made by conglomerating staff and resources from a number of Akabei Soft 2's other subsidiaries. Now, this game is in a different vein from the games previously released... in the sense that this company has done pretty much everything but a fantasy charage since it was formed.
... I'll be straight with you. My first thought upon finishing this game was that it is exactly like another half-dozen 'average quality' fantasy charage I've played in the past. The protagonist, despite being an adult member of society with an interesting job, somehow ends up working as a volunteer at a girls' magic school. He is a natural magician... who can only use one spell effectively. Moreover, for some reason the role archetype chosen for him in relation to the girls at the dorm is 'lucky sukebe who is the target of constant abuse from the heroines'. I don't think you can get any more cliche than that. Considering how the way the story is set up makes his job and previous experience and maturity irrelevant and constantly reduces him to just another 'sort of perverted protagonist making excuses', I found a lot of reason for irritation throughout this game.
The heroines aren't much better... Shizuru is a standard straight-laced tsundere with an inferiority complex toward her more capable older sister (seen this over seventy times), Konatsu is the 'deredere heroine reunited with the protagonist' archetype, Kuon is the childish but brilliant loli who is afraid of strangers (yet another 'classic' archetype), and Teru is your standard 'Love? Can you eat that?' innocent genki heroine...
The two heroines unlocked by completing one of those four are a bit more interesting (the ancient principal and the lonely genius magician), but their paths don't really show anything more interesting than those of the previous four heroines. By the time I finished this game, I was so immensely bored with the dull cast of characters and pathetic attempts at humor that I was falling asleep in the middle of my day. About the only thing that was consistently funny was the borderline yandere moments Konatsu showed sometimes (always momentary)... and I felt the protagonist only grew less interesting with time, as he regresses to a hormone-driven teenager during the paths.
In short, while this might be a decent choice for someone looking for a really average fantasy charage, it contains every flaw the charage genre tends to inflict on itself in spades, except excessive ichaicha (that was actually decently balanced in most of the paths) and a lack of decent epilogues (though why they went through the trouble to give a solid epilogue to each of these heroines, I have no idea).
First, a short intro... this is the second Clock Up game where Kurashiki Tatsuya (one of Light's second team of writers) has been involved, and those who played the previous one, Maggot Baits, will recognize the atmosphere and 'flavor' of the story instantly. This is a game devoid of salvation in any real sense. The protagonist and the other characters are universally the scum of the Earth (Mirei being the only exception, though she is a bit screwy too), and their lifestyles and pasts range from the distasteful to the outright disgusting.
While there are relatively few of the violent h-scenes that defined Maggot Baits, they do exist, so I do feel a need to warn you that a lot of the content in this game is graphic and not for those with a weak stomach.
The protagonist (who never reveals his true name in the entire story) is a professional killer who needs to kill people in order to sleep (it is more interesting if you read it yourself, so I won't go into detail). One day, he gets the order to investigate/find the killer of a paparazzi killed at the love hotel at which he works most of the time. What he finds is... Azami, a serial killer, whom he gets into combat with immediately. The end result of the battle is them having sex... and her getting obsessed with/attached to him. He returns the obsession in part due to the fact that, after having sex with her, he can sleep.
I'll be blunt, there is no point in this game where the characters can really be said to 'shine'. There are three endings, two of which are different based on how the protagonist pursues his relationship with Azami. The final path, the true path, brings their relationship to the final stage (visibly inevitable, if you get to know Azami), and you are presented by a predictably depressing ending.
This game has excellent writing, which goes without saying really, since it is done by Kurashiki Tatsuya. However, the unending dark atmosphere that infuses the story is energy-draining in the extreme. This is made worse by this general sense that the game is just trying to say 'humans are worthless' throughout its entire length. While the battle scenes are excellent, there were too many points in the story where cruel turns of event occurred simply to push things forward or to titillate the reader. This was true of Maggot Baits as well, but this game lacks the 'sort of good ending' you saw in that one, which gave you a sense of satisfaction, even if it was only in comparison to the rest of the game.
Now, considering that all the games Mint Cube made up until now were kusoge (personal experience speaking here), I didn't expect to be especially impressed by this game. Thankfully, I was surprised a little by how this game turned out. In the world of this VN, the light and darkness, embodied in the Maou and Hero, fought one another ten years before... and no one knows the outcome. Since then, the world has settled into a relative state of peace.
This game focuses on the amnesiac Tarou, who is taken in by the witches running a cafe in the middle of the forest. Tarou possesses powerful light and darkness abilities, and he is generally an intelligent young man who is utterly up front and honest about his feelings (including his ecchi ones).
The game uses a combination of a chapter flow chart and a ladder-style structure, but since each heroine's ending/path makes sense/is consistent within the greater setting, it didn't bother me as much as it might have. Most of this game is ecchi antics and peaceful SOL in the cafe, with occasional battle scenes (one-sided against monsters) sprinkled throughout. The 'common route' leads straight toward one of three endings for Rufuna, who is the main heroine (Dark, Light, Neutral), and at the end of each chapter two heroine paths are added to the flow chart.
If I had something to recommend about this game, it would be the fact that the side-heroines all get a substantial path that is worth reading in and of itself, taking away my usual objections about heroine neglect that come up with ladder-style story structures. In addition, most of the game alternates between wacky and 'hohoemashii' SOL that generally keeps a smile on your face.
That said, by the end of the game, I was starting to feel SOL fatigue (the fact that I had only just started to feel that way says everything about the relative quality of the SOL in this game). However, people with a higher tolerance than me shouldn't have any problem with this.
One group of people likely to have problems with this VN are the monogamists... Tarou, the protagonist, is very ecchi and indiscriminate until he actually chooses a heroine, and even in the 'common route' he has relations with several of the heroines in a very casual fashion. That said, he is, at heart, just a more open and ecchi version of the average harem protagonist, so that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Despite the dramatic turns of phrase used by some of the characters for the events that occur within the VN, this game rarely falls into seriousness. The characters themselves are generally amusing (if not laugh out loud amusing), so people who don't want a lot of drama and darkness messing up their SOL will probably like this game.
Edit: For those who are interested in this game, you should know that the Getchu page spoils what story there is badly. I've basically stripped all the spoilers I could have legitimately dropped here (based on my policy of using information from the official site and Getchu as a guideline) because it becomes rather evident (in my eyes, anyway) that you aren't in fact, supposed to know certain things about Ruhuna, Peko, and Assam (there are actually spoilers for Peko's path in her character description, to my exasperation). While it is possible to guess at some of these things based on hints early in the story, I would suggest avoiding reading up in advance on this game in the official site and Getchu page. This is particularly egregious when it comes to Ruhuna, as her secret is stated outright in her character profile, and is treated as a big reveal in the story itself (relatively late in the game).
This review was written by fun2novel and edited for grammar and style by Clephas.
Etatoto review
The mystery genre is one of the most interesting and captivating genres in fiction (Clephas: We are all entitled to our opinions). While there are many mystery vns out there, finding one that has an addictive, twisting plo, and a satisfying ending is a difficult task. It is even harder if you’re looking for something really unique and different from the usual murder who’dun’it, detective, mystery plots... Such as something that will make the reader doubt and rethink what they think they know but also gives satisfying answers.
Welcome to Kieta Sekai to Tsuki to Shoujo -The World was Prayed by The Girl Living A Thousand Years- or Etatoto. Okina Seiji comes back to his home town for a visit. After his arrival, he reunites with old friends and makes new ones, goes to school with them, and spends time bonding with them. However, the real reason for his visit is the mysterious death of his mother, and his goal is to find out the truth. Nothing goes as planned, of course. As the story progresses, the mystery grows more and more complex, questions are raised, and more mysteries are uncovered. This is ALL you need to know, as saying anything more than that will ruin the plot. So, if you’re looking for a good mystery visual novel that is not quite the usual kind of mystery, something complex and twisty, this is a game for you. It’s not quite as complex as the Infinity or the Zero Escape series, but it’s definitely worth your time.
In terms of art the game made a few odd artistic decisions. While the backgrounds looks great, and the main characters are all drawn well, some of the characters look as if drawn by a completely different artist than others. On top of that, their sprites look rough and sketched in comparison. CGs have a similar problem due to a strange artistic decision to draw the h-scenes in one style and the other CGs in a different one. The non-H CGs look rougher, almost sketched. These CGs still look good and match the atmosphere, so perhaps it was an artistic decision rather than a budgetary one (Clephas: It is Lacryma... it was probably just a fumble).
Speaking of production values, the music deserves special recognition. The music is superb, with a variety of deep soothing compositions, atmospheric music, emotional music, and perfectly timed moving pieces. However, there aren't a lot of them, so they might come to feel old with repetition. That said, the music is so good that it shouldn’t be a deal breaker for anyone.
