Mr Poltroon

I've read Package Chat. It was... strong. The main character had a strong personality, certainly clashes with mine, and their emotions were powerful. The situation thought-provoking and the world beyond curious, and we know precious little about it because the story is one of those that takes the attitude of "You're seeing a snapshot of somebody's life. Obviously no one is going to specifically talk about everything that happened so far, at least in most circumstances.". It invoked feelings, and, at the start, I really thought maybe it wouldn't be my thing but as soon as characters showed up all was well. I really am a character-driven reader. And their interactions were sweet, and at the end I felt almost as liberated as the main character despite that making no sense. Regardless, overall enjoyable. There are few things I love more than wholesomeness and people trying to respect others' feelings. It feels like a short story someone might drop on some site that I'd never have found were it not a VN submission to a game jam. But I'll say this particular story had no need to be a VN and works almost the exact same way as if it were a short story. Also thanks to @Plk_Lesiak because I certainly wouldn't have found it or tried it otherwise. EDIT: You people have terrible taste, talking badly of the best part of the Muv-Luv story.

So I already knew about about the Manami one since I'm actually keeping up with the author myself, and it's something I'll get to someday. Of the rest of the original post I became particularly interested in Package Chat and I think I went as far as downloading it? Anyhow, today I'm actually quite likely to try it out, since I've somehow motivated myself to try shorter things, so much so as to risk venturing onto the realm of fan games, for example. (Have you played Life is Strange? Did you know it has a fan VN 'Love is Strange'? I played a route and it was the sweetest thing. As a result I've been inspired to infiltrate the den of wolves that is the Doki Doki Fan Game/Mod community and I've found a couple of things I might try there. Edit: Not the one you reviewed because I trust your judgement and out-of-characterness kills me inside.)

There's a like of mine here. Is this the original post except you edited it? I had no idea it had been updated! If the (updated) were at the start of the title then one would be more likely to realise something has changed when they see it in the recent blogposts box (for long titles the second half does not appear in the box).

Happy Birthday, @bakauchuujin! Keep listing it all out.

Found this thread for some details on the game experience itself: As for the actual English translation, still no idea on its quality.

These cartoons are really fun!

Happy Christmas! (loadsa effort)

Thing is, he might bring over his cousin "consequences" and nobody likes him.

Well, this has garnered my interest. That said, your first image on the thread appears to not be working.

You need to wait for the house's events to play. Once they all have played, your attack (or permit capture) should trigger an event that moves things along.

It means not a lot of people know about it.

I didn't notice this blog post until now. I'm very happy this got another chance. I can only hope this is a story I can enjoy.

I have not played the game, but know more or less what the linked blogpost reveals:

My time has come.

I did think it was getting to be late this year. Glad to see the tradition will remain.

How is it possible to feel nostalgic for something I first experienced half a decade ago? At any rate, once in a blue moon I replay the songs in the game by playing them, and today was that day for the past couple of years. I am utterly rubbish at it, but I remember them, and it makes me feel so attached...

Please have mercy on the thread and take it to a random chatter one, thank you.

Yep... Like, I don't have it in me to not buy this. There's just no way. I'm not seeing how they can profit off of this and give the team enough to keep food on the table, but perhaps it is a steam gamble with low price, h-patch, and good translation, and in that case I genuinely wish them all luck.

OUTDATED

Your new assessment (this one) is correct. I invested into two volumes and found that I quite like it. I first suspected I wouldn't mind it when I first started seeing comedy pop up frequently. I believe that if you're capable of pulling these hilarious shenanigans frequently with your setting, then surely your edge is not too much for me. As of volume two I'm entirely convinced. If you have a slapstick party member then you can only be a good story in my book. I dislike stories with pessimistic worldviews, but that isn't the case here. Not really. Enough emotional bonds have been formed that I not longer fear the story. I dislike stories that tease things and then don't deliver on them. But this one's done a good job so far. It seems like this story is here for the audience to enjoy, not to torture them or to make them invested to drag the story. That's excellent for me.

Oh, hey. Was I a mod when you were last here?

Why, exactly, would you say so? Genuinely interested in finding out if there are some reasons I might not like it.

