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Nemesis
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サクラノ刻－櫻の森の下を歩む－
Chapter 1 - Apparently, we always have to start the series with pottery.
Lots of talk about counterfeit and real work of arts, and how the value of art is decided. I think the old me would have commented on how superficial the art world is by focusing on the piece's history and other things unrelated to the actual art piece itself.
But I have a rather different point of view now. Art is a sort of communication between the creator and the audience, so I can now see the value on that. Its value depends on what sort of value it can give to the audience. So knowing the background of the art piece can completely change its interpretation similar to "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs," and gains new value. Either way, I don't think I have an eye for visual art >.>
Wow at the quality of the first chapter.
SpoilerSo much malapropism already. It even adds new malapropism to SakuUta's Toritani route. A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs all over again. 愛がなければ見えない
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Lol, not sure if you are being sarcastic. Hentai Prison was top 4 in EGS for a while, and is generally considered one of the top VN's of all time in the Japanese side.
No Black Sheep Town I'm guessing as it's not being sold in getchu.
While still quite far from its golden years, overall, 2022 was a strong year for VN's.
Edit: Just to give some more background on how good 2022 was, here is a Japanese Youtuber's review on his top VN's for the year:
5. Tsui no Stella
4. Ihanashi no Majo
3. Aokana Extra 2
2. Mahou Tsukai No Yoru
Hidden MVP: Black Sheep Town
Honorable Mention: Eve ghost enemies
1. Hentai Prison
Hentai Prison and Black Sheep Town tying for 1st. Makes me look forward to Henpri when I get the chance to read it.
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俺たちに翼はない AfterStory
I feel that a lot of the big events in Takashi and Shuusuke route was covered in the main game's epilogues. But I don't remember how much of it was covered, so hard for me to compare on what's been added.
Takashi- Even if we don't have wings alone, together, we can fly everywhere. In this case, I think wings here represent freedom, hope, and future. Or in other words, the willpower to live and the courage to face tomorrow.
「ほうら、私たちにも翼くらいはあるんだぞう」
「大好きなひとと一緒なら、私どこまでも飛んでいきますか」
Shuusuke route - the dialogue feels off or just lacking in the first few scenes of the games. I'm guessing that was written by the subwriter. Then it goes to back to standard Ou Jackson quality again after the H-scene.
SpoilerWe get some tension between Shuusuke and Asuka, who realized her feelings for Takashi too late.
Hayato route - We get back to our hardboiled protagonist enjoying the city night life and our weird heroine Naru.
SpoilerHayato gets involved in some Yakuza incident, and we got some cool action scenes including Karuo.
SpoilerYouji route - We get to see Youji interacting with everyone else now that the others have become one aspect of his personality and became more well rounded. This is really where Jackson's prose shines with Youji's speech pattern becoming a combination of the other four with one of them being more pronounced depending on who he's talking to. At the same time, we see aspects of other character's personality that they don't usually show. We get to see them with a different mask.
Other than that, there are a couple short stories.
ランス4 －教団の遺産－
With the new patch released, I figured now is the time to continue with Rance and play 4.
The mechanics are pretty shit with it being a Tactics RPG without any of the features that make it tactical such as terrain. Mechanics are still exactly the same as basic RPG, except they annoy you with having to walk your characters every turn. Without the patch, this probably would've been rage inducing to me. With the patch, it's somewhat tolerable with a walkthrough.
Story-wise, it's decent. Well, it's at least better than Rance 2, but not as good as Rance 3.
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I've been reading Kurai Heya and Oretsuba Prologue and Afterstory.
暗い部屋
My first impression is it is very Setoguchi work: a rather dark and hopeless start.
For the most part, it has similar themes to Swan Song: it's a story about despair and how people deal with it. But compared to Swan Song, it's much more of a charage. It follows our two protagonist: 日野清太郎 and 押川悠衣子。 「楽しいことが、全然ないんだもの」
It starts with the concept of death. It narrates in detail how a corpse rot and flies lay eggs on the body with maggots eventually coming out, and how a once beautiful person gets turned into rotting piece of meat.
Then our MC 清太郎 explores a new world after being locked inside the house 24/7 for health reasons. He was adopted by her aunt and her family. Oh wow, the aunt is a control freak and a terrible person. She forcefully adopted him, and when she learned about the gas mask, she wants to chase him out now.