There are a few low points in Etatoto’s writing as well. Most of the characters are not especially well developed and leave you much to be desired. Though, this wasn’t a huge deal breaker, as the story was good enough to pull all the right strings. The reason for this is that most of the game's focus goes into the story, rather than the characters. The romantic elements are a bit sub-par as well, since almost every route develops its romantic relationship in exactly the same way, with pretty much the same amount of time spend on each heroine and with the same ‘date’ spot as everyone else... Not to mention, it takes a while for the story to get going. The first few hours were very difficult to get through, but it is still worth it, in my mind. Those slow peaceful times are used to introduce the characters as well as do some clever and obscure foreshadowing about the events to come.
On a technical side, things aren’t perfect either. The auto skip function doesn’t work as expected (Clephas: Lacryma's technical staff sucks), and sometimes it just doesn’t work at all. At other times, it takes a little longer to load the backgrounds after you resume from a saved game. These are relatively small annoyances that could (and most likely will) be patched later; so, thankfully, they don’t become an obstacle for enjoying the experience of the VN as a whole.
In conclusion, talking about Etatoto is difficult without spoiling the intricate details of its plot. It’s the kind of VN where you should avoid searching for more information than is contained within this review. This gives you a good idea of the pros and cons of the game, and with a little patience, a mystery lover will get hooked on what is probably one of the best mystery visual novels in a while.
This is the latest charage from Hearts, a company specializing in 'yurufuwa' charage with nakige elements. This company's works have a tendency to make me want to puke waves of sugar, but, in my experience, this is one of the better 'yurufuwa' companies out there.
This game focuses on a kind-hearted young man named Harutoki Narumi as he suddenly (and by accident) summons a high-level spirit named Haruharu, and, as a result, he gets dragged into the world of witches and magic users whose duty is to keep the balance of nature by conversing with such spirits. Narumi is generally your classic 'good guy' protagonist that everyone at least likes, and this VN doesn't have any real confrontations in the sense that you might see in another VN, so he doesn't really have a combative side at all.
Haruharu is the spirit Narumi summoned, a generally cheerful and lively young woman who lives in the moment and is driven obsessively to help others. Her spirited and cheery manner generally warms the hearts of those around her, and it is hard even for me not to like her, since she is basically like an embodiment of pure good with no negative elements whatsoever (except a lack of modesty, if you use some standards, lol).
Kazane is an iinchou-type who is the head of the Garden Club, which serves as a front for the activities of the school's small community of witches (the heroines and the protagonist, essentially). She is ambitious, in the sense that she wants to be a Grand Witch, but her essential nature is that of a person who can't help but want to help others (seeing a pattern here? hahaha).
Mashiro is your classic fushigi-chan genius... the most skilled (versus Haruharu being the most talented) of the heroines in magic, she always has a high-level cat spirit named Bastet riding on her head. Despite her brief period as a seeming kuudere (it ends almost immediately) she is, in fact, just as much as a goodie-goodie as Kazane and Haruharu, and her only really unusual quality is her sense of humor.
I'd be tempted to call Mikana a dojikko, in any other VN... but Hearts really hates to include negative personality traits in its heroines, so she just happens to be the least skilled of the heroines. She likes baking and is generally a sweetheart and something of an innocent... and just like all the other heroines, she likes helping people (it is almost amusing that they unified the heroines to this degree, lol).
Now, the charage of this VN has a lot of cheap feels and cuteness... and that is pretty much all there is. The girls and Narumi go around solving minor issues (not incidents) while practicing their power to speak to the spirits of the world, and generally you can expect that any event is either going to result in some kind of low-level emotional scene or lots of cuteness. Given the fact that it was well-written and paced enough to affect me, I have to wonder how the people who eat this up will feel playing this.
The heroine routes... are all about at the same level. Oh, Haruharu's route is the most emotional by far, but I can honestly say that the routes are basically extensions of what I experienced in the common route... lots of low-level feels and cuteness, with h-scenes added in. I'm not saying this is a bad thing... if anything, this game is pure crack for the lovers of the genre. If you want a low-stress, cute as a fuzzy bunny game, this one is ideal.
I will say that you should probably leave Haruharu's route for last... since the feels leading into her ending are the best in the VN. However, I can also say that you could probably play this game just for Haruharu's route and come out feeling quite satisfied if you like the genre. Given my tastes, I'll probably forget this game ever existed by the end of next month, but I felt a need to mark that this game is a rare ideal production for those with a taste for the fuzzy-feely and adorable.