Spice and Wolf (11 Volumes) - The first light novel I ever tried reading. I brought a load of volumes during a holiday a couple of years ago, and it became my sole source of entertainment. Homely entertainment, anyway. As a result, I ate the volumes up in a week, reading 10 or 11 of them. It, uh, exhausted me, to say the least, and also ensured I failed to commit most of them to memory. Especially with the complicated topics that were oft breached and the Yen Press translation that I thought made it harder to parse for a plebeian such as I. I like the character interactions and am okay with the economics, so I should love this, but I found them rather dense. And now, when I try to restart at volume 12 three years later, I quickly realise that the gap creates issues of both memory and engagement. But every time I see the volume 16 cover I feel compelled to try again...! I should try and make it daily reading on the train or some such. In Another World With My Smartphone (5 Volumes) - As the translator, which I follow on twitter, often talked about his work on this series, I felt tempted to try it. Indeed, it tackles a lot of themes I really should enjoy. And I did, as I read it. The main character finds romance and there's actual development on that department; He's overpowered and free to do whatever he feels like; He's a "political player", even though the politics here are more hilarious than anything else. By all means I should love it, and yet there's one big problem: Not enough focus on character interactions. There's loads of characters, and all of them have moments, but with such a large cast a lot of them seem to be lacking a personality, or, more specifically, seem to only display it whenever the author feels it is convenient. This is a recurring issue I have with Light Novels: The non-reader-perspective characters only speak, interact, or act whenever it is convenient for the plot or if the author has determined this is to be a character interaction moment (such as some slice-of life chapters or group discussions), and they'll be ignored or just be in the background (doing not much in particular) otherwise. How can this be fixed? Well... Konosuba (9 Volumes) - Unquestionably the best light novel I have read. Characters have character! They do things! They have personalities! They're doing things even when it's not meant to be their moment or required for the plot! Even if characters are "off-screen" you hear about the consequences of their actions or how their mood has been affected or whatever! Konosuba is the king of character interaction, and that is the single aspect I most appreciate, and the reason Visual Novels are (usually) my entertainment medium of choice. Phenomenal. Especially so for the plotpoint that started in volume 5 and came to a head again in volume 9! @cro-mag - With Volume 6 of Konosuba I definitely felt... odd. It's like it suddenly took a random turn and veered right off-course into the middle of chaos. I initially thought the development to be kind of generic, but quickly found that I love the characters too much to mind. Whatever position they're put in will turn out alright when you consider their ridiculousness, in my eyes. It's also the first moment that I came to realise that they're really all trashy human beings that require a lot of poking and prodding to let their stubbornness go and play nice. I'm glad I still love them all. How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom (6 Volumes) - I loved the first two volumes! A whole lot! The themes this tackles are very much to my interest (government, politics, military, development, etc), and there is romance and development in that area! Lovely! However, the more volumes I read the more it came to suffer from the same things as Smartphone. With so many members of the cast, it becomes difficult to give them all life. Those who were interesting and intricate in 2 were by now forgotten or flanderised in 6. I can clearly recall moments created to provide them with personality and all that, but I cannot do anything but file away those attempts as generic, or at least, they failed to elicit a good reaction from my part. I have cause to believe that perhaps large casts on this level are simply unmanageable. I cannot keep an emotional connection with them all. Minatosoft most writers are not. Hokuou Kizoku to Moukinzuma no Yukiguni Karigurashi (2 Volumes) - A fan translation, which unfortunately isn't very good, on top of the topics already being... slightly uninteresting to me (lots of cooking, butchering, hunting, etc.). The premise of the novel itself, however, is excellent. The characters are excellent. Romance is one of the main topics, and it's really good! I like the personality and design on of the main character and his wife. It's really great. It's just that the existing translation for it is not very good in English. An Archdemon's Dilemma (3 Volumes) - Volume one was perfection. It feels as if it were made such that the whole thing could've ended there. Wonderfully self-contained and loose ends generally tied. But it continued, and I'm glad it did! Romance is one of the focus areas, so that's already 11/10, but it goes further! I like the personality of the protagonist, and, for once, the battle scenes! The Sorcerers' fashion sense slightly aligns with mine own, and for some of the battles the descriptions try to show the main character as keeping calm and taking care of business with a single arm with the other behind his back. Not every time, but it's enough to make me all happy inside. Second best series I've read to date, aside from Konosuba. About the Reckless Girl Who Kept Challenging a Reborn Man Like Me (Completed) - A oneshot. A beautiful, emotional, powerful oneshot. I think this is very much worth reading. As usual for me, Romance. Marietta-hime no Konrei (Complete) - Something I stumbled upon whilst looking to see if 18+ Light Novels were a thing. This is the fluffiest fluff that hath ever fluffed. It's fantastic, and the princess in this is the most precious thing in existence. Characters are not real people, so it's good to be able to appreciate a character that can be made to be so lovable and... just create happiness. Lazy Dungeon Master (2 Volumes) - Probably the third best series I've read. Unlike others it's not particularly addictive, but it's always enjoyable while I read it. The character interactions are also fun. The main character's got a strange fetish that gets played up all the time, but at least it clears any illusions of possible romance, so it's way better than those novels that constantly tease something that'll only be resolved in 20 volumes. As a side note... It's also got the most explicit illustrations in a light novel series that I've seen! One of the colour pictures in volume two would not look out of place in my local eroge (and I actually prefer its intimacy to what is typically present in said eroge)! I also like the character design for the main character. It's interesting. Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! (6 Volumes) - Love a whole bunch of stuff. The main character has traits I really enjoy, the most stand-out of which is being unabashedly (technically not unabashedly, actually) OP and everyone recognising that is the case. I love that it's generally light-hearted and that it's an adventure story. It also does the cast pretty decently. It's not ideal, but the characters in the party have personalities and I do feel attached to them to some extent (though I may be starting to lose that a bit at this point). It's also somewhat of a problem that most of Mile's inner thoughts and jokes very specific weeb references I don't get or puns that scarcely count as puns because they only make sense with a Japanese pronunciation, for example (by Japanese pronunciation I am referring to, for example, the English words that have been incorporated into the Japanese language. Their meaning sometimes even changes and they don't always sound like the English equivalent). After all this, I wanted to ask if anyone has any recommendations. I'd be especially interested in anything that has romance that is actually romance and not just "feelings" that'll get addressed in the centenary volume. I can take waiting 5 volumes or something for there to be a confession or something of the sort after the interest was teased to the reader. But if that's not going to happen, then please have the decency to not tease such a thing!

Right... This thing exists. I'll see to it that I make use of it in the future. For now I'll see about dumping my backlog in here before it is forever forgotten.

Average Abilities (4 episodes) - The first three were excellent. It was a great comedy story with no particular stakes. As of the 4th, it took a turn for the serious. Comparatively speaking. It's at a point where they could still go either way, and I'm counting on it taking the light-hearted "handwave it away" path.* In short, I hope it continues to be a silly cute girls story with a bunch of ridiculous OP-ness. Pull off another story like Endro~!. That said, on the off-chance that they tried to take a less original and more serious approach, I decided to read the light novel. I feel this adaptation will be best if they just continue on their own way, and let the light novel's plot be experienced as intended, rather than summarising it in anime format. Light novel spoilers: