Mr Poltroon

I went and picked up an eroge after literal years of not playing one (I think it has at least been three years since I even opened one). I randomly picked a visual novel from my wishlist that was catching dust and only saw activity recently, and I ended up picking Yume Miru Kusuri.
... I screwed up. Not only was it too heavy for me currently, but it honestly felt a slog to play through. I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm disliking it a bit. Near the end of the final choice for one of the routes, I ended up holding the control button to see just how much longer will the route be, and holy sh*t it was still very, very long. I think I'll try to finish one of the routes later, and move to a shorter, more light-hearted VN.

Picked up Root Film.
It's apparently set in the same universe as Root Letter, set in the real life Japan's Shimane Prefecture. Seems the developers "Kadowaka Games" have really taken a liking to this place. 
Premise: mystery adventure. Two protagonists: Up-and-coming director (M) (first) Rintaro Yagumo, and Rising-in-popularity actress (F) Riho. These two protagonists are just doing their own separate entertainment industry shenanigans when they get caught up in Shimane Prefecture's murder mysteries and whatnot. 

Rintaro and his assistant Magari
 

Riho and her manager, Manabe

Structure seems to follow the same formula as other mystery/detective adventure games like Ace Attorney- a case happens, protagonist and their sidekick gets some time to free roam, banter and do the detective work, then you commence boss battle to unveil the truth. Pretty entertaining so far.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Well, since Marko is MIA, it's up to me to do the updates. And get back on the project I guess. Anyway...
As you might have noticed, someone uploaded a restoration patch for the Vita version of the game. Initially we were planning on cooperating with him to port said patch to the PC version. However it came to light that this patch used machine translation, thus we will not use it on this project. It was too good to be true, I guess.
Regarding the project itself: Yuuki's H-scenes are 100% translated and edited, and the patch was supposed to drop this month. However, we found a bug present in all H-scenes, and the hacker is too busy with IRL stuff to fix it, so we decided to shift it to next month.
MANY thanks to NTRanon who translated Yuuki's H-scenes, he's a saint and we don't deserve him.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

I generally have little interest in Nijisanji and Hana isn't really that much of an exceptions when it goes to reasons why. She doesn't have any eye-catching gimmicks and generally doesn't play a character. Her mannerisms also didn't immediately convinced me to follow her streams. However, eventually I ended up watching her PSO2 content due to my own interest in the game and I started understanding her appeal better. A bit similarly to Amelia Watson, she's quite passionate about games and very open and honest with her audience. She's also a bit older than you average JP or ID streamer and it shows in how she communicates with her fans, the typical streamer goofiness aside. Of course, her popularity is in decent part connected to her being a relatively early English-speaking v-tuber (she's a Japanese/American hafu living in Indonesia and her English is native speaker-level), but I think she very much deserves being the flagship creator for Nijisanji ID.
*The glasses portrayed above are a new addition and it's unclear how much use they'll get in the future, however, as a glasses-loving degenerate I felt the need to feature this version of Hana over any other.

Hana Macchia is a female Indonesian virtual YouTuber and a first wave member of Nijisanji ID, Nijisanji's Indonesian Virtual Liver branch with Taka Radjiman and ZEA Cornelia.
A university student majoring in design, Hana debuted to create a safe space for people to feel comfortable, entertained, and not alone. She will always accompany and encourage you from afternoon to evening. She has a considerable sense of curiosity. Hana is also a person who smiles easily. In addition to having a great sense of curiosity, she also wanted to try something she only knew, for example on Minecraft streams when he collaborated with Taka and ZEA, she wanted to do Debus in front of them even though in the end, Taka prevented her from doing that.
YouTube | VTuber Wiki

[Marco and the Galaxy Dragon]
This week I finished Marco and the Galaxy Dragon and dang! Another great vn that surpassed my expectations! I had already played the demo waaaay back when it released and was not bored, but I didn't expect it to hit me this hard in the feels near the end... 
First impressions first: I LOVE the art and the fact that almost every scene is a new CG (that explains the size of the whole vn) and the various animated parts The comedy is pretty over the top, normal for a vn, but it did make me laugh a few times; I'd be lying if it said I was bored, even for a slight second. Speaking of which, the thing I loved the most abt this vn is the pacing: so many vns end up either being VERY slow and dragged or just too quick to explain things and/or get attached to the characters and although this one is very fast in its pacing, you can still understand how each characters works. Sure, it could be better worked in some parts so you could feel more for some characters, but they all played their roles perfectly imo. It was so entertaining that time flew by and I didn't even notice!  The ending left me destroyed and sobbing... It's not SUPER hard-hitting, but when it has to, it can make your eyes wet, at least. After that, it took me a while to recover and reflect on it. Aaah, it was such a good story... I'm really glad I played this one, since, except for Soundless (my previous read), I had been disappointed by the other vns I had read so far this year.
Also, I absolutely love Gargouille's design 
I haven't decided what I'll read next week but until then, toodles! 

70% edited and fuck you covid

Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai

Summary

Kawakami City is famous for its strong dedication to its samurai ancestors. A strong fighting spirit is always valued and it's even an important factor in succeeding in school there.

Yamato, a second year student from Kawakami Highchool is always with his close friends (4 boys and 3 girls). They have known each other since they were young and have done loads of things together. They have many other friends, but this seven people is a close-knit group, they even have a secret base where they meet...

With the new semester, they welcome two girls into their group and shortly after things start to change...
 
Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order
 
There are 5 main routes, 6 sub-routes and 1 hidden route, as well as a couple of other endings.
Initially you'll be forced to choose one of the 5 main routes. As you finish them more and more sub-routes will open up, and after finishing all of the main routes the hidden route will be unlocked. 
You may play all of these in any order you wish.
 
To get into a route, finish the prologue and you'll get into a choice screen. You get into a route by exhausting all red spheres with any given character. Each time you select a character she will lose a sphere.
Walkthrough
Choices crucial for certain CG's will be detailed below. Choices recommended will be written below, but only choices which will otherwise lead to a bad end will be in bold. Timed choices are included in the choice number. After Stories and Sub-Routes have no story relevant choices.  
 
Prologue

Momoyo Route

Chris Route

Wanko Route

Miyako Route

Mayucchi Route
 
Sub-Routes
Hidden Routes
Attribution

This walkthrough is based on info attained here, all info tested by yours truly.
Summary stolen from VNDB.
 
Changelog:
(23/08/18)
- Fixed broken main image.
- Fixed broken spoilers as a result of forum updates.

Hoh boy have I been dead

Wtf was the last long length thing I've read? Abyss of the Sacrifice? That one all girls trapped escape sci fi thingy? Back in December 2020? LEL WEAK!!

Then I tried to read Flowers in January and was like ehh I'll wait for the whole tetralogy to come out for Switch EN (it's already out for JP, plx hurry)
Truth be told I'm just out of gas for long length (30+ hr) VNs. Last year I was on a roll, craving and blitzing through trilogies like Muv Luv, Utawarerumono, like no tomorrow, thanks stay at home orders

Now what's the trend for me? SHORT LENGTH VNS
From Jan 'til now I've settled on Qureate's many one off fantasy single heroine live2D short story romances. They literally pump these out every 3-4 months, faster than whoever the hell pumps out them Nekopara volumes. 
And let's be real, if I was in full power no life read mode, I'd consider these utter trash. They only take 3-5 hrs to go each through so if you just marathon these there'll definitely be less impact and wholesomeness and whatnot but luckily I'm horrifically nerfed and have been literally only reading like 30min-1hr a day so they can take up to a week for me to finish. Artificial inflated value ftw.

 
NekoMiko - The Neko Para wannabe clone. Two shrine maiden nekogirls cling onto protag to cleanse him of his bad luck
 
NinNinDays - Real life Naruto female ninja (kunoichi?) Sumire begins her journey on the path of ninja, but is totally clueless to social norms and eventually meets the Protag
 
TroubleDays - Novice succubus Lovelia latches onto Protag as her first target to extract his "Technoforce"
 
KukkuroDays: Saber meets protag.
 

Fantasy Tavern Sextet. Ok, now Qureate's getting ambitious. They went from everyday normal protag meets out of this world heroine, to everyday normal protag GETS SENT TO out of this world to meet out of this world heroine. And they're making this a three volume short story series, with two star heroines each volume, cuz we gotta fulfill that sextet = six word play.

That's like what, 6 games made in two years? (Neko Miko started in Jan 2019). Makes me wonder how profitable these 3-4month development $10 3-5hr games are vs spending a couple years to make a 20-30hr $30-40 game ..

One last Qureate shilling: just next month Apr 2021 they're already releasing their next title: Abandoned. Looks like a survival horror entry? Jeebus that sounds delicious~

 
 
TL;DR- these 3-5hr short romance VNs only worked for me because I literally took a week to read each one because of my horrific reading slump. You can literally blitz through ALL of these in just a day or two and you'd just end up feeling "meh".

So if anyone was curious about the various translation differences between the original Majikoi VN fantranslation and JAST's official translation, I compiled a bunch of notable scenes in the common route with screenshots of the different translations.
My observation (based on my limited knowledge of Japanese and listening to the voice acting) is that the fantranslation is a bit more literal, while the JAST translation is a bit more localized. But they're both similar enough, and keep "Last Name First Name" order as well as all honorifics.
https://imgur.com/a/xgtjLR7 

Started the final chapter in Trails in the Sky... First Chapter. This naming sure is weird.
Anyway, the story started getting pretty interesting. I can't say I were particularly mindblown by it so far, but who knows, there's still time. The gameplay is fun. At this point I can say that I was absolutely right that I chose to play in the hard mode, since the normal mode would get very easy eventually. At the start I had some trouble playing in the hard mode and even had to grind for a bit, then it got to the point where it was still challenging, but not obnoxious, but right now, I feel, the game started to get a bit easy. Maybe I overleveled everyone a bit, lol. But I generally try to explore whole maps when I have a chance and complete as many quests as possible (though I still missed a few). Or maybe right now I have a lot of skills to choose from, so I can deal with the enemies more effectively.

Are you talking about the Steam version here? I just learned that apparently the translation was heavily revised for it, and I'm a bit curious how accurate the current translation is.
Anyway, I'm still playing Trails in the Sky, and I'm currently at chapter 2 of the first game. Overall, so far it's pretty good. The plot is somewhat cliche so far, but it still has time to change. Gameplay... well, I like it so far. I'm playing in the hard mode, and I'd say it's just hard enough to make the game somewhat challenging without making it tedious. I had some minor problems right at the start before I got used to the gameplay, but right now everything is going fine.
The funny part: I found myself at thought that if the backstories of some minor and background characters were published in a short-story format, I would love to read those. 🙂

Hey, peeps!
This past month's writing focus has been all on Hiroko, as I tried to get stuck into one of the branch stories I started on last time. The "Trickster" path, a branch of her Ticklish Hands storyline is taking shape but it's been hard going. See how I've gotten on~
Nozomi's Trance storyline has been the main beneficiary from the art upgrades this time around. There's two new ones and both are pretty striking visually! Also included here is a CG from early in the Villainous Robot route and another CG for Sayori's Doll route for possibly the best scene in that story.
As before, you can find this month's release in PC, Linux, Mac and Android versions, on my Patreon or itch.io pages. I've also linked the most recent flowchart guide on the latest public news post on Patreon.
Anyway, hope you all enjoy the update! For next time, expect more progress on the Trickster path along with another bevy of new CGs spread across the storylines old and new. See you again soon!
What's New

Two new CGs for Nozomi's Trance storyline New CG for the Doll storyline New CG for the Robot storyline Word count is now around 267,000 Hiroko's Trickster branch of her Ticklish Hands storyline is now scripted with dialogue up to the end of day 5 and outlined up to day 7 Slightly edited the scene in Nozomi's Trance storyline where the new CG appears Edited the Robot storyline scene in which the new CG appears, which occurs during the second day The music track "Rain", which plays during some dramatic parts of the story, has been cut down to make it loop more naturally Spanish localisation: Various edits and corrections to the existing script Minor typo corrections
Known Issues

Changing the language on a line where an animation occurs (like screen shake) will throw up an error.

I see. Well, I admit I'm a pretty salty that a game disappointed me is so well received and thought there are some DLCs or patches that 'fixed' it, but I guess it was three years ago and doesn't really matter anymore. Thanks for explaining, I'll go back to being salty.

*Clephas gobbles you down in thanks, sending you to the catgirl harem world inside his many stomachs*

I've made an archaeological discovery today.
 

[Majikoi]
Aaaand I just finished Shouichi/Capt's route! 
So far, the one I enjoyed the most is Moro's (amongst the sub routes I've played so far - which are the bros') tho.
----------
Well, next ones are Chika, Mayo and Kojima-sensei!   LET'S GOOOOO--!

[Majikoi]
I forgot to update y'all on Moro's route! 
Fortunately, I still remember everything~
And now, time for Gakuto's!