First, I should note that this is a series that is right up the alley of people like Dergonu... it were a VN. This series, Under Jurisdiction by Susan R Matthews, mostly follows Andrej Koscuisko, a Drakonij Prince and would-be (though not by his own will) Inquisitor.
Setting
The Under Jurisdiction series is based in a sci-fi future where humanity, at some point, diversified so greatly that sub-specification has occurred (though most aren't quite separate species entirely. In this future, humanity (such as it is) is ruled by the judiciary, in the form of the Bench. All humans are subject to the law as proclaimed by the judicial forces, and punishments are mostly corporal... horribly so in some cases.
In this setting, torture is not only allowed, it is actually carried out by licensed medical professionals trained to inflict the maximum amount of pain to gain confessions of crimes (regardless of how heavy the evidence is), and, where it is justified, to torture them to death in the most horrible of fashions. This legal use of torture as a deterrent to criminals has led to a gradual decay in the morale of the planets ruled by the Judges on the Bench, and rebellions have begun to occur on a regular basis by the time the protagonist, Andrej, takes his first steps into the world of the Fleet.
Andrej Koscuisko
Andrej is an extremely complex man... a man raised in a noble family of oligarchs who believe intensely and with absolute conviction in the duties of noblesse oblige and the duties to those under a lord's protection. He is also a young medical professional, a genius surgeon and chemist with a the kind of skill in actual surgical procedures that is seen so rarely as to be unheard of. He understands the human body (all races) to a degree that is often terrifying, and this is part of what becomes his plague... for when he begins his training, he discovers that, to his horror, the process of Inquisition brings out an intense, sick hunger to inflict pain upon and dominate the subjects that come under his hands. Coupled with his natural understanding of the body and human psychology, he comes out of his training as the most horrifyingly skilled Inquisitor in Bench history, an artist of pain eternally on the verge of madness due to the conflicting imperatives within him. He is only held back from the edge of the cliff by the efforts of his Bond Involuntaries, former criminals implanted with behavioral governors that force them to absolute obedience, so they can serve as his aides, and they are thus under his protection. Their care for him, for his sanity, for his health, and for his honor, is all that keeps the sadistic madness at bay as it fights with his honor and inherent compassion...
The Story
The story follows Andrej from his training as an Inquisitor and first encounter with a Bond Involuntary, to his first duty as a Fleet Inquisitor and beyond... His fight with madness as he tries to glean mercy and justice from the horrors he is forced to perform on others, his fight to keep his honor, to protect his Bond Involuntaries from others who would use them poorly, and his fight with his own, culturally-ingrained sense of filial duty are intense to read. For all the foreignness of his culture, Andrej's journeys through life leave behind an impact far out of proportion for the actual deeds he performs.
Unfortunately, if you have a weak stomach, I can't recommend this story at all. The galaxy Under Jurisdiction is one of the most horrifying dystopian sci-fi systems I've ever seen... all the worse when you realize that it all began out of a desire for justice and fair play in a universe where human racism has, if anything, gotten worse thousands of years after leaving Earth.
Fuukan no Grasesta is the latest release from Eushully, the company responsible for Kamidori Alchemy Meister and Ikusa Megami Zero. As I mentioned in my previous post, it is based in a unique fantasy world based off of the idea that a futuristic version of our world got fused with a world of demihumans and gods who granted magic in return for faith.
Fuukan no Grasesta's basic system is that of a dungeon-crawler... with a few twists. First, the party shares an HP bar, which signals the party's destruction if it hits zero. Each character currently recruited or hired has a basic HP stat that adds to the bar, with the protagonist, Judar Schwarka, having the largest (his hp is about five times the next highest character's addition). This is necessary, as the game has numerous points where Judar is the only fighter. Judar himself is a straight-out warrior/barbarian type, with the ability to wield swords, greatswords, and warhammers. His natural element is darkness, and his attacks, which range from a row to an all-enemies on a single platform attack, are generally powerful, albeit useless against some enemies (there are a LOT of dark elemental enemies out there, but it is great for wiping out regular enemies).
Active skills in this game have a certain amount of uses each, rather than the game utilizing an MP system (which would make more sense, considering that magical energy is required for all powers and special abilities in the setting). This makes traversing the dungeons a serious pain in the rear, especially since items are expensive, levels gained have little effect on stats (seriously... think maybe one stat going up by one, or three stats going up by one at the most, with Judar's HP going up every level). This isn't as much trouble as you'd think, most of the time, simply because the enemy don't have huge gaps in strength based on level either, but it also makes grinding excessively unattractive, because there are minimal returns.
