Eclipsed
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Posts posted by Eclipsed
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Just don't fall for the 'got overhyped, then was left disappointed' trap
I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY
But yeah I totally went into Island with 0 expectations and am still in the post-VN feelsies after phase. Prob will last until I pick up another VN but I'll take my time
On 5/9/2021 at 12:37 AM, Seraphim said:The only thing I wasn't entirely satisfied with was how
Setsuna left at the end. I get why he did it and that it's probably the right thing to do in the grand scheme of things, but if anything goes wrong, it would just mean him leaving Rinné behind once more with no way of ever seeing her again. I'm a sucker for romance, so I kinda wish he'd just stayed with her after they were finally able to reunite.
Yeah I getchu.
I just blitzed the anime version, and for all the rushed ultracondensed yo Ne.-I.-is-literally-shoehorned-into-just-2-episodes-LOL it's still a 10/10 anime for me cuz:
1. You get to see Rinne without a hat more often.
On a serious note it did end more in line with what you wanted, and now that I think about it yeah the VN didn't really do the 'final' confrontation much justice.
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Speaking of my next potential VN(s), I'm feeling pro-Frontwing atm for obvious reasons, so
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....I finished Island.
Goddamn, I haven't been this emotionally attached to a cast of characters in a looong time. Specifically the love tale between Setsuna and Rinne. It's just so fabulously romantic, everlasting love that transcends the boundaries of time... Sorry Sara and Karen, these two heroines get absolutely shafted in the grand scheme of things, but it worked in my favor anyways cuz I just ADORE Rinne.
Unfortunately can't say much without instantly getting into SPOILERS, but yeah, once I got into winter I was hooked until the end.
Random highlight reel (ULTIMATE SPOILERS) cuz I gotta rant about this stuff to get it out of my system or I'll get a real nasty case of post-VN completion withdrawal depression LOL:
SpoilerNeed some proper bgm playing for the following CG:
I, uh, didn't know Rinne could make such a face o_o
Ah, the brilliant climax of Rinne's route. Here we have Rinne, inner conflict struggling with whether the protagonist Setsuna is the same Setsuna that she fell in love with 5 years ago before they had their little 'spirited away' accident, and due to Sara's time travel delusions the group mistakenly believes that Setsuna IS that same Setsuna and that he time traveled into the past to kill his past self in order to ensure Rinne's survival. She's not too happy that that resulted in her Setsuna dying, and so she demands protag Setsuna to name the one person he loves most of all so she can kill that person and make Setsuna feel the same exact despair that she's feeling now. To which of course, Setsuna replies "Rinne"- resulting in that CG above. Now at first you'd think that means she'll commit suicide- but this is where the whole "is this time travel thing really true, or is it all a bunch of islander kid delusions" comes into play- Rinne opts to go to the island where she was spirited away to time travel into the past and kill her past self to ensure her Setsuna's survival- just as Setsuna supposedly did to kill his past self to ensure Rinne's survival.
Rinne's descent into madness was well done. Kinda hot. LOL. Felt utter chills as she was taunting Setsuna.
The confrontation was fierce:
But ultimately, when the pair stumbles upon the real Setsuna's bones during their quarrel, they realize that they didn't actually travel to the past- in fact there was never any time travel all. No protag Setsuna going into the past multiple times to figure out a way to have both of them survive the desert island- no protag Setsuna killing his past self to ensure Rinne's survival. There was just real Setsuna finding the cold sleep machine and placing Rinne in it, allowing her to be found 5 years later while he perished. It was all a massive red herring misconception bonanza that the writers were able to conjure up pretty well to keep the reader guessing and it definitely entertained me.
YO WTF RINNE YOU MADE SUCH AN EVIL FACE, ALL OVER A MISCONCEPTION DELUSION????? JEEBUS WTF LADY!!!
....Now that I've finished reading the whole VN, the next part is actually kind of stupid. How the heck did current Setsuna and Rinne make it to the deserted island through a fawkin' storm, but couldn't make it back home? Or why couldn't they just wait for help? Kuon knew where this island was- that's how she found Rinne in the first place. But nope, the two try to return to the island the next day on the only-one-person-can-fit-in-the-boat, Setsuna runs out of stamina and tells Rinne to live on Titanic style, but then she fulfills the Setsuna x Rinne legend and decides to off herself to let Setsuna live instead in the hopes of meeting him again when she is reborn:
I cried many manly tears at this though. I'm such a sap for romantic tragedies sighhh ;-;;;
~~NEVER ISLAND
SpoilerAnd then queue the most hype thing ever with the VN transitioning from ISLAND to the NEVER ISLAND title screen:
Setsuna failed the Rinne of this era. But thanks to our little plot device called the Cold Sleep machine, he resolves to use it to wait for a time when a time machine would be invented, so he could then use it in order to travel back to the past and save Rinne. Winter route has got to be one of my favorite late game VN narrative shifts ever. There's obviously some hardcore bias going on here, because my fondness for "Rinne" and the concepts surrounding her are off the charts, but yeah I literally read the VN starting from here straight until the end. Absolutely hooked.Welcome to Winter~
I really like how the writers were able to weave this back and forth 'there is time travel going on' / 'nope its all a bunch of delusions' narrative to keep you on your toes. Well, Setsuna actually made it- he went from 1999 to 22016- a whopping 20,000 years into the future in an ice age world where humanity is forced underground in a structure called ISLAND due to an uninhabitable surface. Unfortunately, an unavoidable side effect of the Cold Sleep machine is amnesia, so he spends the entirety of Winter route with only key fragmented memories. I would've liked for him to have his full memories and be able to banter with this iteration of Sarah, Karin, and especially RinnE, but sadly that wish will have to go unfulfilled.
I'm gonna gloss over ISLAND's conflicts- the whole Sarah being the cardinals daughter of the Church that rules over the island limiting births and rationing food supplies during these apocalyptic times, and Karin leading a revolutionary squad of kids Neo-Avalon to defy the church. And then we have the innocent RinnE who naturally finds the amnesiac protagonist, again grants him the name of Setsuna (which happens to be the name of her late brother), and lets him in on a little secret: she's going to build a machine to save the world:
"IT'S NOT A MASSAH - CHEYA! IT'S iLANDER" - the device that will save the world.
LOLI RINNE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
This incarnation of RinnE was such a cute little gem. Every scene with her was always something to look forward to with how brimming with energy, curiosity, and positivity she was even during these tough times (unlike her shut-in afraid of the sun lazy princess 1999 self). The writers go to great lengths to even make it so that you're left with a certain dilemma by the end of it once shit hits the fan: I know I came into the future so I could get a time machine to return to the past to save Rinne... but what about this RinnE? What about her..?
SHE'S SO CUTE!!! BTW I'M NOT A LOLICON I SWEAR LOL!