But in the midst of that despair, he gets along with his cousin, 悠衣子 and 英, and lives a somewhat normal life for a while. It really goes in detail to be what it's like to be under an abusive family, and how abuse is not really just physical abuse. 「毎日、明日が怖いの」
It also gets into the story of their twin mothers 寿子 and 耀子.寿子 wanted to be an artist, while 耀子 wanted to be a housewife. Both of their dreams have come true, but they were both unhappy with their life.
Overall, it's another solid story from Setoguchi which is probably better as a novel rather than a VN.
俺たちに翼はない ～Prelude～
I wasn't originally planning on reading this, but since I got it along with the AfterStory I might as well.
Reading this is rather nostalgic, and Ou Jackson's prose is fun and upbeat. But story-wise nothing much happened, so I don't know what else to talk about. There is just some added introduction to Haneda's heroines.
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Finished Mekuiro and tried Fate/Empire of Dirt.
絆きらめく恋いろは
Tsubaki > Saya=Shion > Shia
I actually like Trenka better as more Tsubaki, and the writers seem to be better at writing linear story compared to route structure that builds up. My issue is that they really don't connect the individual routes well compared to some of the better written VN's. The routes just feel like it's written separately without caring about the entire structure.
Fate/Empire of Dirt
Pretty terrible doujin game outside of the art. The prose is shit and far from Nasu quality, and the lore is warped to fit the shitty writing.
Gameplay itself is pretty much just a shittier version of FGO.
This is just really bad Fate fanfiction, and dropped it halfway through. I couldn't stand the terrible prose anymore. I regret being baited by the art.
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絆きらめく恋いろは
Lots of worldbuilding in the introduction, explaining the history of the world. I like it, worldbuilding is a must for every decent fantasy.
The matches are also interesting and has some actual Kendou terminology built into it such as 先の先 and 後の先. Well, obviously, it doesn't go into as much detail as Hanachirasu with the forms and stances, but still pretty interesting.
So far, outside of Tsubaki, the individual routes are rather average. The tournament brackets change depending on the route which tells me that each route is written by different authors without coordination.
Overall, it's far from being a kamige, but solid game nonetheless.
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Was reading through Swan Song and Biman5.
SWAN SONG
This seems like a good Christmas story as it starts on Christmas Eve. It has a impactful start with an earthquake destroying the town and our MC, Amako Tsukasa, finding a woman about to die from the disaster. Her last wish being to take care of Aroe, and changing her mind at the last minute to kill Aroe instead. Our MC is too pussy to kill her, so he takes care of her instead. This reminds me of the newborn baby scene in Subahibi and Tsui no Sora Remake with Yukito or Tomosane hesitating whether to kill the newborn baby or to celebrate. It is the duality of cursed life and blessed life.
With the entire town in a complete mess, Tsukasa meets a bunch of survivors in an abandoned church and takes shelter there with Aroe. While exploring the city wreckage one day he met a Salary Man who lost his entire family, who complains about the pointless life he lived suffering at work everyday for his family. Now that he is freed from those responsibilities, he feels free, but sad at the same time as he lost sight of his goals. He leaves with the line 「君に幸あれ」- "May happiness be with you".
If Scaji is good at explaining and teaching things, Setoguchi is good at showing things in action. You can only see the true nature of human's morality when civilization breaks down and laws stop functioning. This is Lord of the Flies except with Adult society. Each person adapts to the new world differently facing the reality that life has no meaning and can be easily taken away: acceptance, physical suicide, and philosophical suicide. Some people find their own value of life and do their best to survive. Others give up on the value of life and start to harm others and themselves. Others give up on reality and join religious groups for escapism.
The art is rather old, but expressive, and adds a lot to the atmosphere. Music is simple and melancholic.
They talk about what it means to be human, and how Aroe is lacking it due to her mental disability. Her habits are influenced by her disability and not from her own will. Our routines make up as a huge portion of our life. This work conveys that there is no such thing as universal happiness by using Aroe as an example.
It also covers lots of societal topics. How society handles a lot of dirty work such as Justice and punishment, so that normal people don't have to worry about it. But with civilization broken, everyone is forced to handle the topic and make decisions for themselves. People are satisfied living under illusion of safety as long as they don't have to take responsibility for it. One last thing I want to talk about is the title "Swan Song." Even if Swan Song is an illusion, people should try and struggle until their final moments so they can have a beautiful Swan Song ending. I'm not going to go into too much details as the topics covered here are pretty much the same as Black Sheep Town. Overall, it's a very solid read, though not as good as BST.
美少女万華鏡 ー理と迷宮の少女ー
Finally, in the last game of the series. The game starts out with a young girl singing Tooryanse while climbing the stairs filled with Torii, which I'm guessing is Fushimi Inari Shrine.
Sumeragi is a good addition to the cast, a mystery novelist in comparison to our protagonist's occult novelist.
The story itself is average, but the atmosphere is very well done. There are some Jigoku Shoujo reference, which was rather unexpected.
It does have some interesting themes though with the boundary between reality and dreams. It talks about Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man and red pill and blue pill. Which is relevant seeing as we have been seeing the life of other people through the Kaleidoscope.
Then, they summarize through what MC found through the Kaleidoscope in the previous games:
Spoiler1 - 僕がこの場所で捜していたのは屹度、無償の愛……愛する人の為なら自分の命すらも投げ出せるような、そんな愛の記憶を、捜していたんだ……
2 - 僕がこの場所で捜していたのは……決して諦めないあいだ……ドンナニ時間が経ってもその人の事を忘れない……そんな尊い愛なんだ……
3 - 僕がこのばしょで捜していたものは……素直になる事決して自分を偽らない、真実の愛なんだ……
4 - 僕がこの場所で捜したかったもの……其れは、仮令禁止されても貫く愛……背徳的で道ならぬものであっても、其れでも振り返りない、そんな純粋な愛なんだ……
The Biman series has made me more open to trying out some more nukige's once in a while. I'm looking forward to Happoubijin's next work.
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2 hours ago, adamstan said:
I'm reading Tsui no Stella
Technically I started it two weeks ago, but then I read only the prologue, and continued today.
So far I'm liking it - at first glance looks like crossover between ATRI and Planetarian
Nice, let me know your thoughts when you finish it.
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On 1/11/2023 at 5:12 PM, Shinyun226 said:
Misc CD's/goods: Tsundere Karuta and Tsundere Hyakunin Isshu, featuring Kugimiya Rie. Can't believe these exist, but I had to buy them the moment I spotted them. Don't think I'll ever actually find myself getting friends together to play Karuta, but definitely worth it for what amounts to a Kugyu Voice CD lol
Also got Kogado Studio's "Kiwami Karuta", the voice CD on this one featuring Takahashi Chiaki (presumably in character as Sukunesama from Solfege?)
Lol, Kugumiya Rie Karuta set.
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Finished Baldr Force and Mekuiro Tsubaki Renka this week.
BALDR FORCE
The game has quite a bit of flaws with the writing being too focused on gameplay, essentially forcing the plot to go into the direction with lots of fighting most of the time. But it's not quite as bad as JRPGs hybrid. This is a pretty dark game with quite a bit of torture and rape, so I would not recommend this for the faint of heart. The game is a lot shorter than Sky, so the characters are also nowhere near as developed.
Overall, it's a fun hybrid game that combines action game with VN elements. As an older game, the controls and gameplay are a lot more clunky compared to Sky
絆きらめく恋いろは－椿恋歌－
I got this game on sale and didn't realize this was a fandisc until I started playing it. But rather than a fandisc, this feels more like a sequel with a full story. This makes it my 姫始め game.
This is how you make good moege, not one of those shitty moege with nothing happening. It has good balance of SoL, ichaicha action, and some plot.
The art is beautiful and the sword designs are cool. They do have some occasional sound quality issues though.
The setting is a beautiful mix of sci-fi and Japanese Youkai folklore. This game has made me put Crystallia on my map, and made me interested in checking out their other games.
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Vinland Saga S2 - While I don't think it is still as good as the manga, it's still a fairly solid anime.
Maou Futekigousha - Kind of got bored of the story already, lol. Dropped the novels, manga, and the anime already. I can't stand an action story with zero tension.
Tokyo Revengers - I got bored while reading the manga and dropped it halfway through, let alone watching the anime.
Bungou Stray Dogs S4 - Hmmm, while the last season was pretty bad, I still like the show and the concept behind it, so I might check it out.
Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko - This is a fairly popular and decent romcom. It's mainly 4koma format, but the characters really stand out.
Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsunomanika Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken - This is one of the hottest LN trending right now, so no surprise it finally got an adaptation. Will probably watch it.
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka IV: Fuka Shou Yakusai-hen - Danmachi next season, looking forward to it.
Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi - This one is adapted from a comedy manga that is kind of funny. It was not funny enough for me, so I dropped it though.
Inu ni Nattara Suki na Hito ni Hirowareta. - This one is rather funny, and ecchi manga. But also rather some cringy drama. The MC got turned into a dog and was kept as a pet by the girl he likes.
Eiyuu-ou, Bu wo Kiwameru Tame Tenseisu: Soshite, Sekai Saikyou no Minarai Kishi - this one is a fun LN with a battle-junkie MC who was reincarnated as a female.
Tsundere Akuyaku Reijou Liselotte to Jikkyou no Endou-kun to Kaisetsu no Kobayashi-san - boring LN about villainess and some random high schoolers being able to talk to them from the fourth dimension.
Isekai Nonbiri Nouka - an extremely boring LN about an OP reincarnator farming. If you like watching paint dry, go watch this.
Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei - Finally an interesting isekai adaptation. It's a funny story about a reincarnated princess going berserk in her research for magic and causing all sorts of trouble.
Kaiko sareta Ankoku Heishi (30-dai) no Slow na Second Life - This one is an ok LN about a former soldier from the Demon King's army quitting and starting a new life in the countryside. But his slow life is constantly bothered by events from his past. There are some interesting scenes, but overall rather boring.
Saikyou Onmyouji no Isekai Tenseiki - It's a rather generic Isekai LN, but I'm a sucker for Onmyouji stories. The strongest onmyouji was killed by his disciple and reincarnated into an isekai. The twist is that the hero in this world is similar to his disciple.
The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki - Northern War - adaptation of a famous JRPG game. Game adaptation are often shit though, so I'll ignore it.Hikari no Ou - Hmm, an LN I haven't read before. It kind of looks interesting, I might check it out.
Ars no Kyojuu - This looks pretty interesting for an anime original, I might also check it out.Ningen Fushin no Boukensha-tachi ga Sekai wo Sukuu you desu - The novel starts off as fairly interesting, but the plot moves slow as a snail, and I kind of forgot about this as I was reading the WN. It's not bad, but not particularly good either. It has an interesting pessimistic MC, but story is rather meh.
The ones worth checking out this season are: Vinland Saga S2, Danmachi IV, Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko, Tonari no Tenshi, and Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei.
The others are pending depending on my mood.Edit: Yes, I've read at least a few chapters to few volumes of all those LN's/WN's.
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Finished Tsui no Sora Remake and started Baldr Force.
終ノ空 remake
Chapter 4: Yasuko Yokoyama - This is the original route that was added in the remake and the climax of the novel. Shit, WTF is this. Uggh, her past is just too disgusting. Her route represents using violence and cunning to control people and achieve happiness. Violence is also an important part of the social hierarchy. That is why the state wants to control it and makes law around it. But well, those who control through violence tend to get squashed by greater violence Muramasa style.
SpoilerAgain, here it shows how morals are used by those in power to control the masses similar to how Yasuko controls her brother through his guilt towards fucking her.
Even now, those Christian morals plague society by making us think that there is something wrong with masturbating to chicken from the supermarket.
She denies that "Happy families are similar, but unhappy families are all different". For her, unhappy families are all similar in that they acted dumb and were unable to handle the consequences, while the concept of a happy family is different from person to person. Happy family itself is an illusion as familial love is just an illusion.
SpoilerThere's also some hints to Ayana's identity：the crawling chaos Nyarlatothep. Nyarlatothep is just one of her many reincarnations. Then, we get back to Wittgenstein's "A name means an object. The object is its meaning" with 「私は音無彩名。それ以上それ以下でもない」- "I am Otonashi Ayana, nothing more than that". But her real identity is actually Spinoza's concept of God. 「全宇宙を分かち与えたる無始者の形を取る唯一なる魂」- "The one soul from where everything with form in the entire universe was split from". Then, we have some metaphysics talk about how people's beliefs can affect reality. We are all part of one and all, so if enough people believe fantasy will turn into reality or some nonsense like that.
SpoilerThe story ends with Yasuko joining Takuji's suicide to help protect Kotomi.
Love and self-sacrifice is something done to satisfy one's ego. Love is violently pushing happiness to another person.
Chapter 5: Takuji Mamiya - We finally get to our messiah's point of view. He talks to Ayana on the rooftop about the end of the world which eventually turns the topic to eternal life. He claims that he wants to live forever if he can live a happy life. Then, Ayana brings up a hypotethical scenario of the same eternally looping life, and him eventually getting bored and killing the people around him, then getting bored and eventually killing himself. And then waking up normally the next day, and starting over from the beginning: Eternal Recurrence. After that, Takuji rejected the idea of eternal life which from Nietzsche perspective means he has not learned to appreciate life yet.
SpoilerTakuji meeting Riruru lead to him finally becoming our savior.
There is no meaning in life, so it's ok to kill a newborn child before it gets to experience life. Yukito refutes him that even if life is shit and meaningless, it is still worth living. People have an instinct to live, that's why they despair. Being alive is being alive, nothing more to it. It is both cursed and blessed.
Main theme is the same as Subahibi, since we are alive, we might as well pursue happiness with just a hint of Nietzsche. The shape of that happiness is something different for each person as there are no universal values.
Numinose I & II - Epilogue about Yukito questioning himself and who he is. It concludes that a memory defines a person.
SpoilerIn I, Ayana questions the reliability of memory and questioning about the truth of the world Nietzsche-wise. While in II, Ayana talks about Spinoza's concept of god while Yukito talks about the limit of human knowledge.
Overall, it was a good read. While it doesn't feel as grand and complete as Subahibi, it also explores other concepts that's not possible in Subahibi. While it was a fun experience learning about Spinoza and Nietzsche, at the end of the day, I lean more towards Wittgenstein's stance of silence on metaphysics.
BALDR FORCE
So far, it's a fun 2000ish action game. It is lacking a lot of modern functionality such as keyboard shortcuts and auto-read, but the story is good enough for me to put up with it. It doesn't have the same problem as Sky which is 50% flashbacks if you couldn't stand that, only 5% flashback now. It has less fluff and more straightforward.
In terms of combat, it took a couple games to adjust to the controls as it's different compared to sky. I guess early game the range weapons are stronger, but maybe it will change things once you are able to do 70 hits combo with an initializer. Compared to Sky, I think range weapon does twice as much damage which really makes melee combo not worth as much especially without overheat.
One of the things I like about the Baldr Series is the world building and the different factions in it. It gives different perspective on the virtual world depending on which faction you are on.
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If rereading VN's count, then Kurosu Taichi from Cross Channel. Complex and funny character with extreme flaws.
For new VN's that I read, Ryou from BST. He represents the duality of humanity's kindness and cruelty. Ruthless and badass when the situation calls for it.
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Finished Hello Lady and started Tsui no Sora Remake.
ハロー・レディ！
Saku route - The main mysteries are finally answered. But the answers are a trainwreck. The story is lacking a core, like the author is not sure what he wants to tell.
There's some Gundam, Doraemon, Index, and Oreimo reference added in too.
Overall, it's a fun game. But rather lacking in the story and writing.
終ノ空 remake
Chapter 1: Yukito Minakami - We get introduced to our protagonist, Minakami Yukito, and his childhood friend Wakatsuki Kotomi. There are a lot of recurring characters like a teacher that looks good for a bike model, Otonashi Ayana, Takashima Zakuro etc.
When they get to school, they hear rumours of
SpoilerTakashima Zakuro committing suicide
. Then, we get Yukito reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason before he gets interrupted by Otonashi-san quoting Tractacus' last line "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This is pretty much Scaji giving his own lecture on philosophy and criticizing Kant for talking metaphysical nonsense.