When you leave the dungeon, all items found inside, save for those used to power up 'container' items (special items that can take in usables and stock them for future use without taking up space in the inventory) or weapons, or weapons that have to be assessed to find out what they are. You are given a pittance of money based on the value of what you found (seriously, it is shit money), and, if you are willing to spend what little you gained, you can get at least the most important ones (weapons and armor, usually) back... though it makes me wince every time, since money is generally scarce, no matter how far I get into this game.
Upgradable weapons and armor are usually the most valuable, and it is usually good to have weapons of multiple elements on each character so they can switch as needs must, since elemental attacks make things a lot easier at times.
Early in the game, my advice is hurry up and get your party wiped out once, use money to restart, then go back and use the Hetares Dungeon from the append to quickly level your characters up (after you hit about level 15 it slows down, and that is about the point you should stop using it to level up) and get coins that can be turned into money. Early in the game, this is pretty much the only way to keep afloat, as demands on your money are constant, and grinding in the main dungeon is generally inefficient.
Now, about allies... allies in this game are mostly recruited by hiring people you've gotten access to through the story/talking to them in the streets. The expense for them differs... and they only stay with you for a set number of days. My advice is that you keep all available hires recruited at all times to keep your hp bar up, then only deploy the ones most effective for a given dungeon in the actual battles. Having people vulnerable to the common element of a dungeon (vulnerabilities CAN be changed based on armor, but armor is much less plentiful and full of variety than weapons) in your formation is a good way to get slaughtered, and there is little point in pounding away with an element that doesn't do crap to the enemies in a particular part of the dungeon.
As you hire them over and over again and see their scenes, eventually (between chapters 4-6 for most) you'll be able to permanently recruit most of the characters, but this often requires some extremely hard battles or really persistent use of the said characters. So far, I'd say Mikuri and Aguna had the hardest recruitment issues (though Aguna was worth it, since her fire magic is powerful and her hire cost is the highest by 2X). Excel and the dwarf girl who looks nothing like a dwarf take the longest but are relatively easy to take in (though Excel's quirks are... a bit strange). The two healers of the party are Ririka and Excel, and without them you are pretty much screwed in boss battles.
Throughout the dungeon are enemies called Disasters, demons of immense power who are usually dramatically more powerful than even the bosses of the areas they are in. Since most of these have seriously badass area attacks, you'll have to pick which characters to fight them carefully and expect to lose at least once on many of them (especially since they are usually about twenty levels higher than the enemies around them and have proportionately higher stats than everything around them). On the other hand, the rewards for beating them (in items, experience, and money) are generally worth it. Until chapter 5's latest dungeon, I'd say it is barely possible for an adequately leveled party to take them down, given some luck and a good strategy. On the other hand, at that point, the most recent one I ran into was having three turns for every one of mine and was using an all-area attack on at least one of those... and healing himself from the drain effect of his passive skill. Annoying, to say the least.
It probably says everything about this game that I never really felt like I was anywhere near the head of the curve until I hit the fifth chapter, despite my experience with jrpgs and dungeon crawlers. While the system isn't as quirky as that of some of Eushully's other games, it is still nontraditional enough to through me off at times.
I'll keep comments on the story to myself until the final review, but these are my impressions of the gameplay so far.
Edit: Sorry, forgot to comment on skills... In this game, skills do not automatically level up with your experience. Rather, you have to spend money in the menu to level up the skills related to your character's use of weapons, puzzle-solving skills, and others. I suggest you max Judar's Lone Wolf skill as early as possible, as it makes him an ungodly powerhouse when forced to fight alone... when the skill doesn't bug out (which it does surprisingly frequently).
After ten years playing VNs, you would think I would have completely lost faith in them by now, especially considering just how many I've played (744 not counting most of the nukige, replays and incomplete/dropped ones). Most VNs that aren't nukige are SOL-fests that exist solely to promote nostalgic fantasies about life in high school and getting into bishoujos' pants... not that that is an entirely horrible goal, but it isn't something I want to see five hundred times over.
The romance is usually puerile and has no relation to reality, the characters have all their hard edges filed away by the needs of the archetype, and drama is used solely to add 'spice' (like one sprinkle of pumpkin spice, not cracked red pepper) to an otherwise endlessly sweet and bland recipe.
So how is it that someone who has experienced that much essentially boring and pointless repetition of the same scenarios able to continue to enjoy VNs, even if he can't stand meaningless SOL anymore?
At one time, it was a sense of duty, a belief that I was doing the community good by digging gems out of the piles of crap that are the SOL genre. I also had a sense of pride that I made an effort of objectivity that I have literally seen no one else attempt. I played games no one else bothered with because they didn't have the time or patience, and I did it because I thought someone looking at the games would want to know what they were getting into.
I paid a price in a growing sense of bitterness, of boredom, and of a sense that I was forgetting the reason why I began to read fiction in the first place. I paid a price in people continually being trolls and trying to draw me into fights over my opinions on these games. I had people start reddits and send me pms being sympathetic about the very conversations they'd started (yes that happens).
I also had people who respected what I was doing, and I knew there were people in the community who benefited from the fact that I was doing it. I watched VNs I had pushed get localizations and fantls (usually to my surprise), and I saw others that I had labeled as mediocre get hyped to a ridiculous degree. I tried to get other people to help with what I was doing, only to find that, without a reading speed similar to mine, it was too much of a burden on their lives and ate up the time to read the VNs they wanted to read.
The bad generally outweighed the good immensely while I was doing VN of the Month, and even after, I found that the after-effects of my years of playing games I wasn't interested in personally had left me with scars I was unable to feel while my sense of duty was keeping me going.
However, I can say that I still haven't given up on VNs.
Why?
The reason is ridiculously simple and at the same time profound (at least to me). I love the medium. For someone who likes an experience that combines the reading, visual input, and music without the need for a lot of input from the one experiencing it, VNs provide a unique storytelling experience. Books are great for the imagination and can send our souls exploring across landscapes that exist only in our own minds, but VNs provide a more filled-out framework for those who don't necessarily have the imagination to fill in all the gaps on their own, without rotting the imagination to the degree manga and anime do. I've been able to get people who had trouble reading books into VNs, then led them straight back to books and opened the world of imagination to them. I've seen people who had begun to feel the otaku community offered nothing more to them come alive again after playing a chuunige or a charage. I've picked up a random moe-looking VN and found a deep and compelling story that remains within me dozens of times.
In the end, it is moments, experiences like that that keep me coming back, believing in the possibilities of VNs even now. It is the desire to find more such experiences that keeps me looking at new releases each month, and it is the belief that those experiences will never entirely vanish that keeps me from condemning the industry as a whole for the way it sabotages itself at times.
First, I should state that I'm avoiding the after stories for now, simply because I'll want to see them for the first time immediately after replaying the original game, rather than over a year after I originally played it, when my memory for details has faded as much as it has right now. As such, this post will focus on the Ayaka and Mina paths that were added on for this fandisc release.
Common Route
The common route covers a summary of the events that happened in the first game and serves as a basis for just how much Ouro has 'remembered' about his own past with certain female personages and what he knows about certain figures vital to the story. It also covers the basic (very basic) resolution of Ouro's personal issues (in a really off-hand manner) in such a way that it means the writers are just 'letting you know' they won't be important to the two new paths. This ends once the summary passes the winter holidays and school is about to go back in session.
Ayaka
Shirogasaki Ayaka was the heroine who should have been instead of Akane. I say this because it is the same thing every Saga Planets fanboy said immediately after finishing the game... Akane had no business having a path in the game when Ayaka didn't. The tightly-knit nature of the group of heroines other than Akane and Ouro made the gap between Akane and the others as a heroine far too wide for a mere genkikko to really be considered a serious heroine in comparison. Ayaka, however, makes a strong impression from the beginning and involves herself (albeit in a negative way) with them from the beginning.
This path is hilarious. Anyone who played Rena's path will probably have some idea of just how hilarious a character Ayaka can be when she isn't putting her mind to it, but in her own path, I found myself giggling constantly. The way she and Ouro get together is so absurd, and the buildup to it is so... funny. Even after they became lovers, I couldn't take the serious stuff seriously because they made me break out laughing ever few minutes. I definitely rate this highly as an add-on path, and it is as long as the paths in the original game, so you can't say Ayaka was gypped.
Ayaka also has a 'what-if' append story that appears in the extra section after you finish her path. This what-if is just as hilarious in its own way, and it focuses on what she 'knows' pretty early on. This what-if dramatically alters her attitude toward Ouro in a way that is as hilarious as she was in her path, if in a drastically different fashion...
This is a path without any emotional catharsis, but in exchange you'll probably spend a great deal of time laughing.
Caminal
As anyone could guess by the way she and Ouro interacted in the original game, Mina's path's theme is, in opposition to the ero-comedy of Ayaka's path, a straight out cute romance. As such, there isn't a whole lot I can go over here without spoiling details, sadly. I will say that the relationship formation is typical for this type of heroine, in particular because, unlike Sylvie, she is a lot less honest/familiar with her own emotions. For Mina, who has a strong sense of herself as a princess first and an individual second, dealing with emotions like those born out of young love is a bit awkward.
Unlike Ayaka's path, you probably won't find yourself laughing every few seconds, though Sylvie and the crew are as generally amusing as they were in the original game.
The append story for Mina is a straight-out after story, focusing on the aftermath of the two settling in as publicly (at the school) acknowledged lovers and dealing with Mina's homeland (which isn't as dramatic as you might think). As usual, the focus is more on the cute romance, so you won't see any real drama here (there isn't really a ton of drama in the main path either).
Conclusion
While the new paths aren't as straight-out powerful as the ones in the main game, I found myself more or less satisfied at Mina and Ayaka finally taking their rightful places as heroines. The laughs I got out of Ayaka's path made it worth shelling out the money to get hold of this, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the append stories for the other characters once I get around to replaying the original, lol.
Edit: Ok, so I couldn't resist. I broke down and played Ria's new path after all... I tried to stop myself, but my curiosity got the better of me... and I don't regret it.
If Mina is cute romance and Ayaka is ero-comedy, Ria's new path is a pure catharsis. For those who didn't like the ending of Ria's path (there will always be those who complain when the ending is bittersweet like that), this path is probably what you were looking for. I enjoyed it and came out of it feeling good, which is nice... but I do think that this path is pandering a bit too much to fan pressure. Well, since it is a fandisc, I suppose that was inevitable, in any case, lol.
Spiral is the latest game from Navel, the company responsible for Shuffle and Tsuriotsu. This is also based in the same world as Shuffle, albeit a generation later (which is suitable, seeing as it has been almost a generation since the original Shuffle was released). For those who aren't aware of this fact, the original writer of Shuffle, Agobarrier, died a back in 2016, and it is perhaps inevitable that the world he created would end up looking a lot different once someone else took over completely...
Now, I have a single complaint to get off my chest before I start my assessment of this game... in a setting where part of the attraction is the multiple races involved, why did they choose to create a situation where all the heroines are human? Seriously, I honestly think this was a poor choice, even with the protagonist being of the divine race.
The story begins with Crom, a divine race intelligence agent who previously specialized in the capture of inter-world criminals and the investigation of interworld criminal organizations, being forced to give up his long-desired vacation in order to infiltrate a human-only school in order to investigate the area in advance of a princess's attendance of a local school. Crom is one of those protagonists who can do everything but sees that as being perfectly normal, so he stands out whether he likes it or not, and he can pass for a girl easily (though he is rarely a trap in-game).
Since this was written by a writer that I personally consider to be a fourth-class charage writer (Takeuchi Jun)... I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at how it turned out. His primary works were all Da Capo related, which pretty much says everything, since Da Capo is a series that manages to make magic eminently boring.
Common Route
The common route involves him settling in at the school, and it ends just before the culture festival, which is the turning point where the heroine paths split off completely. I'd say it 'gets the job done' of introducing the characters and making the heroines attractive to the reader... but in my mind that just means that a lot more effort could have gone into developing the character relationships and building up the characters' personalities. While there was no sense that it was being hurried along, I couldn't help but feel that things were kept intentionally at the surface level during the common route, even moreso than in the usual charage.
Rose
I picked Rose first because she was the person least touched by the issues at the school, having transferred in at the same time as Crom. Rose is very much a 'borderless' person, having no prejudices... at all. She lives in the moment, but she isn't a hedonist. She simply finds the world and people around her to be fun and enjoys them as they are rather than pushing her expectations on others.
I can honestly say her path felt rushed and forced, which disappointed me deeply. While there is drama, it is quickly resolved and the rest is mostly ichaicha. None of Crom's personal issues are really touched upon (despite a massive amount of hints at their existence during the prologue and common route), and it felt like they deliberately avoided adding any real depth to this path, which I found disappointing.
Ibarako
Ibarako was my second choice because I have a soft spot for misanthropes (being one myself). Ibarako is an extreme misanthrope, but, because of the existence of the divine and demon realms and their peoples, she managed to avoid becoming a nihilist, happily. When she is first encountered, it is quite obvious she is just counting down the days until she can leave the human realm... Despite her negativity, she is essentially a good person... she just really, really dislikes people.
Her path is pretty much straight ichaicha with a side of learning about her personal issues, why she came to hate humans, and some emotional drama that lasts all of ten minutes before it is over. The romance is mildly cute and traditional... but the writer's lack of creativity is evident here. While there is a tear-jerk screen, it is brief, poorly-written, and conveniently resolved without real conflict. As such, I can call this a failed route despite my fondness for Ibarako as a whole.
Sango
It needs to be said, but this writer just committed the cardinal sin of this kind of game... he made one heroine's path so much better than the rest that there is no comparison. Sango is a generally helpful, kind-hearted girl who generally takes up a leadership position whenever possible. She is also the daughter of the school's administrator. However, she has one issue that becomes apparent early on... she's something of a racist. She is aware of this quality and dislikes it about herself, but because of the way she was raised, she struggles with it.
This path is the most complex of the three I played so far (I'm writing these up as I finish the paths). The drama is complex and multilayered, and some of Crom's issues come to light (finally, thank god) in this path, though they are not resolved by any means (meaning I'm still irritated at the writer). What bothers me most about this is that there is no reason all the paths couldn't have had this level of drama, since each of the heroines had their own issues to deal with and Crom's own position should have inevitably created some troubles. Since this isn't a locked true path, there really isn't any justification for the wide gap in path quality here...
Mizuki
... why is it that the least interesting heroines in this game got the better paths? Mizuki is your standard-issue genki airhead heroine, with a side of an obsession with magic.
Her path is a bit below Sango's and a bit above the other two in terms of quality, and it is probably the most 'Shuffle-like' path in the game, in the sense that I could see such a heroine popping up in Shuffle. That said, the drama is as 'convenient' as it was in Ibarako's and Rose's path, and in that sense, I found myself left a bit irritated once more. It also has the weakest epilogue of the four paths..
Afterthoughts
This game needed to include at least one other heroine (preferably a devil or deity heroine) and deal more intimately with Crom's issues. I say this because perhaps the most immediately startling of Crom's issues doesn't surface in the heroines' views even once in all the four paths, which is a HUGE negative, considering it is one of Crom's most interesting parts. In addition, even Sango's path leaves you with more questions than answers, though it will probably end up being the canon path for whatever sequel they are planning (as they obviously are)... or at least the general flow of events will.
This game was rather obviously - and this is a horrible practice - set up to be followed quickly (probably before the end of this year) with the announcement of a sequel or fandisc. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was in development before this VN was released... poor overworked Navel staff, lol.
For a Shuffle fan, this game is a major disappointment, and, even for a fan of Navel in general, this game probably won't make it to the top of their list unless they only play the Sango path and don't want anything to do with the other heroines. While this game tries to deal with some interesting issues that might theoretically be born of the situation of three worlds with humanoid races that can interbreed coming in close contact, it does so in a way that is haphazard and not quite believable. As such, it actually falls short of Shuffle even in this sense, since Shuffle and its after stories and add-ons actually dealt with a number of such issues on its own in a way that was believable within the deliberately comically-presented setting at the time.
For me, it felt like the generally positive silliness of Shuffle was lost when they made this game, due to the weak attempt to tackle serious issues such as racism and misanthropy. Shuffle had a lot of serious points that were actually somewhat dark in retrospect, but because of the general atmosphere of the game, my actual impression of the game and its various attachments and fandiscs is one of a light but interesting comedy SOL VN with traces of nakige.
To be blunt, their choice of writer is probably the biggest problem with this game. His comedy is weak, his SOL is archetypical, and he over-favored one heroine in a game that doesn't clearly present a central heroine. I really hope that any sequel or fandisc is written by someone with a higher level of skill at this kind of thing...
Edit: I gave this game a 7 on vndb, but, if it weren't for the quality of Sango's path, I would have given it a 4 or a 5, which is an extremely, extremely low rating for me. I was really tempted to just give it a six, since I hate how the writer treated the Rose and Ibarako paths (to be honest, I could have done without Mizuki entirely), but if this game were a kinetic novel with just Sango, I would have probably gave it an eight.