Setsuna at first tries to distance himself from RinnE, because she isn't Rinne. But by the end of Winter when he feels guilt about having meddled with ISLAND's affairs which led to the deaths of Karin, Sarah, and basically ending the way of life on ISLAND itself, he then gets delivered the finishing blow via RinnE's love confession, and so he resolves to use the completed time machine iLander to try to protect this RinnE by making it so that he never meets her nor gets involved with this world:
Btw, I am SO glad that the writers didn't make RinnE die. I was a bit worried what with Karin and Sarah dying that they would do that. That would've absolutely broken me. Anyways-
...But RinnE's too nice; she catches on to Setsuna's intentions, and instead opts to sacrifice her own happiness so that Setsuna can fulfill his original goal to save Rinne:
OMG THIS STUFF IS SO TRAGICALLY BEAUTIFUL EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN Rinne and RinnE GAME!!! IT'S TOO HARD!!!!
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MIDSUMMERSpoilerAnd so, Setsuna makes it back to the present. Time to save Rinne with all the knowledge we obtained throughout the millennia, Muv-Luv Alternate style!
Setsuna is able to talk-no-jutsu through all of the heroines worries and issues within like a day, and hook up with Rinne faster than ever before. Perks of being a time traveler.
He receives Kuon's blessings, and marries Rinne.
We got it boys n' girls! After traveling through 20000 years, TWICE, through all the hardships, through all the tears, we finally EARNED our happy end!!! HUZZAH!
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Spoiler
Now, Island totally could've ended right then and there and I would've been 100% fine with it, but hey, we gotta toss in some last minute twists!The writers slap on a "The day before the wedding" chapter where Rinne feels doubtful about whether she deserves such a happy end- that these strings of good fortunes are just too good to be true:
It honestly kind of felt... off for her to have such worries this late into the game, considering everything we've seen Setsuna go through all for her sake.
But then comes... Kuon...and... the pieces... finally start... coming together...
Kuon is...
KUON IS-...!!!Kuon is RinnE!!!!!!! OMFGSDALKFJSDLFKSJF@!#!
And let's toss in some more last minute plot twists, because why not?! Setsuna decides he wants to use the cold sleep machine again to wait for the day a true time machine is invented so that he could one day ultimately return to the original Adam and Eve: the ORIGINAL Setsuna x Rinne so he could undo every single tragedy that ever occurred between the pair, because as it turns out, the cold sleep machine is a one way trip to the future: THERE WAS NEVER ANY TRAVELING TO THE PAST.That insane Rinne that I opened this post with? She's gone. Forever. By the time Setsuna 'came back to the present' he was actually 40,000 years into the future, it just so coincidentally happened that the world state and everyone reincarnated to be exactly the same as it was when he 'came back', as far-fetched as that may be. I blame Chronoquakes. Countless Setsunas and Rinnes used the cold sleep machine in their pursuit of happiness. It's such an utterly fascinating thing to ponder about the endless cycle of love and tragedy between the two:
Kuon/RinnE vows to complete a real time machine however, and Setsuna vows that once he awakens in a future where a time machine exists, that once he has saved all the Setsunas and Rinnes, then he would come back for RinnE.Now I was totally expecting another chapter to open up, maybe Fall or Spring to cover the details of this LOL but I'm 100% totally fine with them leaving it up to the readers' imagination.
We need an Island 0 like Steins;Gate 0And it looks like they do eventually succeed and truly earn their happy end:
...And there we have it. I have no words, man. Just overall a very touching and romantic tale between two lovers that transcends time itself. So friggen' beautiful..- Mr Poltroon and Seraphim
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I'm enjoying Island a lot more than I thought it would. I think that's the particular VN formula I enjoy the most- charamoeges with beautiful scenery that more importantly ultimately builds up to a greater plot. Probably why Rewrite is one of my top VNs.
Island really keeps you guessing though. Is all the scientific hypothesis jargon really true, or is it all just some grand delusions from a bunch of wishful islander kids?
The heroines are all great. Going off of my 5yearold Grisaia memories, Frontwing was always good at making heroines with top-notch-common-route-bantering-prowess-but-with-fundamentally-flawed-personal-issues-that-will-be-explored-in-their-routes:
Karen, who longs to leave the island and its outdated traditions.
Sara, who longs to uphold tradition and save the island.
Rinne, who believes she and Setsuna are the same Rinne and Setsuna of legend.
Btw, devs were generous enough to give her a whopping 1 CG without her hat:
I CANT HELP IT! YOU LOOK SO GOOD WITHOUT THE HAT!
Rinne is obviously my best gal, and so I bawled absolutely hard at her ending. Now, I would've been fine if things ended the way they did, but hoh boy, Island gains massive bonus points for:SpoilerKEEPING THE RIDE GOING!!! HELL YEAH
- Mr Poltroon, Seraphim, ChaosRaven and 2 others
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Ok so, good first impressions on Island
You play as Setsuna, an above average decent looking 5.3 rating guy who wakes up amnesiac on an Island. That's as cliche as it gets huh.
Whew. Unfortunately, buddy, you ain't got nothing on Grisaia's Yuuji.
Setsuna woke up feeling like he was in the middle of something important- a greater, save the world purpose perhaps- and there are immediate hints that this VN could be dealing with time travel and destiny and whatnot.
Oo la la, didn't really expect that. Of course, this could all be a big ol' red herring and all the talks of future and time travel is simply a result of Setsuna's delusions. Cuz yeah the guy seems a bit out of it. But he is indeed fairly entertaining, Frontwing delivers with their male protags, as usual.
The poster heroine is Rinne. I think she'd look better without the hat, but whatever floats your boat. Setsuna immediately recognizes/knows her name upon "first" seeing her so maybe there really is some destiny shiz going on here. Rinne a rich gal, from one of the three elite families on the island (the other two heroines are naturally from the other two elite families). She hires Setsuna to be her servant.
TAKE OFF THE HAT LADY
There is a built in flowchart and in general Frontwings' software development team got so pro at coding that you can literally skip or rewind the VN in realtime and jump to any particular scene no problemo. I wonder if they'll narratively make this a plot feature like YUNO's save points
The BGMs are fantastic. I guess I have a thing for peaceful/tranquil/surreal/fantasy sounding types and Island would of course be stocked with plenty them. They really do enhance the reading experience indeed.
- Mr Poltroon, adamstan and Seraphim
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Finished Livestream and Root Film
Livestream: was a decent horror experience. I was expecting a bit more SAW-esque horror scenarios for the heroines but outside of the first few flagship advertisement ones they got, it's been relatively tame. Kinda like Corpse Party. More focus on exploring the Hotel and gathering bits and pieces of information while avoiding the monster rather than back to back horror shenanigans.
There are several (4) bad endings that you have to get to make your way to the true ending, and they add a bit to the mystery/suspense while you try to figure out just wtf is going on with Hotel Izanami and what you should do differently to avoid the current bad end you got. Ultimately there's nothing too grand though. Pretty straightforward explanations and reasons at the end of the day. But will these heroines live to see that day?
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Root Film was a good mystery/suspense adventure. It's only shortcoming is, you spend 80% of the VN building up this overarching mystery revolving around a decade old cancelled film with a supposed cursed reputation and its relation to the protagonists while you're doing all of your episodic murder mysteries and then it just... kinda falls flat when you finally start getting into the thick of things.
The culprit confrontational scenes could've been done a bit better, it's probably the most simplistic/barebones out of the Ace Attorney/Danganronpa games. Basically a glorified multiple choice that you absolutely shouldn't fail if you paid the slightest bit of attention during your investigations.
Everything by the end of it is wrapped up with a neat little bow, all the motivations are explained yada yada yada but man i actually felt unsatisfied with the conclusion. Also Riho was criminally underused. You can't advertise having dual protagonists and then have Riho only take 28.5% screentime while Rintaro gets 72.5%. That's some Danganronpa V3 Ch1 shit right there. But yeah, good read, but overall would've liked more Riho. lel.
Also worth mentioning: the comicbook simplistic artstyle allowed them to litter this VN with CGs, there's probably an easy 75-100 CGs so presentation wise they did a stellar job. The world / Shimane Prefecture feels vibrant, colorful, and the characters are all quirky and distinct. It's something Root Letter kind of failed to do with its bland characters, empty world.
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Just did some Switch browsing.Island came out on the 8th this month, I think i remember being slightly intrigued by it esp. by that one shrine maiden gal with the fuzzy hair when i read Grisaia no Kajitsu 50 years ago (btw still need to read Meikyuu and Rakuen or w.e for Grisaia...) but uhh yup Island it is
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Wow time flies.
qureate's horror adv "Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami" is out. It's, naturally, about a group of three female streamers Nana(left), Mio and Azusa(right), who go visit an abandoned haunted hotel Izanami because streamers gotta stream and then they get trapped and subject to its horrors
There's a giant bloody pig mascot thing that serves as the poster monster of this VN and it stalks the halls during the adv 2D side scrolling horror exploration bits. Pretty scary at first, but once you take a moment to learn the game mechanics the Oinker becomes more of an annoyance than anything since whenever its chasing you, you are unable to progress with the exploration/puzzle solving segments until you get him off your tail.
Random nitpick: this is a supposed to be a survival horror adventure thingy, and it indeed is, but qureate just couldn't resist and they tossed in some typical ecchi stuff, though with a touch of horror. Even better (or worse), here's a screenshot of one of the 'features' they highlight in one of their trailers:
Spoiler
It's a live2D hair strangulation horror scene. But hey! "You can touch the girls as much as you want" to hear her delicious moaning as she get constricted to death huzzah!
Oh btw, false advertising. Girl can only take so much
touchingpunishment before the screen gets very red and she kicks the bucket and you get a gameover:
*insert joke about that white hand icon hovering over her chest*
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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.
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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 VNSFrom 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
Spoiler
...or maybe they're the ones GIVING him badluck
Pretty wholesome VN, and they even make you go through the hard decision of choosing whether you wanna bang Vanilla or Chocolate I mean err Ayame or Kaede by the end of it.Of course, if you play your cards just right, meaning just spread your love evenly between them, then you can bang both. Ez
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
Spoiler
Unfortunately they don't really do much regarding her status as a genuine ninja, it's more for kicks and giggles rather than any substantial plot relevance. After reading the otome Nightshade, that was a bit of a letdown LOL
TroubleDays - Novice succubus Lovelia latches onto Protag as her first target to extract his "Technoforce"
Spoiler
Outfit look familiar? TroubleDays came right after NinNinDays, so Qureate likes to do nods to their previous works. As a huge fan of continuity, I approve~
KukkuroDays: Saber meets protag.
Spoiler
KukkuroDays I feel is the start of Qureate's golden era. Unlike the missed opportunity of exploring Sumire's ninja background in NinNinDays, they're actually able to flesh out this other world that Cattleya (ok wtf kind of name is that) came from. Even nicer, the world Cattleya comes from actually is the same world that the setting of Prison Princess uses, and this particular protag is
Spoilera descendant of the protag from Princess Princess: The Great Hero
Prison Princess:
I got a MASSIVE continuity-gasm, well done Qureate.
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.SpoilerVol 1: protag gets sent to other world, which, btw, again continuity-gasm, is the same world Cattleya from KukkuroDays is from, and he is taken in by tavern owner Lupine to be the headchef. There's also a waitress catgirl by the name of Daisy, cuz it's been like 6 games since NekoMiko so Qureate won't get bashed for being a Nekopara clone:
Volume 2: Adventurers Knight-Dahlia and Mage-Veronica take their turn with protag
Volume 3: Actually not released yet!!! It's coming out next month Apr 2021!!!
Random nod of approval: the heroines from this fantasy world all have unique eye sparkles in their eyes, a very neat artistic choice. ie. Cattleya from the previous entry who's from this fantasy world also has them eye sparkles. +1
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".
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I actually enjoyed Danganronpa solely because of the loud, obnoxious, over the top characters and bombastic class trials
, but can totally see how it can be off putting to some. Definitely think just watching the Class Trials is a bit of a disservice though, that stuff should be played!
Aaaand there's another person who vouches pretty heavily for VA-11 HALL-A, I'm definitely gonna bump it up priority wise on my to read list, it's been on my backlog for years now.
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So I was supposed to read Flowers, but work started picking up again for me yay 2021 so I did jack all in terms of reading this month. Also realized that Flowers is not a trilogy, but instead a quadrilogy or w.e you wanna call four entries, so I've decided to hold off on it since the last entry le volume sur Hiver apparently isn't EN yet.I did pick up some really random short VN called Prison Princess. It was aight. Just like Neko Para you expected a short VN about cute cat grills and !animated! pr0n, Prison Princess is a short VN about helping two princesses escape a dungeon. Some of the puzzles can put the heroines in some pretty... provocative situations, and there's standard live2D animations going on and !touch support! so if you get tempted enough you can totally just say fk the puzzle and tap away on the heroines to hear all of their moaning goodness. Which, not surprisingly, will lower your compatibility with said heroine(s) and lock you into the bad endings. Escape first, play later!
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I also picked up Yumeutsutsu Remaster. I think this will be my first Yuri / girl's love VN? The protagonist is (first) Ai Ohtori, a 21 year old naive cutie country girl who moves to the city to work at a small game development company. You'd think this VN would thus be heavy game design jargon infodumpy and maybe Ai would be this genius programmer with mad skillz or perhaps SOMETHING technical, but unfortunately Ai's position is circumstantial: she has never worked a job in her life prior, has absolutely 0 game design knowledge, and she was mainly approached by the company's President, Honoka, to work as an Assistant Director under her younger sister, 19 y.o Director Kokoro Yanagiya who I guess has been in some sort of slump and so the President went out of her way to set this up to rectify things power-of-sisterly love-style.
Unfortunately, Ai and Kokoro are not on the greatest of terms, and that seems to be the core conflict of this VN:
Ai's a really nice girl, it's great to have a female protagonist with moege-tier / casual / first world problems inner monologues for once. Most of the otomes I've read were mature story based so the protagonists and their inner monologues often reflected that.- Finhir, Mr Poltroon and Plk_Lesiak
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Ty for the heads up, Ill wait for Reflection Blue edition, bummer have to wait but yeah the changes are pretty substantial
Guess I'll do......
uhh
Flowers Le Volume sur Printemps+Ete+Automne
I remember giving Printemps the cold shoulder because "pls Innocent Grey just focus on KnS3" but man they really pumped these out
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Step 1: Get a Microsoft Surface Go2
Step 2: Profit
I remember years ago when Summer Pockets was announced it's like "Lel, wonder when that will come to the West"
Boy time flies. I hear KnS3 also came out in JP, Lel, wonder when that will come to the West
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Happy holidays peeps!
I finished Abyss of the Sacrifice and did manage to somehow clock in 33 hours so I guess that's a relief. Though admittedly I probably lost 10 hours just getting absolutely hardstuck in some puzzles, so it's maybe more of a 20-25 hour VN depending on how gitgud you are.
There's only 16 BGMs, but they've got some pretty catchy techno-y escape room themes going on so I never felt the tracks were too limited/stale:
I enjoyed my time with it. Again, most puzzles are doable but there are some that are wtfmuxlogix-tier so I recommend if you are approaching 30minutes+ on any particular puzzle to just go look it up (I used this site which was for the 2010 game, and just google translate the page) to save yourself some frustration.The pacing can feel a bit off sometimes because every time you pick a stage you'll also get some background lore characterization flashbacks on that specific heroine, but in a story that mainly focuses on the isolated trapped mystery aspect you kind of don't need to know their backgrounds (ie. Zero escape did fine not knowing many of the character's backgrounds prior to them being trapped) and it can interrupt the flow sometimes when you just wanna get on with the story. But hey, it's 5 kawaii high school grills, so we gotta get some characterization goin' on.
The overarching mystery is decent, but nothing too fancy if you've already played the likes of Ever17, ZeroEscape. Missed opportunity in that you'll probably have a good idea of what's going on maybe 50-75% of the way through and then it's just figuring out how to escape, no more mystery, no more twists and turns.
The process to get the ends is in itself a puzzle, which I kind of thematically liked: there is an ending for every heroine, with one of them leading to the true ending, but it's based on what order you play the later stages in the VN. An enforced play order so to speak. So you'll have to pay a little bit of attention to what unfortunate shenanigans happens in the later stages so you can eventually pick the right play combination to victory. Of course, you can just walkthrough the play orders for the endings, but I think there is some narrative value in trying to figure it out yourself.
Playing certain later stages will lock you out from playing other stages because reasons*. (Blue is a completed stage, Gray is a locked out stage, Yellow is a stage not yet played, and Blank is a stage you've played on a prior run but not unlocked on your current run because reasons. You can only play Stages on your current column). Jitka's "Zero" stage is the default game over btw, so I was screwed on the pic above, but thankfully the game lets you menu one way back to a prior stage completion point once you get an ending and try proceeding again from there.
*reasons spoiler:
Spoilera heroine dies
...Think you can make it to the True Ending? Or will you be doomed to eternal failure Raging Loop style? I for the record tried for about 30 minutes of play orders for the True End but threw in the towel cuz it just ain't fun having to skip through the stages lol
Overall if you just wanna play another trapped sci-fi mystery escape room VN, Abyss is a solid choice -
Ever since getting my Switch I've been pretty active in checking what the upcoming releases are and whatnot (on the console's news app itself, not browsing the web)
And apparently they did like 0 marketing cuz I didn't see squat about Abyss of the Sacrificemeanwhile Sephiroth DLC for Smash Ultimate is making headlines everywhere
Anyways it just released recently for Steam and Switch with a decently steep asking price of $39.99 (Steam has a 20% off launch deal for you PC masterraces)Abyss is a remaster of its 2010 PSP version and it's basically a trapped / escape room type VN involving 5 high school girls stuck in some sci-fi-ish underground facility and has typical mystery elements like why are they there, what the facility is all about, etc.
I'm a big Zero Escape fan so I went ahead and jumped the gun, the scary thing though is that this VN is obscure enough that even VNDB doesn't list its length, so I pray this isn't some < 10 hr experience LOL but the game does take up a sizeable 6.2GB so hopefully they got a decently lengthy script to go with all those assets.
The escape room puzzles themselves are nothing too special, typically take only 5-15 minutes, but have a huge quality variance, ranging from standard easy peasy just finding all the necessary items and applying them correctly to the various contraptions via trial and error, to headache inducing mindstopper decoding shit that basically require you be the developer to know wtf they were thinking when they made that puzzle (though I might just suck, for the record though I never had to use a guide for any of Zero Escape's puzzles and already ragequitted one or two of these LOL)
IDK GIRL, JUST GOOGLE IT!!!!
The VN plays in stages/chapters, with each chapter featuring an escape puzzle and heroine specific background lore, with a successful completion returning you to the main flowchart to pick from another heroine to playthrough as the group slowly but surely learns more about the facility and the state of the world:
So far I'm about 5-6hrs in, the group is together and have a few quarrels but overall the atmosphere is neutral-positive. The intro PV does hint at some dark shenanigans happening later though, so that'll be something to (not) look forward to.Blood:
Spoiler
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Got two routes done in Nightshade, Hanzo and Gekkamaru.
So far this VN builds off of common ninja tropes such as "the client/mission always takes priority over everything else," even over your friends and family, hell, it takes it to the max in that if multiple opposing clients hire from the same ninja clan, they'll actually have no problem fighting each other:
As Naruto's Kakashi once said, "Those who abandon their friends are scum, but those who abandon their mission are worse than scum." ............no wait-
Naturally most of the drama in this VN will revolve around this outdated mentality, where Enju and co. will have to choose whether to follow their shinobi pride or screw it all and follow their heart in the name of friendship and love:
Wait 'til Enju learns that the only reason Gekkamaru has been a loyal bodyguard servant to her since she was a baby was because offfffffffffsdafkjlsdfj
The bad ends are tragically romantic. You kind of have to go out of your way to get them, since it requires you to be, uh, rather unreceptive, to the Hero for the majority of his route. I particularly liked Hanzo's bad end. He was the absolute badass perfect ninja type who slowly started to learn how to care, and to love:
...But if you don't max out them feelsies:Spoiler
I might be sadistic or something, but I liked the bad end over the good end. The CG above is just too beautiful. Tragic, yes, but so damn beautiful..
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A glaring weakness with this VN however is that, two routes in, it doesn't seem like the writers created different scenarios for each Hero route. You basically get the same core conflict scenario, and just copy paste the Hero to accompany Enju and change up the confrontations. Revelations about Enju's ninja clan, the mastermind behind the conflict, are reused although explained in varying degrees based on Hero relevancy, etc. Unfortunate. -
Guess what I'm reading now!
Hint: it deals with ninjas
Hint2: it's an otome
Hint3: It's Nightshade / Hyakka Hyakurou Sengoku Ninpou-chou
It's actually fascinating how many otomes are getting localized in the west... I've read some big otome titles like Code;Realize and CollarxMalice and they've always excelled at having a mature, interesting story with high stakes and Nightshade looks to be another contender
You play as female protagonist (first) Enju Ueno, a 16 year old shinobi who is the symbol of peace between two once long-feuding-but-are-now-united shinobi clans, being the daughter of the clan heads. She's the coming-of-age modest, naive, "I'm a princess but please treat me like a normal person" type who's eager to prove her worth, but everyone insists on pampering her:
The first tag listed on VNDB is "Life and Death Drama", this oughtta be interesting...
- ChaosRaven, Dreamysyu, Finhir and 1 other
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Been years since I've done a walkthrough here, but World End Syndrome is legit a visual novel that should be played with one imo.
World End Syndrome
Digital NA Playstation 4 | Digital NA Nintendo Switch | Publisher Website (Arc System Works)Summary
"I can't help but feel like you never say what's on your mind, and you keep a lot repressed. Like you've given up."
World End Syndrome follows the story of a 17-year-old high school junior trying to escape his troubled past. After causing an accident resulting in his older sister’s death, he receives an invitation to transfer to Mihate High School. He takes it gratefully, hoping to start a new life and forget his past.
But Mihate Town is not the coastal paradise it appears to be. It is home to the legend of the Yomibito, where the dead come back to life every 100 years. Once resurrected, the Yomibito attack the living to regain their sanity, but the dead’s thirst is never quenched. This year happens to be 100 years since the last known incident…
As the protagonist navigates his new life with a colorful cast of new friends, a student at Mihate High suddenly dies. The murder sends shockwaves through the idyllic town as he finds himself caught in a string of strange incidents, romance, and unforgettable summer experiences…
[From Arc System Works]
Ending Guideline / Suggested Route OrderThere are five heroines: Saya, Hanako, Maimi, Yukino, Miu, and a final truth route.
- Yukino's route is unlocked upon completing Saya, Hanako, and Maimi's routes.
- Miu's route is unlocked upon completing Yukino's route.
- Truth route is unlocked upon completing Miu's route.
Recommended play order: Saya -> Hanako -> Maimi -> Yukino -> Miu -> Truth
Route GuidelinePrologue: There is a rather lengthy "Prologue" that spans through 6/1 to 7/30. None of the choices matter in the prologue.
Create a save on 7/29. Once the prologue is completed, you will receive Worst Ending and be returned to the main menu. Don't panic! That was supposed to happen!
Resume the game and there will now be an unlocked choice on 7/30 "...you should wait a little" that will allow you to continue onto the month long Free Roam segment.- These heroine walkthroughs will seek to MAXIMIZE the amount of scenes you can have for a heroine during the month long Free Roam by telling you which location they will be at on a certain time and day. You'll see right away that it would be very frustrating to play through this VN blind, because you have no idea where anyone will be and will have to trial and error / save and reload many, many times.
- The "Student Handbook" obtained from (date) event will add a menu option that displays your current "Aura" (compatability) with heroines.
- Failure to enter a heroine's route by 8/24 will result in the same Worst End that you got in the Prologue.
Kamishiro SayaSpoiler8/1 Thursday
- Club meeting - Talk to Saya
- (Afternoon) Seafront - Kamishiro Hotel
- (Night) Seafront - Kamishiro Hotel
8/2 Friday
- (Morning) K. Manor
- (Afternoon) Seafront - Kamishiro Hotel
- (Night) Suburb - Miu Cafe (accept Mission 02)
8/3 Saturday
- (Morning)
- (Afternoon)
- (Night)
Yamada HanakoSpoilerWIP
Kusunose MaimiSpoilerWIP
Otonashi YukinoSpoilerWIP
Amana MiuSpoilerWIP
Truth RouteSpoilerWIP
Missions / Collectibles
There are 10 missions that can be completed during the Free Roam month, along with XX number of collectibles.
AttributionThis walkthrough was created by me with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of trial and error.
Changelog:
12/14/20 - got the basic walkthrough template up. Time to do mass trial and error~ -
On 12/10/2020 at 1:29 PM, Eclipsed said:
I'm on my second loop now, will be interesting what kind of plot twists the writers conjured up to keep things spicy (because obviously after the first loop, you know who the wolves are etc etc)
Because obviously I'm a dumb dumb and that was a silly assumption to make. Everyone who read the VN already and then that comment of mine was probably like LOL
Finished Raging Loops. Overall enjoyable. Here's the fav bgm:
Honestly most of my enjoyment from this VN came from the Feasts, and that's mainly from my personal bias of loving group-battle-of-wits-discussion type scenarios ala Danganronpa.
The endgame reveals were unfortunately kind of a big yawn. Waaaay too much last minute background history infodumping and kanji reordering wordplay reveals when you just wanna get the show over with. Getting the final 5 keys was about as tedious as Link having to fetch all of the Triforce shards in Windwaker. And it doesn't even ultimately end in with a big bang, just a matter of fact kind of resolution. Anticlimatic.
(SPOILER) Random thoughts to various revelations (SUPER SPOILERS)SpoilerSecond Loop:
-Knew Chiemi was gonna be one of the wolves, she went from relatively active participant in First Loop to nonexistent in Second Loop. Also felt the initial disappointment in her with the exact same Haruaki "thought you of all people would reject becoming a wolf" thoughts, though it does make sense considering the overall story.
-Thought it was kind of cheap though how the wolves can just go "fk it, let's kill everyone" if they lost.
-Liked Chiemi's 1v1 endgame kill on Haruaki. Haven't really had a murdercrazy heroine for me in a while.
Third Loop:
-REALLY loved the premise of getting to be on the Wolf side, disliked that Kaori's motherly instinct consistently won over the supposed undying wolf faith displayed by Tae and Yasu in the First Loop and was a constant "welp, the wolves are screwed". Also Meiko being a useless badger. Writers were probably out of gas and didn't want to waste anymore brainpower crafting an interesting scenario.
-Also thought it funny how easily Haruaki accepted wolf duties but overall found it underwhelming how wolves are indoctrinated to be absolute faithful to their duties. A lot of it truly is just blind faith but yeah, underwhelming.
-Hashimoto was a cool guy. I would've liked scenarios where he was the wolf, or was on Haruaki's side. Also would've liked Haruaki x Chiemi wolf side.
^Though, tbh there were times where it felt cheap that Hashi was able to deduce the whole fake snake thing.
-Haru's "Oh the god persona was just a fake persona and all her mind reading was coincidental" "reveal" that got reversed 5 seconds later was pretty lol-what-was-the-point-of-that-tier. Try harder, writers.Revelation Loop:
-Completely glossed over the possibility of Chiemi also being a looper. That should've been the first thing you thought when you saw her on the second loop and she teared up and I totally did think something along those lines but I think I just brushed it off as one of those tragic side character irrelevant deja vu moments. Even though I complained getting the final 5 keys was tedious, Haruaki x Chiemi duo loop murder segment was another highlight of this VN.
^I started to think about the grand scale of looping over billions of years over and over and had to stop before my mind popped. It's like when you start comprehending just how big the universe is and it gets overwhelming.
-So you're telling me the Old Man Who Cried Wolf was able to take out Chiemi / Haruaki in over 100+ loops as the supernatural undefeatable werewolf ggez even though Chiemi had a SHOTGUN? That's probably the biggest legit plothole, cuz there's no way Chiemi in Loop 3 "Oh i just shoot the dogs that's why I was able to be outside to do my suicide trick, but overall no matter what I always die when the werewolf comes". You would think she would be able to cap him in at least one of those loops. Also the fact that noone decided to tail him and find out the secret tunnel.
-I completely skipped over Fujiyoshi/Yasumizu history + kanji reordering/Ookami/Shin'naisama/WhatisGod? infodumps, I don't think I ever outright SKIPPED through any VN text I've read this year like this lol. Might be a sign to take a break. So I'm still slightly confused on some of the God's roles in this whole ordeal but ehh.
-Overall there's just a lot of dialogue inconsistency reveals that are hard to catch, like "Oh Rikako in Loop 2 was given away that she retained her memories because she claimed to see Haruaki behind a rock, when in Loop 1 the first time you saw her was behind leaves etc. They relied on those inconsistencies for reveals a bit too much imo.
-Knew they were gonna go for "The Feast is a manmade, not supernatural, phenemenon", but didn't conclude that that they simply used cameras / electronic locks, and overall that type of reveal fell flat and was just like "oh. that's it?"
-They did another one right after via Rikako being the dreamer lmao:
^NGL, when Haruaki was doing his Ookami speech I totally didn't realize Rikako wasn't there. To be fair at this point it's probably more of a failure on my part for reading on autopilot rather than the VN doing bad reveals huh lol.
-Was actually thinking Chiemi would be the dreamer and you'd have a looper vs looper battle. That'd be some true Naruto Izanagi vs Izanami funtime. But nope.
-Rikako spider lore went in one ear and out the other, so don't fully understand how she was able to dream loop everyone and summon the monster just because she banged everyone, but ehh. Cuz overall the VN looked like it was trying to decide whether it was purely realistic, or purely supernatural, and then they went half and half (Feast ended up being manmade based on superstition, but God exists, along with Rikako's powers).
-Reason why I think the endgame is weak is that Haruaki was able to end hundreds of years of tradition and superstition with just a bit of talk no jutsu. Now that was some god-tier "That's it?"
Kind of want to just move onto another VN instead of reading the POST GAME ADDITIONAL REVELATION SCENES (there's a friggen' lot of them!). But will definitely check out scenes involving Wolves perspective though. Especially Chiemi's
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Yeah, Raging Loops is an Among Us / Mafia style VN. Protagonist ends up in desolate village, with it's own mafia ruleset yadda yadda. Would've been nice to read this before Among Us peaked in popularity, cuz now it actually feels too mainstream to be reading this LOL
Wolves are the imposters, 2 off them, 1 kill per night, 1 vote/hanging during the day on the human side to attempt to weed out the wolves, extra side rules that result in supernatural death if disobeyed (ie. trying to run away, or do more than 1 kill etc). I'm not doing this VN any justice with my super generic bland description- it does, to its credit, get pretty tense and keeps you on your toes until the bitter end on who to believe and whatnot.
For the record, I was 1/2 correct by the end of it.
~~
The first loop Haruaki is NOT a participant due to his outsider status, so you get to watch the villagers screw themselves over like morons.
I really wished I'd hadn't played Among Us to death when it peaked in popularity.
~~
I'm on my second loop now, will be interesting what kind of plot twists the writers conjured up to keep things spicy (because obviously after the first loop, you know who the wolves are etc etc) -
Wait a minute, I just finished World End Syndrome, which delved into Yomibito lore pretty thoroughly, and now I gotta deal with it AGAIN for Raging Loop? Is Yomibito a common folklore thing(I didn't even know about them before reading WES), or did I just supermassive coinkydinky read two VNs back to back that decided to involve them lol
Pffft, I'm Takeru Umisho, a certified Yomibito expert, and I can definitely say that Haruaki Fusaishi ain't no Yomibito.
Anyways, protagonist 24 yo. Haruaki Fusaishi gets into a recent breakup, takes a one way motorcycle trip to the middle of nowhere to clear his mind, gets into an accident, and eventually finds himself in a remote, desolate village called Yasumizu where the villagers are extremely cold to "outsiders". There is one friendly face though: Chiemi Serizawa, a 21 year old college student who returned here for vacation. She finds the lost Haruaki and vouches for him.
Raging Loop already lives up to its name, as the game takes the time to explicitly tell you, "Hey, you'll run into a lot of necessary bad ends to progress the story, glhf"
Without further ado, time to go die~- adamstan, Mr Poltroon and Finhir
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Finished World End Syndrome. The final few routes for Yukino and Miu were pretty fun, because they finally touch upon the murder mystery and Yomibito lore aspects of the VN that the prologue hooks you in with whereas everything else in between was just standard slice of life & world building & heroine personal baggage solving. So overall it's like 90% SoL and 10% murder mystery / supernatural lore lol.
Btw, anyone wanna play Among Us? LOL
It's a shame, because while reading their routes I constantly found myself going, damn, this VN would've been even more awesome if the entire thing revolved around the mystery aspect. But ultimately all the slice of life did serve its purpose and softened me well for going into:
Yup, there's a truth route to look forward to by the end of it, yeee. It's nothing too mind boggling; a bit of a shame considering you have a title like WORLD END SYNDROME so you might be expecting the true route to have reality bending consequences (it doesn't), but nevertheless it was still a pleasant truth route.Hint: it deals with:
SpoilerTakeru's personal baggage. In which, fk me, I really love that they were able to pull this type of punch:
Spoiler
OH SHIT, MAH BOI TAKERU UMISHO AIN'T REALLY TAKERU UMISHO ??? SAY IT ISN'T SO!!!Takeru's real name turns out to be:
Spoiler
Sora? Wtf you Kingdom Hearts wannabe, GIVE ME BACK MY TAKERU UMISHO!
Otonashi...? Wait, isn't Yukino........ an Otonashi as well?
Spoiler
SHE WAS HIS SISTER THAT DIED IN THE CAR CRASH? SHE'S THE YOMIBITO????? HOLYYYYY
Yukino disappearing from the CG and title screen afterwards was a nice touch. Made me shed a tear~
There is a sequel planned, World End Phenomenon, in god knows how many more years but I'll definitely keep an eye out for that.
Alright, detour over. Back to Raging Loop- adamstan and Mr Poltroon
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I finished Hanako -> Saya -> Maimi routes in World End Syndrome. Apparently you need to do these three before you can do Yukino's and Miu's, and so far the supernatural lore regarding the Yomibito-undead-reviving-every-100-years thing hardly has any presence, so I'm guessing the final two routes will start touching base with that.
Hanako Yamada / Rei Nikaido
Heh, and I'm Takeru Umisho, from Muv-Notes Luv-Robotics ; Alternate DaSH
This girl is great. She's the (true personality) socially awkward clumsy girl (fake alias) Hanako Yamada by day and the rising idol sensation (true name) Rei Nikaido by night. She comes to Mihate Town to film for her latest movie after being inspired by the Town's legends, and joins the Mystery Club under her incognito name out of desire to experience being a normal high school girl.
SpoilerAight, y'all know me, she's a pink haired idol, instant best girl. She's such a tease:
YES!
UHHHH, PARDON??!!! (BTW, more VN's need to have characters where you ALWAYS see them with certain hairstyle or with glasses on, and then you get to finally see them with their hair different / glasses off, like Rei above. It's such a nice little characterization gimmick.)What I liked about her route was that, as cliche as it might've been, the writers were able to relate Hanako's personal drama to Takeru's in that both characters reached a point in their lives where they hit rock bottom and were living day by day with no future aspirations. Takeru's was due to survivor's guilt when his sister died in a car crash, whereas Hanako grew up with a single abusive father after her mother ran away.
Hanako was able to find her light at the end of the tunnel when she was scouted to become an idol (which was no happenstance), and by extension she was able to become the light at the end of the tunnel for Takeru. It's a pretty wholesome romance for these two:
D'AWWWW FKING ROMANTIC AS FK!!!!
But again, Rei's such a tease:
Spoiler
WOOOOOOOOOOW WAY TO GASLIGHT TAKERU, HANAKO!!!
Btw whatever you do, when you're on her route, DON'T EVER STAND HER UP, even if it's just to get some petty revenge because of her 10 minute text reply stall shenanigans seen above. Her breakup text actually hurts a lot LOL:Spoiler
WAIT NIKAREI!!! I CAN EXPLAIN!!! I JUST WANTED TO SEE WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF I STOOD YOU UP!!!!! IT WAS NOTHING PERSONAL PLEASE!Saya Kamishiro
Honor student. Athletic. Rich. Talented. Gorgeous. The girl's got it all.
That's a funny way of saying "Hey I like you, can we walk home together?"SpoilerBtw,
She's only 15. WHATTA BABY!!! For the record, the rest of the cast are 17. I'm surprised Takeru was so surprised to find that out.
Saya's baggage comes from the fact that she's not actually a blood heir to the legendary Kamishiro family (the most powerful & influential family in Mihate Town), so to compensate she always pushes herself to do her best, Naruto work hard style instead of being born a genius Uchiha Sasuke style.
It's kay girl, you may not be the legendary Kamishiro blood A type (she's a B type), but the view from here is definitely A grade material. Wait, I shouldn't say that, she's 15--
OH HAWT DAMNNN!!
Their romance was standard, it didn't make me go d'awww as much as Hanako's did. But Saya could have her text moments too:Spoiler
:
ATTA GIRL!
Maimi Kusunose
LMAO! One of the rare times my boi Kensuke actually gets some good shots in. (Ironic, because she's actually his one true crush despite all of his fanboying for the idol Nikarei). Maimi is the hotheaded tomboy down to earth speaks her mind type.Spoiler
You're um, nice to look at?
Maimi's a pretty normal girl at the end of the day, no real personal familial baggage like Hanako or Saya. Most of her route you just tag alongside her as she helps a sick child prepare for her surgery, or witness people asking her out and failing miserably.
When Takeru gets nosy and inquires why she rejects her suitors, she just nonchalantly drops the bomb:
...What.
One big revelation that could've been executed better is that Maimi is actually the true identity behind the famous Monday through Wednesday nightly radio talk show host, Hikaru Tsukioka, that Takeru can tune into. That was a nice reveal that caught me off guard, unlike the ever obvious Hanako = Rei. Then her route's seemingly random events actually make sense: the kid undergoing surgery was a big fan of Hikaru so that's why Maimi became emotionally invested, and Saya's brother Mibu who up until this route seemed like an okay guy turned out to be a sleezy playboy who took a liking to Hikaru and abused his status to make moves on her.
And once again, the romance with a heroine is what is able to get Takeru out of his stagnant misery:
Unfortunately, even though Takeru was able to avoid having an uneventful summer leading to his prologue-demise by mingling with some heroines, it turns out:Spoiler
Calling it now, Takeru is the Yomibito. Looks like we'll learn more in the final two routes: Yukino, who is actively researching the Yomibito legend, and Miu, who is the obvious red herring:
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I'm taking a detour from Raging Loop, tbh I just read all of the foreword stuff and then got randomly sidetracked, but I'll get back to this soon I swear
But right now I'm reading World End Syndrome cuz it finally went on sale Switch digital for 12 bucks$$
The Protagonist is nameable, so I was like fk me, I don't know any decent names, and I'm hella not gonna self insert my own name, so here's what I named him LOL:
Takeru from Muvluv and Umisho from Robotics;Notes. Yes, I literally could not think of anything better, and yolo'd, sue me.
So Takeru moves to Mihate Town, a (fictional?) modern day rural seaside Japanese town, to escape some personal baggage. He's like the most indifferent, unemotional protagonist ever because of said baggage. The kind who just lives day by day with no goal, no purpose in mind. It's reflected well during the VN's Free Roam segment during Summer Break which I'll get into later. Mihate town itself has some supernatural lore, The Yomibito Legend, where supposedly every 100 years the dead revive and wreak havoc on the town. Hmm, okay, we're off to a good start. I like my moe slice of lifes to have behind the scene shenanigans to look forward to later.Spoiler
Hi cutie. Don't kill me plx
He lodges in a relative's supposedly vacant mansion, but unbeknownst to him he runs into an unexpected roommate: a distant cousin by the name of Maimi. She's not too happy about having some random unknown boy roommate show up, but she quickly lays down some house rules to compromise (Takeru is in charge of cooking, cleaning, basically all the house chores, gg ez).
Uncle's...Wife's...lover's....mistress? Uhhhh- I lost track of the family tree at Uncle already, sorrz.
Takeru eventually gets roped into joining his school's Mystery Club, which, by VN modern day protagonist standards, means it's a club that exists solely for Takeru to be able to mingle with all of the heroines. Unfortunately though, the writers of this VN made the fatal, fatal mistake of having the worst side-bro character ever by the name of Kensuke exist: a flamboyant failure playboy type whose only purpose is to get collectively shat on by the heroines repeatedly and relentlessly. It gets old FAST.
Seriously less than 5 minutes of and this guy already won my award for worst sidebro character EVER. Doesn't help that he actually gets a SIGNIFICANT amount of screentime.
The VN has a calendar-date day by day system, with the first two months June and July being considered the prologue which naturally establish the town's setting, characters, high school mystery club, and sparsely hints at some supernatural shenanigans, all in bread and butter slice of life format. Near the climax of this relatively lengthy prologue, a random student goes missing, and during one of the Mystery Club's outdoor trips they stumble upon said lost student's belongings. Uh oh. Unfortunately you won't get to learn much else regarding this case, because the prologue will automatically lock you into the VN's default bad ending as your reward for completing it.Upon resuming the VN you can pick an unlocked dialogue choice to avoid the prologue bad end and move onto the month long summer break free roam slice of life segment taking place in August, and this is where you really get to see Takeru's aimless no lifing as he just goes through the motions, living day by day, wandering around doing whatever he pleases (which mostly amounts to nothing). It's quite overwhelming at first, because as a completionist I kept wanting to reload saves to see what different scenes would occur if I picked a different location to go to, and a lot of the times you're left wondering "WHERE THE HELL SHOULD I GO? DOES IT MATTER???" It's exacerbated in that every day you can visit one place in the morning, one place in the afternoon, and one place at night. With 7 locations to choose from, with up to 3 times a day per location, and 30 days, it gets exhausting very quickly trying to see every possible scene (and there's many deadend scenes, where you visit a location just to get a one liner description and nothing else).
7 locations... 3 times a day (morning afternoon night), so basically every day has 21 potential scenes, times 30 days = 630 times I'm gonna have to reload my save to see all potential scenes, WTF GAME! It also doesn't help that this VN doesn't have a quicksave/load function, in fact you can only save AFTER or BEFORE scenes, not during. A really nasty technical limitation by today's standards.
What's fascinating though is that, I think THAT'S THE POINT of this month long Free Roam segment, especially the first time you go through it blind. The VN seems to be aiming for a "if you could relive a moment of your life, how would you go about it differently?" theme of sorts. Takeru's summer vacation my first playthrough was just spent lounging and wandering around and making small talk with whoever I happened to bump into. Uneventful and wasteful. Takeru himself will admit he basically has no life, and heroines will nag at him to start being more open and active. But if you're ultimately unable to develop any connections with any of the heroines and stay a loner, you'll waltz right back into the arms of the prologue's bad end. So from a narrative standpoint I thought this was rather neat. But from a gameplay completionist standpoint though, fk this game. It's so tempting to just pull up a walkthrough and avoid the unnecessary scene grinding.
GIRL DONT'CHU BE TELLIN' ME WHAT I OUGHTTA DO!Spoiler
BETCH YOU DON'T KNOW ME
wOWzeRs WheRE'D THe TiME GO?!
GG EZ
Thankfully, upon getting the bad end a second time around, my initial month long of meandering gave me a good idea of where most of the heroines generally spend their month... Maimi the fiery redhead distant cousin seems to be at school for tennis, Yukino the bluehaired eager young adult journalist is investigating the supernatural Yomibito Legend so she's a wildcard, Miu the stoic softspoken greenhead is mostly working at her brother's cafe in the afternoon, Hanako/Rei is the ditzy pink haired only-the-audience-can-see-through-her-idol-disguise who's shooting a film in the forest, and Saya is I guess the starter route yellow haired ojou because you can literally just say yes to become her servant so she'll assign you your shifts where to go:Spoiler
We'll see if this develops into something interesting. -
It's something I'm very glad to see, handheld console is my preferred way to read VNs nowadays, just get comfy in bed and play away. Looking forward to see more releases trickle onto the Switch over the upcoming years.
My PSVita has served me well. Muv Luv trilogy, Utawarerumono Trilogy, Chaos;Child+Steins;gate0, otomes like CollarxMalice and Code;Realize, Zeroescape + Danganronpa, whew.
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Aight I was holding off on this for the longest time ever because I'm a judgmental prick and didn't really like the art style, heh, but it's time to start
- Seraphim and Mr Poltroon
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What are you playing?
in Visual Novel Talk
Posted
Ok. So, I started reading VNs in 2014. That's like what, 7 years? And my VNDB lists 76 finished, which makes 10-12 per year average. You could say I'm a seasoned veteran now (not really, still a flippin' casual tbh).
My first five VNs were If My Heart Had Wings, Little Busters!, Rewrite, Steins;Gate, Grisaia no Kajitsu. Y'know, all the common classic starter packs, so I rated all of them 9+/10
And what am I reading now?
CLANNAD.
This monster has so many 9+/10 ratings I have to wonder if it was all because it was one of the starter packs that everyone starts their VN career reading and then they get nuked by the late game Key Magickz and hail it as one of the greatest of all time
I'll have the luxury of going into this with seasoned veteran status, so I am totally going to be critical and see what all the hype was about.
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Yes. Sometimes I wish I was back in my naive VN early days where I didn't realize how utterly butchered Moenovels' translation was for IMHHW and I still regarded it as a wonderful VN. Btw that's the obvious poster heroine above: (first) Nagisa Furukawa.
The male protag Tomoya surprised me. Idk why, but I totally thought he would be another LB! bland nice guy Riki, but he's got some Rewrite's Kotarou delinquent sass to him so at least he'll keep me entertained I hope. The main heroine Nagisa also caught me off guard; when you're into idol rhythm games like Love Live / Bandori, and all the Honokas and Kasumis AKA orange/brown haired girls are the genki type, Nagisa totally throws a curve ball by being the innocent naive mellow type:
LOL FURUKAWA WTH!!!!
And then there's Sunohara:
F*** me, I forgot Key loves them some male bro side characters. I got spoiled by ISLAND having no bros to deal with. I personally feel these guys only serve to deduct heroine screentimes. Their banter is usually always whatevers.
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Scariest thing so far:
7 heroines, jeebus! I felt overwhelmed with ISLAND having just THREE heroines and was glad they focused on ONE. I know, forgive me, I'm old. Idk if I gots the patience to go through 'em all, but I'll try. Right now I really like Tomoyo for being a former-delinquent-turned-model-student-badass (yay, so that leaves Tomoyo After something to look forward to). Nagisa is a bit too mellow. Ryou's aight, Kyou's where it's at though. Fuko just Fukos. And I don't even think I saw Kotomi or Yukine yet; damn these numerous blind choice mechanics.
^Best girl
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I'm so curious what will happen. So far this totally looks like just standard high school SoL, and then come lategame Key'll pull some uber QQ tragics that will me bawls like no tomorrow and 10/10 this VN. But wtf can they do...?