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Mehnot

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Mehnot last won the day on November 2 2021

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  1. Kazami Kazuki from the Grisaia trilogy fits the bill I would say. Two other girls I can think of, both from KEY VNs funnily enough, are Kurugaya from Little Busters and Akane from Rewrite. I think, however, that the reason it sounds like an unusual combination is not exactly the combination itself as much as there just not being too many dominant type heroines. But once you get one, chances are she will be kind. Gotta make her likable after all.
  2. Well, let's see, that really shouldn't be hard to come by, as many of the most popular VNs out there have strong heroines. F/SN, Muv Luv, Baldr Sky, Rewrite... All of them are exactly what you describe. Honestly, any action oriented VN will do the trick so long as there are romance oriented heroine routes.
  3. So, I finished Kin'iro Loveriche or Kinkoi for short. I am not the biggest moege player as I struggle to keep my motivation when the stakes in a story are too low and there are no particularly engaging conflicts to speak of. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the cute characters, the SoL and the comedy, but I have to pace myself and be careful to not get oversaturated or chances are I'm not gonna finish the game. I picked up Kinkoi as per recommendation of a friend of mine who knows what I tend to enjoy very well, and he told me that I would most likely come to love the true route... and holy shit he couldn't be any more right. To be completely honest the rest of routes were nothing to write home about. They were funny and entertaining enough so long as I didn't binge, but I can't say they are spectacular by any stretch of the imagination. The romance also felt incredibly lackluster and I never felt a special connection between the MC and any of the heroines... until the true route. Hooo boy the true route. What a beautiful and powerful thing. I love how everything comes together and how tactful it all feels. It never feels cheesy or overly dramatic, it doesn't feel like they are trying to manipulate your feelings. It all flows so nicely and leaves you with such a good aftertaste and a message that will stick with you for a long time. It might not be exactly original or innovative, but it's beatifully executed and that's more than enough. Now I'm talking about it in very vague and abstract terms because I obviously don't want to spoil the experience for anyone. I am just going to say, please, if you have even the slightest tolerance for moege, you need to give Kinkoi a try. PS: Ria is such a beautiful human being and she earns a more than well deserved spot in my best fictional girls of all time, and in my heart. Bless her.
  4. I recently read 'Kotonoha Amrilato'. The premise is as simple as it is intriguing: Rin, a regular japanese high-schooler, suddenly finds herself in a bizarre version of her own world after buying taiyaki at a stall on the street. This world is, for the most part, almost identical to her world, but a couple of remarkable aspects stand out: the sky appears to have a pink hue no matter the time of the day (yes, even at night), and all the signs and posters on the street are written in a weird language, whose writing system sort of resembles the roman alphabet albeit with noticeable differences as well. As you would expect, Rin starts to panic after failing to establish proper communication when trying to ask people on the street for help. Eventually she runs into this young girl, Ruka, who for some reason can speak a smattering of broken Japanese. Ruka then decides to help her out and offers Rin her apartment to stay the night. First of all, the main focus of this VN is on the struggle to communicate between Rin and Ruka. Most of the text, aside from Rin's inner monologue which is obviously in Japanese/English, is actually in Juliamo, the language of this world... which is actually proper and completely grammatical Esperanto (as a matter of fact they had the help of the JEI, or Japanese Esperanto Institute, to develop this VN), and a translation won't be provided at least on your first playthrough. The reader is expected to feel as lost as Rin does, and to slowly learn the language along with her. A big chunk of your gameplay time will be spent on an in-game Duolingo of sorts. Now, you technically don't need to do well in your tests to procede with the story, and you could theoretically ignore all the language learning stuff. However, the payoff when you are able to understand Rin and Ruka's conversations in Juliamo is huge. It's akin to the very satisfying feeling you get when you are learning a new language and it starts to click, condensed in a ~15h VN. Language things aside, Kotonoha Amrilato, as the name implies (Amrilato is an Esperanto compound word made up of the root 'am-', related to love, and 'rilato', which means relationship, so literally, 'love relationship') is a romance between these two girls who can barely even talk to each other. Their clumsy efforts are endearing and are sure to warm your heart. The world is also very cleverly constructed and, even though due to its short length it can't spare the time to go tackle the small details, it always feels consistent and believable. It won't be a huge burden on your suspension of disbelief, is what I'm trying to say, barring the fundamental isekai premise, that is. Speaking of which... yeah! this is technically a yuri isekai! Now, I can't claim to have read an insane amount of VNs or having watched a crazy number of anime, but I have the feeling that this combination of genres is not particularly common. Anyway, the bottom line is, this is one of the most unique VNs I've read. Would I recommend it to everyone? Definitely not. This is only for people who are interested in communication and language (not necessarily Esperanto, as that is just an easy vehicle the VN picked to tell its story: don't expect Esperantist culture) and don't mind to put in the effort just the same way our protagonist does. I would say that if you are big into yuri you should still enjoy it nonetheless, but really, you can only get the whole magical experience this little gem has to offer with some active hard work on your part.
  5. Found some time to make a chart, albeit smaller than yours! Feel free to call me out for shit taste. Oh, also, I imposed myself a "one VN one waifu policy", i.e, no more than one character from the same VN allowed. I also limited it to girls only, cause I feel a bro chart would be a completely different thing and I don't feel like mixing them.
  6. I feel like there should be a rule not to include 2 characters from the same VN to make it more interesting~ Other than that, good list. I'd say we are about 60-70% compatible
  7. Feel free to skip this if you are not interested in the history. I won't be offended lol. There's a sequence of sound changes that made the "c" character sound like an /s/ in the word Narcissus and other Latin borrowed words. The gist of it is that before a front vowel, namely /e/ and /i/, the /k/ became palatalized into a /t͡ʃ/ (sounding like the "ch" in church), which later became simply /ʃ/ (sounding like the "sh" in sharp) and then lost its palatalization again to become /s/. Since this didn't happen with all vowels but front vowels only, we get that weird alternation where sometimes the "c" sounds like "k" and sometimes like "s". English borrowed the problems along with Latin and especially French loanwords. I had read the VN and for some reason that never occurred to me! That answers the question then, thank you! Since I'm not a native English speaker I wouldn't dare suggest a most "natural" pronunciation, so I just tried to offer you some options with their corresponding justifications. But for what it's worth, I agree, it's probably best to not overcomplicate things. If everyone seems to pronounce it like you did in your 3rd recording, Narsissu, and considering the -su stands for "suicide" and those sounds are preserved very clearly in that pronunciation, I'd definitely be leaning towards this one.
  8. I believe pronouncing it like it's supposed to be pronounced in English is a safe bet. So, /nɑɹˈsɪsəs/. I'm not sure where the japanese pronunciation might come from, but if I had to take a guess, it's either from Latin, where the "c" is /k/, or from the original Greek "νάρκισσος" /ˈnar.kis.sos/. Taking the guess a bit further, it might be the case that they took the Latin nominative "narcissus" and removed the final -s, thinking that would get rid of the plural even if the plural of the second declension doesn't end in -s but in -ī, narcissī. It seems like a plausible misunderstanding to me, what do you think? TL;DR: The options seems to be either /nɑɹˈsɪsəs/ or /nɑɹˈsɪsə/ for the English pronunciation (introducing an /s/ for the heck of it in the first case), or if you don't mind stepping out of English's phonology, then you can go with the -incorrect- Latin /nar.ˈkis.su/. In the end it's a made up word so whatever floats your boat I guess! EDIT: You can hear how the Latin word is supposed to be pronounced here: https://forvo.com/word/narcissus/#la I decided to use IPA for this reply because trying to convey phonetic information without it, even more so when I'm not a native English speaker seems sketchy to say the least. I apologize if you are not familiar with it.
  9. Baldr Sky is exactly what you are looking for. MC will progressively not only regain more memories of his past, but also retain some memories from previous routes, until the final route where he remembers everything.
  10. I never thought I would be the one to ever say this, but go outside and get some air. Seriously.
  11. If I buy a VN it's usually because I really want to read it. In fact, I simply just don't read stuff I'm not particularly hyped about. This is to say, if I really wanna read a VN, I will pay the price. The factor that not only could, but most definitely will prevent me from buying it is any form of censorship. I don't care whose fault it is, I want to have the intended experience the developers had in mind. I don't care if it's just "some pointless sex scenes" or "just a couple droplets of blood". I will never consent to having someone else decide what is or is not appropiate for me to consume with my own money.
  12. My thoughts on Dies Irae exactly. I dropped it during Marie's route and never looked back. I was bored out of my mind. DI made me realize chuuniges are just not for me.
  13. Hmm well, the idea of forgetting something to be able to experience it for the first time again is definitely tempting, though I don't know how wise it'd be to actually take that offer even if it was possible. After all, there's always new things to experience. That being said, it's undeniable that first experiences are really powerful. I think that's the reason why as a child everything hits you so hard and you get so much enjoyment out of what you now as an adult would consider trivial or mediocre stuff. As for what VN or VNs I'd choose to re-experience anew... hmm... probably those that rely on crazy twists and shock factor as main components of the trip. After all, I can revisit my favorite emotional VNs any time I want, and even though it's not the first time my experience won't be dampened too much; in fact, it might even be stronger since I have the full context for everything. Meanwhile getting the full experience out of titles like Umineko and Ever17 is harder once you know the truth of it all. So yeah, that'd be the subset of VNs that, if I were to accept the offer, I would pick.
  14. Even more than the artstyle itself, I personally just don't consider the characters in Narcissu too moe. Quite low on the moe scale, for a VN, that is Anyway I completely forgot about another one I think you really should check out: Seven Days. Extremely wholesome. Be ready to cry 7 times.
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