This entire work is pretty much a lecture from Scaji-sensei. After that, he introduced a bunch of Nietzsche concepts, although he doesn't quote directly. People can't be satisfied with a boring, peaceful life when they have no goal. They need stimulation even if it leads to fear and anxiety. Mamiya's famous speech is slightly different from Subahibi in that it's filled with Nietzsche concepts about how social orders are lies filled to control us like livestock compared to speech about the concept of death in Subahibi. How the concept of good and evil were created to create social caste so that people can feel superior to others by being "good." Morals are decided by the concept of self-interest, but we like to pretend that they are some universal truth that we discovered.
Yukito wonders about the meaninglessness of life. Death comes to all equally, so what meaning is there in living when we are all fated to die? There are people who accept their fate and live quietly until they die, but there are also others who struggle against their fate and try to find meaning in their life. To do that, they have to break out of the norms of society. Then, he argues that just being alive is a blessing by itself even if we are cursed to die.
Chapter 2: Kotomi Wakatsuki - Nothing new here except we get to see things from a different perspective.
SpoilerWe find out more about Yasuko's motives about wanting to protect Kotomi and monopolize her at the same time.
Chapter 3: Zakuro Takashima -
SpoilerWe see the events that happen before her suicide. This is a tough read for obvious reason. She wanted to give meaning to her meaningless suffering even at the cost of her own life. We try to give meaning to meaningless things and do anything for that purpose. Those became psychological weakness that can lead people to lose touch with reality. This chapter also explores how society's moral can mentally torment a person leading Zakuro to reject Yasuko's helping hand due to its supposed immorality and choosing suicide instead. This is represented by Tsui no Sora that Zakuro saw being 大いなる災い - The great disaster （Jesus Christ） opening a hole in the sky.
This work just reminded me of how much of a genius Scaji is.
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For other people who might be interested in this. AoToHime created a voice patch for the 2012 PC version release. I tested it in my own copy of the game, and confirmed that it works. You just need to add the patch files to the savedata/patches folder inside the main game folder. It also works with old save files.
Before anyone else asks, no, there is no translation patch, so if you want the English version please get the game on Switch or PS4 instead.
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I might read this after I actually bother reading the game. Sometime next year or the year after if I can remember to come back here.
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Finished Rance 03 and started reading Hello Lady!.
Overall, Rance was a fun game with an ok story and good world-building.
ハロー・レディ！
First impression is the art is way too generic for me. I don't like it at all. MC on the other hand seems interesting.
Lol, so much Jojo references though. Hume is the school chairman. The students here are too sheltered for people who don't hesitate to attack people with lethal force.
Eru giving a big speech on supporting eroge industry by buying physical Limited Editions.
Tama Route - kind of meh. The writing is rather mediocre. It has some interesting concepts, but it just seems like writer is not good enough to execute them.
Sorako's route
SpoilerDID is written very shallowly compared to some of the other better VN's with similar content. Romeo and Juliet content is ok.
Eru - She is a hilarious character. I think her and Narita have good chemistry. ボケボケコンビだね。
SpoilerThe revenge story and action is fairly interesting. 復讐は亡霊の行いだ。 It's sometimes needed to give the victim closure and move on even if it's empty.
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Read through Biman4 and playing through Rance 03.
ランス03 リーザス陥落
Rance 03 has interesting world building, but at the same time it has rather shallow and unrealistic characters.
SpoilerYou basically have a character who was being tortured and humiliated for days come out normally and resume her normal duties immediately after being rescued.
Only Shizuka and Kanami feel like actual people. That's not even considering the nameless characters. A lot of the side characters act like complete NPC's just saying as they were programmed to do. At the end of the day, it's a nukige parodying an RPG.
It also has stronger gameplay compared to the first 2 games, and a lot more fun to actually play through instead of feeling like a grind.
In terms of writing, it is good for an RPG, but rather simple and minimal compared to an actual plotge. Reading this in Japanese also made me remember how bad the translations are in the English Rance community: 魔人 as dark lord is just lol.
美少女万華鏡 -罪と罰の少女-
I think this one is too strong in the fetish department for me:
SpoilerIncest, S&M, crossdressing, blackmail, etc.
It has the heaviest plot in the series so far, but that does not necessarily mean best. I'm not even sure what the theme of the game is. They reference Crime and Punishment from the title, but I don't see the thematic relevance.
Ending leaves us with some interesting development for the next game.
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Finished Asairo.
きっと、澄みわたる朝色よりも、
SpoilerWaka seems to have a peculiar focus on kindness. According to Sasamaru, kindness is something innate, people are born with, and depending on the circumstances, it can be brought out or hidden from sight. According to Hiyo and Araragi, kindness is something that's passed on from person to person. Harutsuge says that kindness is something that only comes with pain. Kindness without pain is only spoiling someone. 「だから"優しくする"って事と"甘やかす"って事は違う。似ているけど決定的に違う。」 Araragi is more of a selfless kindness that prioritizes the group over herself.
「優しさなど枯れてしえまえばいい」
葉が赤色に牛われるものを"紅葉"
葉が黄色に牛われるものを"黄葉"
葉が褐色に牛われるものを"褐葉"
これはそれぞれが泣いた結果。
この涙を総称して、"紅葉"と呼ぶ。
Just like how trees lose their leaves to survive, we shed tears to be able to move forward.
Everything written by Shumon Yuu is overflowing with Wa(和). I'm glad to have experienced this piece of art that represents Fall and 紅葉. It lacks the analytical thinking of Scaji, but it's pretty much saying the same thing in a more poetic point of view. Pain comes with happiness and kindness. Pain is needed for us to be able to distinguish happiness from everything else. I think I've said too much already, this is best experienced for yourself.
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17 hours ago, adamstan said:
Giga's parent company - Entergram/TGL stays in business, so there should be no problem with older titles. It just means no new games under GIGA brand I guess.
Nope. If you go to Giga's official site:
http://www.web-giga.com/close/「戯画」ブランド商品の販売終了 2023年3月31日（金） ※パッケージ商品およびダウンロード販売商品も全て同日終了となります。 最後にお手元に残したいお客様におかれましては、販売終了日までにご購入いただけますと幸いです。
They stop selling everything at March 31, 2023.
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Asairo is a heavy emotional read, so I need a break from time to time. I read Jesus 13th in between those times.
きっと、澄みわたる朝色よりも、
It started out slow, but once it picks up, it really picks up. I really like how expressive the characters are.
The art and background CGs are beautiful. Add to that Shumon's writing combined with the music and it creates a mystical atmosphere.
The story is mainly about the bonds between people. This is what real kotodama tsukai is about. I'll stop here as the less I say about Asairo the better.
ジーザス13th －喪失われた学園－
It is very Xuse-like game. It has strong world building and a very chuuni atmosphere.
It had interesting buildup, but then it just ends. It feels like the game is just unfinished. A bit of wasted potential, and the animated h-scenes were rather mediocre.
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9 hours ago, Clephas said:
I played the Baldr series up to the point where they for some reason decided to make the last game a piece of crap (both battle system and story). I still don't get why they destroyed the traditions of the series to create a mindless game obviously designed for mobile phones rather than pc or consoles.
Giga has been showing signs of collapse for a while now. The over-production of the 'kiss' series, which was never that popular even amongst romance VN lovers, was another sign of this. In addition, Giga's development costs were always excessive for the genre, which probably made it worse due to the borderline nature of sales of VNs.
Harvest Overray was decent, but after that I came to the conclusion that Giga was incapable of producing anything truly superlative outside of the Baldr series. This was confirmed by my first attempt to play a game from the 'kiss' series, which was a total kusoge.
Which Baldr game are you talking about so I can avoid it?
I'm going to get all the giga games that I'm interested in before they shutdown.
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Even if I have read over 100 VN's, that was done over 10+ years.
Really, it's just finding time to read 1-2h per day. Just repeat that everyday for 10 years, and you eventually read 100+ VN's. It's rare to actually find someone who has read 100+ VN's over a few years unless they are a NEET.
It might be a bit harder depending on your social responsibilities, but it's about making time for yourself and building a schedule around it. I can pretty much turn on a VN anytime I want after work. Just read at your own pace, it's not a race.
Recent (Japanese) Things You Have Purchased
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With SakuToki physicals coming in, I'll put in the rest of my merchandise that I just got: