Jump to content

Mr Poltroon

Members
  • Posts

    5949
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    65

Posts posted by Mr Poltroon

  1. Making my life hell was mainly Kukrushka and Yuriko.

    With Kukrushka it's really hard to take her out if you can't logic her identity. If she lasts till the later stages then she's probably made enough friends to be near impossible to vote out. Usually her poor logic is her downfall, but if she isn't in a position to make a mistake it can be really hard.

    Yuriko *can* be worse than her if Yuriko sets her sights on the player, but usually she picks a sacrifice each round to target and you just have to wait until she accumulates enough dislike from everyone or refuses to say she's human.

  2. I really love this game. I don't do well in multiplayer environments *and* I love AI, so a singleplayer social deduction game is something I've always looked forward to. All the better that this game has an actual story to tell, with actual characters.

    I love the story, the characters, and the gameplay. This game makes me a happy bean.

    I think the best part is that the characters have personalities, and these personalities inform gameplay. Here's some rambling on how gameplay functions:

    Spoiler

    They implement these through visible stats indicating their abilities (logic for deductions, stealth to go unnoticed by others, performance to make your lies go undetected, etc etc), but also hidden affinities underneath. Characters have preferences for other characters that affect how they act at times. Finally, these parameters evolve over the course of the games, which means that a single play through from the start doesn't get stale, as both you and the opponents gain more conversation tactics to use, or stats to bully others with.

    So, how do these stats and preferences become characters? Through the situations they create.

    • Friendly characters like Shigemichi or Kukrushka always try to stand by those they like as they're emotionally driven (and dumb as bricks, leading to easily outing themselves by deduction when they're the enemy). Thing is, people actually like Kukrushka, so it can be really hard to vote her off if the remaining people are emotionally driven.
    • On the other hand, someone like Raqio is very logical, and will throw any friends to the wolves the second that they get a whiff of suspicion, or even if it's just expedient. Funnier still, Raqio is just the type to point out logical deductions, even when those deductions incriminate them. Raqio is typically disliked by the crew, due to their very low charm (as evidenced by their personality).
    • Otome has high logic, but is also very amicable, preferring less deadly solutions. Also very cute and well-liked, making it a nightmare to convince others she's evil. Unlike Raqio, wouldn't turn on her friends unless the deductions really point that way.
    • Some characters just flat-out have weaker stats. The aforementioned Shigemichi, but also Stella and Gina, who, while decently balanced, lack any one strength to push back against an expert in their field. And Shigemichi just can't lie to save their life.
    • Setsu always handles themselves well, but also can't fight alone against more charming people. They'll be around unless they're doing well enough their opponents gang up on them. Chipie is similarly well-rounded.
    • Yuriko is the stat monster of the game, her only weakness the fact that she's so anti-social she can get herself hated by the group over time, or quickly targeted by the traitors at night.
    • Remnan has solid abilities but no ability to actually convey himself, so he rarely does so. If he's piping up early on, it's likely he's a traitor. Unlike most, he can afford to keep quiet without looking suspicious for it.
    • Sha-Ming is a cockroach, his sole objective to survive. Does nothing by himself but jump on bandwagons and distract others from disliking him. If he's targetting someone specific, he's either a traitor, or really fears that person.
    • Similar is SQ, who also doesn't have the ability to handle herself in debate, but is very good at getting cushy with people and bandwagoning.
    • Comet is funny because she sucks at everything, but can nearly always tell when someone's lying. It's up to others to catch on to what she's found or watch her be instantly voted out if she tries to accuse traitors.

    And these are a bunch of more or less accurate personality profiles I built for the characters just from gameplay alone.

    I think, in the end, what really makes my day are the deductions. Spending a few minutes looking over all the reports and systematically detecting all the enemies is absolutely fantastic.

    Raqio is the best.

  3. 2 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

    Railgun though I really enjoyed, also for the reasons some people criticise it. The way it intertwines slice-of-life with action, slowly building towards major arcs with smaller events and clues in seemingly unrelated scenes... It's actually pretty damn good. It's not a typical or even that consistent of a structure, but so far I haven't seen any real "filler" that I'd dislike, or episodes I felt did nothing for the characters. It's even hard to fully describe the way the show mixes its themes – it's a bit of moe, a bit of slice-of-life, a bit of buddy cop story, a bit of superpowers shounen... But most of the time, it just works. Also, Mikoto is a really fun female lead – incredibly powerful, but also inexperienced and hotheaded enough to put herself in vulnerable position on a regular basis. The worldbuilding isn't amazing, and constant yuri baiting is a bit meh (although it's not just comedy, the bonds between the girls are deep and very relevant for the story), but I find the overall writing and vibes of the story deeply enjoyable. Kind of a nice flower that grew out of a pile of shit... Hopefully, there are no Index fans around. '^^

    Funny, I had the same experience of starting with Index, giving up, and switching to Railgun which I've actually finished a season of.
    I enjoyed it, but I've got a vendetta against anime teasing ships that won't ever develop -- or at least in a timely manner -- so I've never really felt like continuing it.

  4. I've never watched Elaina, but what I hear generally interests me. That said, without actually watching it I can't tell how I'd take to it or its particular execution.

    The idea of a self-centred but powerful person who doesn't help others if she doesn't need to unless she feels like it appeals to me, but it depends on how its done. Even if the character is written that way unintentionally I could still like or dislike it.

    Still, I watch like one anime show per semester these days, so the point is moot. I won't be watching this any time soon.

  5. On 6/7/2022 at 12:44 PM, Plk_Lesiak said:

    That's indeed not a great source of comfy vibes... :marie: It's good that Leadale's author had enough reason to couple the time skip with relevant characters being of the long-lived races. And you reminded me of the Average Abilities show that Poltroon recommended me to skip... From what I heard that might be an actual case of this brand of isekai being more annoying than relaxing.

    Did I? Last I recall about that show I found that the anime and LN seemed to diverge, and should be taken as such disparate experiences. Though in respect to the LN I agree with Dreamysyu here. It's well paced until it isn't anymore, at which point it's hard to just keep going.

    The stuff I recall recommending against was actually the Bakarina light novels, as I find the anime works better as the medium.

  6. In the oddest way, I'll present a VN that probably isn't what you're looking for but does fulfil the idea.
    Fxxx Me Royally!!
    Additionally the other translated title from the same developer would also fulfil the conditions.

     

    However, if you don't care for Otome, I've got to admit that I'm all out of ideas. Barring some games that have scenes for the bad guys, like Alicesoft games, or something like School Days which has a bit of everything but it's really minor, I don't recall clearly any games which fit these characteristics.

  7. 10 minutes ago, Fiddle said:

    Please revert your avatars back to their normal state no sooner than January 6th, when the liturgical season of Christmas ends.

    As a loser, rest assured that I will interpret your request in the most literal manner, and will certainly not revert my avatar before January 6th, as ordered. I am, however, allowing myself to assume you are referring to January 6th of 2022.

    In fact, for your own assurance, I vow to not revert my avatar for the following decade, thereby guaranteeing I do not accidentally revert before the desired time.

  8. 3 hours ago, Assistance said:

    Im not sure what you mean did you just like the humor and music only? If that's the case i can understand because it did those things really well for me the humor kinda fell off at times but overall pretty good and the music just 10/10.

    Yeah; like most Key titles what I really like are the common route and character interactions, as well as the music.

    In games like Little Busters! I actually kind of enjoy the ending routes as well, but for most Key games I have to admit I end up not liking them too much, or not even playing them, like with Air, Kanon and Clannad.

    For this reason, despite how different Rewrite actually is from other Key titles, in terms of my actual experience it ends up similar.

  9. On 12/15/2021 at 1:41 PM, Seraphim said:

    I think the main issue is that it's usually just straight up porn in most cases. If it's done right, sex scenes can add depth to characters and their relationships, but titles that manage to pull that off are pretty rare.

    There are times where I don't mind them and they work really well as a relationship culmination or showing new facets of a character, but my pinky honestly is always cuddling the Ctrl button.

     

    Anyways, Visual Novels! I have honestly not found too much time for regular Visual Novels (in the last... year), spending my time more with adjacent stuff like Ace Attorney (a lot... every game... including The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles) or Danganronpa.

    However, I have been playing around with a couple of gameplay Eroge. Specifically, I replayed Re;Lord in order to move onto the finally, finally released Re;Lord 2. Still in the middle of the second game but my primary impression is... The action and fast paced clicking strains my wrist if I do it too long... I actually like the gameplay, I just can't control my clicking strength and strain when trying to play it well.
    But in regards to the second game, I am so far pleased! They've opened up the gameplay scope, introducing an economy system and equipment to spend it on, as well as two new types of attack. Particularly good is that they changed the UI to make each unit strong or weak to certain types of attack. I'm satisfied with the current system if for the third game they decide to focus on plot rather than improving the system.

    The other thing I am doing is replaying Venus Blood Frontier to really get the most out of it before trying to move on onto the latest title Ninetails localised. My first playthrough was on easy because learning all the systems... is a bit of a chore. And I stand by that. But with some external help, I'm chugging along to actually finish it on Normal semi-effectively. Thankfully, savescum and guide hell doesn't actually deter my sense of accomplishment at all, so I'll milk that feeling.

    Also... On and off playing some Rance games. I did Rance 01 way back, and then did Rance Quest; the two recent releases which I'd never played before. Now I'll probably move on to replaying 02, and seeing if I consider III or IV (the only obstacles are game design, not graphics. They actually look decently... decent.). Anyway, on and off, I guess I'll just continue replaying this series on an infinite loop until Rance X releases in 2057.

    This all said, I did play one actual, traditional Visual Novel: Smee's Harem Kingdom.
    Now, the premise makes it seems like a nukige. Well, if it is, it has an awful lot of slice of life for one, and it bloody well is Smee funny, too. I must first of all praise the translation team, who have just the right touch of absolute bonkers that a Smee title needs in its language. Honestly, the real gold in this title is that because of the "harem" premise you get to see all the characters interact in every route, and that's absolute gold. It's also very funny self aware so, one of my favourite visual novels like Fureraba. Y3SfF5d.png

    Finally, trying out Your Turn to Die which... isn't a Visual Novel, I guess, but here's a spoiler box. I'm still within the first chapter:

    Spoiler

    Initial Impressions (Up to first meeting with cast?):
    In just the short segment I was pleased by the characters, as I tend to, but was worried about another aspect: mainly, the horror elements.
    It's really, truly, absolutely not my thing.
    It either scares me, or comes across as edgy to me, with all the flashy effects and purposefully exaggerated visuals.

    Chapter One Part 1:
    This segment showcased much better why I might love this game through its discussion system. There are few things I love more than discussions and votes around them, and the game seems to set itself up around them.
    The Introductions using the UI were cool, and left me wanting to see how that UI might be used again further down the line.
    Other than that, I can say I very much enjoyed the various screens and how we see the characters all over the room and interacting with them. It's an ingenious use of sprites, probably much more expensive to make than just not depicting them at all, but to me, it's very... nice, to see others alive and around in the enviornment.
    And indeed, that leads to my next point regarding exploration, which is how this depiction truly does help make it feel like the other characters are doing things, and as I walk around, some of them have moved or see me around and talk to me and other such cool events.
    This leads into a discussion and vote segment, and I'm there for it all the way! We hear characters express their opinions, we interject to get new information and clash statements so people discuss their differences and finally there's a clash of words where we refute statements. And so, having each discussed the issue, everyone votes, and I love seeing the results and how they might change! I will unabashedly be save scumming just to see how everyone might vote depending on how discussions go, even though I'll probably stick with a perfect (or my preferred, if the game uses the system to give me choices) vote. I can't wait to see how the system will be used to its fullest potential as the game goes on. Obviously I'd prefer if the system later on did lead to multiple real options, but I'd be satisfied if it simply had multiple loss scenarios and ways to influence folk.
    Next, puzzles. What I've seen so far has been cool! Carefully exploring the environment, putting things together and figuring out solutions to quandaries. Particularly, the revolver puzzle was truly excellent. I never failed it, so I don't know what would happen if I accidentally killed someone, but I assume it would not progress the game (and also why the game only reveals Kai may be the stalker after this segment?). Anyhow, it was really fun thinking about how to set up the chamber in order to ascertain where in it you are in the least amount of wasted bullets so you can avoid shooting the others.
    Now, within all these segments the main character sticks out in my ability to mould her and influence her actions, even though she also is herself. The game makes her out to be a relatively cool and clear-headed individual, and that's what I'm counting on since it's what I like to roleplay. I expect, though, that the game will force my hand for story purposes with me undertaking actions that I wouldn't simply because she has her own character. Understandable, of course. On a similar note, everyone so far has acted in a reasonable manner, and that always helps with immersing into these settings.
    One final thing I would be remiss not to note is the music. Specifically, the exploration/investigation track, and the ones during discussions, which sound phenomenal to me.
    After putting some effort into subverting our expectations of Professor Mishima, we are ultimately led into his entirely unavoidable death through a vote that everyone assumed to be practice. I was wary of the vote and specifically voted for the person I'd least mind being gone (Sou :P), but since three voted for Mishima, there's no way to avoid his fate.

     

  10. I'll give you one thing, my reasons for liking Rewrite have absolutely nothing to do with the plot (music and comedy). In fact, I'm more in my zone until the routes start, and in fact I did skip the final "true"(?) route of Terra.

  11. 9 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

    How are you doing people? I haven't been around lately but strangely enough,I'm still alive and even watching trash-tier anime!

    First, I've finished The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent which, sadly, fell more into cheesy romance tropes more than the isekai power fantasy in the second part of the season. It's quite an interesting specimen in general, as it does with josei tropes basically the same thing trashiest isekais usually do with shounen tropes – the world is just so convenient for the protagonist it's laughable, but at the same time, the female fantasy is infinitely more wholesome and gentle, so I kind of enjoy it. It's a slow-burn, pleasant series where conflict is barely existent and no forms of malice seem possible outside of natural disasters... But it's all heartwarming enough to justify its existence. Maybe it'd be less so if such shows were common, but this specific spin on isekai wasn't something I've seen before and felt fresh enough to not bore me. 

    Than, I fell into the trap of watching Love Tyrant which I knew was a shit anime, but still seemed amusing enough from clips. The clips, sadly, were the best part about it. Bad comedic timing, poor writing, flat characters without charm, plot that for some reason tries to transition from episodic comedy to emotional drama and immediately falls flat on its face... From average ratings you would not think it'd be horrible to watch, but I consider it one of my worst anime experiences to date: not good enough to actually be fun and not bad enough to make for a good ironic watch. It's not "so bad it's good" or outrageous enough to keep you engaged, just a tone-deaf pile of utter mediocrity.

    And possibly going even further down the drain, I've started watching The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter. And well, entertainment value is at least infinitely higher than Love Tyrant (that is, higher than zero). In a way, it might be my new favourite perv anime – it has this utterly charming quality of being full-on ecchi and being consistently mild in all it does. The premise is basically the protagonist being OP and regenerating his mana through pleasure – all kinds, like good food and drink, but primarily through mildly sexual acts with a small cast of willing heroines, with a very obvious main girl. And he has to recharge often, as he will die if he overspends his power. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but what makes Hidden Dungeon enjoyable to me, outside of being generally a somewhat-competent trash fantasy show, is that it's not over-the-top juvenile – it's just the right, mostly believable levels of juvenile, with surprising attention to detail in both how the world is built and how the ecchi is done. And it's not even a tease, like, you have a fully consensual kissing scene in the first episode! What anime does that? I dunno, I might be crazy, but I respect what this show does. :wahaha:

    Hmmm, I'm adding 2/3 to the list...

  12. On 9/10/2021 at 10:38 PM, Silvz said:

    I mean, there was only one scene that made me laugh a little and it was just after the protagonist told a horror story to Makina, I believe, the young one. I love comedy, but there is not much of it at least until now

    Interesting that you'd say that. The common opinion of Grisaia back when most people played it was that it was great because of the comedy, and that the common route was chock-full of it. But like anything else, it ultimately depends on what one likes. Any individual scene from the common route continues to be a barrel of laughs to me.

  13. @Eclipsed And there you have CLANNAD. I've never actually read the After Story to completion. I don't think I have it in me.

    I'd love to hear your impressions on the anime as well, because I think it takes all that is best in CLANNAD: i.e., they do the Kotomi route thing and join all the school characters together rather than keep them constantly isolated from one another.

    It neglects CLANNAD's side characters and stories, but as you put it, they're there more for thematic reasons the anime would be unable to replicate regardless.

  14. @Eclipsed I did the anime first.

    Clannad is, more than most other Key VNs, a "hunting" VN. That is, a VN in which you're supposed to explore and discover the endings yourself, with the bad endings generally giving you a clue as to what you missed. A product of another time when people afforded the game and would have no money for anything else for months so they'd spend all their time playing around with it.

×
×
  • Create New...