Crimson

The last few days I was busy playing Muv-Luv extra in order to prepare for Muv-Luv alternative, which I noticed had a ridiculously high EGS score. So in order to enjoy Muv-Luv alternative even more, I decided to play through Muv-Luv extra and unlimited first. The alternate readme said that the only important routes in extra are Meiya's and Sumika's and that the other routes should be neglected, as they're supposed to be very boring. Now I wondered, is that true? I actually like Kei-chan and Miki a lot so I considered doing their routes too, thus I would like to know whether some of you have played those routes and if you could tell me whether they're worth the time spent on them or if I should just skip to alternate after finishing Meiya's and Sumika's routes?

K, then let's do this in more detail... Male friends: That friend who always acts like a weirdo - Okabe Rintarou The leader everybody trusts in - Natsume Kyousuke The "play-boy" - Daisuke Misumi Girlfriend: Nakatsu Shizuru Childhood friend: Ayukawa Tenri Harem: Aselia Bluespirit Ephemeria Mare Chocolat Aoi Sena Why these characters? Well, it's simple. Of course, one needs a girlfriend, and of course it's gonna be Shizuru. After all, there's no cuter character than Shizuru, and I love characters with Heterochromia. But even when having a girlfriend, there is no reason why there shouldn't be a harem, is there? Nothing is better than a harem, after all. Aselia is in there simply because she's my favourite character in the first VN I've ever read. Mare because, well, Lolis. Sena because I love tsunderes, and Chocolat since she's just kawaii. And Tenri simply because I instantly fell in love with her in the Kami nomi OVA. In my opinion, she's simply the best childhood friend character one could wish for. Of course though, male friends need to be there too. Who would be a better leader than Natsume Kyousuke? In addition to that, Misumi and Okabe may be so different from each other but I think they might get along just well, after all, Misumi even got along with Takumi, which means he should get along with basically every person alive. I think this group of friends would be amazing. Too sad that 2D is just 2D after all... E:/ Yes I know, this is one pretty big harem. But since we're talking about 2D here, I guess that isn't a problem, is it? Oh and, yes, no Imouto or parents. These characters are simply annoying most of the time. I rather liked Chinami in the latter half of HoshiMemo, but in the first half she was so damn annoying. The next time I hear "Onii-chan Onii-chan Onii-chan" I'm gonna go crazy. And who needs parents when you have a harem? They would just prevent you from doing ecchi things

I edited my previous post, I hope this is good enough. If I still misunderstood, just tell me and I'll edit again.

Which one is that from? I kinda feel like I remember this guy, but no matter how hard I think about it, I can't come up with the name of the Anime...

My top 3 waifus... Hm, there's a lot of awesome characters in the VNs I've read so far. I guess it would be sort of like this: Shizuru (Rewrite) Aselia (Eien no Aselia) Mare (Hoshizora no Memoria) I guess these are my favourites... The way I see it though, there is not much purpose in posting my 3 favourite waifus. My heart is big enough for way more waifus than just those three E:/ Gonna do this in more detail later, since I'm at work right now. E2:/ Ah, so that's how you intended it. Alrighty, so that's a pretty hard decision. Misumi-kun from Chaos;Head was pretty cool. Also, I think Okabe Rintarou would be a great choice as a friend, that guy was way too funny. Also Hinata from Angel Beats. And of course, as the leader of the group, Kyousuke from Little Busters. Now just add 2-3 more female characters for the harem (I'm having Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko, Chocolat, and some tsundere in mind. Maybe Kurisu? Or Sena? Or Shana?) God, this is hard. Anyways, I think having these people around would make everyday life impossible to be boring for even a single second. Sadly though, it'll probably take a few more decades until ultra realistic virtual realities can be created. Until that point, daydreams will have to be enough in order to be with my waifus

So let's say 7 non-nukige VNs per month. That makes 84 per year, which makes 840 non-nukige VNs in the past 10 years Which means you've read half the VNs that were published in that time. So even you can't read every single one it seems

Holy crap Clephas, that's still 80 VNs a year Considering it takes me up to an entire week to finish a long VN like Rewrite or Grisaia, I wouldn't even reach that number in 10 years (probably). Anyways, back to topic, as everyone said, you simply have to devote yourself to VNs. Luckily I don't have to study in order to score good marks on my university exams so as soon as I get home from work everyday (which is around ~5 PM), I start booting my PC and play the VN I'm currently working on until ~11 PM, which makes 6 hours of VN a day. Basically, I have no social life at the moment, so I can devote my entire free time to VNs.

I would recommend Steins;Gate, Chaos;Head or Rewrite. Anyways, if you're not sure to pick, you can always just pick one of Key's or Type-moon's VNs. I still don't even know half of their VNs but the general opinion on the internet seems to be that you can never go wrong with those two.

After all though, no matter how much I complain about elements of Grisaia, there is no way I could ever dislike this VN. Yuuji might have annoyed me a lot, but Grisaia is still the 2nd best VN I've read so far.

Yeah, he is indeed not bad at handling women, and most of the time I really liked him, his jokes were hilarious. But sometimes he just acted like such a dick, it was unbearable. It's true that he was a moron in Michiru and Yumiko's route, and it was so annoying... I think I was like "Y YOU SO DENSE" during half of both routes...

I'm game

I read the routes in the order Makina > Michiru > Yumiko > Sachi Still got Amane's route to go, though I've totally fallen for Rewrite a few days ago, so it's probably gonna take another week until I can play any other games again, still 4 routes missing in Rewrite after all Out of these 4 routes in Grisaia though, I enjoyed Makina the most. Yuuji wasn't such a damn idiot regarding women in this one (during Michiru's route, there really were times when I hated him) and his behaviour was quite understandable and realistic. Also dem feels, this route was truely a masterpiece. Even though I enjoyed the others a lot too, but none of those routes were able to beat Makina's. Or maybe it was just because Makina's route was my first playthrough so it impressed me even more simply due to that fact? I dunno

Ah, it was not entirely accidental. I thought to myself that Kotori seemed to be the most "inconspicious" of the heroines so I considered her route to be the best introduction... Also I like the stereotypical childhood friend characters so I probably would've done her route first. And doing Chihaya after Kotori seemed reasonable to me since I had the feeling that she was kinda like... I don't know how to describe it, it simply felt like the player was supposed to do her after Kotori. Now I'm almost done with Shizuru's route (at least I think so) but damn, Kotarou is annoying in this route. "I'm not meant to be a soldier" yeah sure bro, didn't look like that in Chihaya's route though... -.- I just hope at least the ending will be great so that I'll be compensated for having to bear him for so long... I mean, I don't really like him in any route since his attitude is absolutely irresponsible but his behaviour in Shizuru's route simply pisses me off...

Until a few weeks ago, I used to be a simple anime otaku. I was so much into anime that I finished them within a ridiculous amount of time, during holidays I would probably watch 3 entire 12-episodes-animes per day. Well, at one point though I noticed I had basically watched all the very good ones and in order to kill some time until the new season started, I decided to look for alternatives. I had already been into the Japanese culture for a long time, so of course what I was going to use to kill time had to be related to Japan in some way. At that time, I already knew of the VN genre. I had watched Steins;Gate and Higurashi and I knew that both of them were originally VNs, so I decided to try some of those out. And this is basically the end of the story. Now I'm reading VNs whenever I can, which kinda means that I don't do anything else as soon as I get home Already finished Grisaia (all routes except Amane), Fate/stay night (still not done with HF), Remember11 (only Kokoro's route), EnA (all routes), and LB (Komari, Yuiko and Rin Part 1)... And this list is rapidly growing larger

These past few days I've been busy with playing Rewrite, and within ~4 days, I finished both Chihaya's and Kotori's routes. So far, I gotta say that I absolutely love this VN! Well, Kotori's route was kinda weak in a way since the romance wasn't developed at all and the ending was so damn abrupt (I mean, seriously, Key? Not even a single damn scene that could qualify as some sort of an epilogue? You gotta be kidding me -.-), but still, apart from those downsides, the story was really well written. Chihaya was classic Shounen stuff, but man, I enjoyed it far more than any VN I read these past weeks. I know it was full of Shounen manga clichés, but still, the route was damn enjoyable and I am pretty sure I will sooner or later get back to this VN and replay most of its routes. So now that I'm done with Chihaya and Kotori, I'm not entirely sure which route to go next. I could chose from Lucia, Shizuru or Akane... I like Akane a lot, but I'm also kinda curious about Lucia since I worshipped Higurashi & Umineko and I really want to know whether Ryukishi did a good job on this one For now I think though that I'm gonna go with Shizuru, I should probably leave Akane & Lucia for the end since they seem to be the most promising ones.

Yeah, Makina's route was absolutely amazing. Yuuji was such a badass in this one and I found the Story to be very well written. I understand you haven't played Makina's route yet? You should definitely check it out then.

You're right about Mayuzumi being supposed to be a Tsundere, but still, I cannot stop hating her. Geez, usually I love Tsunderes. Taiga, Kurisu, Louise, those are some of my all-time favourite characters, but there was simply no "dere" about Mayuzumi.

Well, I've only played the Kokoro Route so far so I cannot really add anything that hasn't been said yet, just wanted to give my opinion on Kokoro's route though. I really liked the way the Story developed, it was just at the right pace, also Yomogi was a really likeable character, same for Hotori (I know she seems to be some Psychopath with DID, but hell, she's one damn cute Girl). The only downside I found so far regards two aspects - first of all, Mayuzumi the bitch. Such an unbelievable pain in the ass, this woman was the most annoying and hateable non-Antagonist I've seen in a Long time. The way she acted like she was worth more than anyone else pissed me off so hard, and she always bossed Yomogi around... god, I hate this bitch. And second, Kokoro. Yes, in my opinion Kokoro is one of the main Points why I cannot consider this VN "exceptionally good" (well, I wouldn't go so far anyways since I've only read ~5 VNs so far). She is the personified cliché of a hopeless, defenseless, useless and naive woman. Why does she place so much trust in Yuni? I don't trust the Boy at all, I mean, I didn't even finish the VN yet but something about him is simply disturbing. The way he can say absolutely terrifying things without batting an eye, and especially the fact that he's in both SPHIA and the shelter cabin. I don't trust him, and yet Kokoro risks everything at one Point just to save him. Well, might just be because I hate Kids, but still, I don't trust the Boy, and I think something is seriously wrong with him. Well, back to Topic, Kokoro annoyed me pretty hard since she acted so pathetically. I already thought to myself after a short while and for what felt like half a day I sat in front of my Computer, cursing Kokoro's idiocy for thinking that he's "teleporting". I mean, for god's sake, the Girl has been switching personalities with someone several times, but the Thesis that seems unlikely to her? After all, she was simply useless and the only reason she would've survived was because of Satoru. Characters like Kokoro can be really nice as supporting roles, but as a Protagonist, in my opinion she is exceptionally useless.

Well, things are getting kinda philosophical now but I'm interested in discussing that Topic further. As far as I know it's not the captain's "duty" to wait for the last passenger to be rescued until he's allowed to board one of the boats. Anyways, if I was the captain, I wouldn't give a damn even if there was such a rule. Such behaviour would be perfectly human, after all, you wouldn't be willing to die because of one simple mistake, would you?

@AceAttorney, I do see your Point. Liking a VN does not solely depend on a likeable Protagonist. For example, take Yuuji from Grisaia no Kajitsu. He's awfully ignorant in 2 out of 3 routes I played so far, and sometimes I was just sitting in front of my Computer, just thinking "oh god, how can you be so mean and not even realize it? Asshole...", however, that didn't Change the fact that character development and Story made the game a masterpiece. When you view Schooldays like this, the outcome is entirely different - Makoto does not Change at all during the Story. Well, except for becoming a completely despicable asshole the Moment he lost his virginity, but we'll get to that later. He doesn't have any remarkable traits except for being a jerk, and there is absolutely zero character development during the course of the Story. He never reflects on his Actions, nor does he provide any clue on why he's acting like such an incredible asshole. Well, I know that the answer to this is simple, Makoto is a jerk and the VN's writers probably intended him to leave that Impression on the Reader. It's not like I cannot enjoy such a Story because it "depicts reality perfectly", but because watching a despicable moron like Makoto for hours, banging every Girl he meets without even considering the consequences is just a huge pain in the ass. I can live with a MC who behaves like a jerk, but then I want to at least see some character development, find out about the reasons for his behaviour, or to be compensated with an awesome Story, but School days delivers None of those to the Reader. @Cryofrzd Well, I would still read that VN. Saving yourself is simply rational and perfectly normal for every human being that considers their own life's worth once in a while. Well, you might say "taking the only rescue boat for yourself is ridiculously egoistic" but at least there would be a credible reason for doing so, while Makoto's behaviour simply Shows what Kind of incredible jerk he is. P.S. Sorry bout the messed-up orthography, stupid IE keeps changing the first letter of random words to capital letters... IE no baka -.-

What do you mean by "his attitude changes"? I mean, he basically fights for the same Thing in all three routes, just that UBW is Rin centered, while HF is Sakura centered; doesn't he? Or am I mistaking something there? Well, anyways, after 4 days of excessive VN reading, I finished one fate/stay night run and one Grisaia no kajitsu. Fate/Stay Night: Grisaia no Kajitsu: So, to conclude this, while Fate/stay night was simply very good Grisaia was a damn masterpiece. After I finished Fate/stay night yesterday, I decided to Play Remember11. And as soon as I'm done with that, I guess I'll try HF or Play Grisaia's Michiru's route. Again, thanks for the awesome advice, whoever brought Grisaia up, this game was simply overwhelming.

^ word. I don't know about the VN, but I watched the Anime so I suppose the Anime basically deals with the "bad route". Well, anyways, Makoto was just a huge jackass in the Anime. I don't see where he acted intelligently, to me it simply felt like he was a complete moron who wasn't interested in other People the slightest and just banged his way through School. Also, I simply didn't like the Story. It wasn't funny, or exciting, by the 5th Episode or so I was simply waiting for Makoto to be murdered by someone so that this anime would finally come to an end... The only reason I watched the Anime to the very end was because I never stop watching an Anime half-way through. The only Anime I did that with was Accel World since the main character was so ridiculously pathetic and annoying I simply couldn't stand watching any further.

Wow, you must really hate Makina ^^ How come? So far she seems like such a cute and nice Girl. Oh god, I really don't understand why I like her. You could say the same Thing about Nagisa and yet the one I hate and the other one I like... I don't get it ^^ I did come up with a theory while driving home though - I have the strong tendency to hate whichever character gets in the way of the end I desire. I noticed that the entire time, I had confused Kyou and Ryou with each other. From the first Moment I saw her, Ryou was my favorite character in Clannad, she just looked like the incarnation of Moe ) Anyways, Tomoya the giant jerk didnt pay any Attention to her even though she tried so hard ( so I think this might be the main reason why I hate Nagisa so much...

WOAH, BRO! SPOILER ALERT! ... nah, I'm just kidding. I already suspected all the girls have some kind of dark past. Well, I guess you don't need to be a genius to conclude that based on their behaviour. Just no more spoilers please, I already looked through the walkthrough and accidentally spoilered part of the game like this (don't ask me how I managed to do that please, it was 5 am in the morning and I was tired... ^^) Well, I don't suppose though that this will cause the VN to be any less fun

I don't know what made me dislike her so much. I think it was just her overall personality. I know she's a nice, timid girl and all that stuff, but I don't like these characters. There was that one character in an anime I watched a few months ago, geez, what was it called... Ah, right, I remember. That girl in Shakugan no Shana who was in love with the protag. I don't remember her name, but whoever watched the anime probably knows whom I'm talking about. Anyways, I just don't like girls that are so ridiculously defenseless and just waaay too nice... However so far I think I like Makina a lot, so that's kinda inconsistent... I don't entirely get it myself either, to be honest. However, the fact remains that I didn't cry a single tear when