Jump to content

TexasDice

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3125

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    18

 Content Type 

Posts posted by TexasDice

    Aokana Release by Nekonyan [UPDATED]

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    Yooo, that was a blast. Aokana is the first "sports"-vn I've ever read, (excluding the occasional track team route,) so with my boxing background I felt right at home (and should move my fat overwinter ass off the couch). The big FC fights actually glued me into my chair from start to finish and this title makes good use of moving the screen, transitions, sound effects and narration to make them exciting to follow along. The last vn fight scenes I enjoyed were the ones in Comyu and this is even better. Nice. (quick shoutout to the episode-preview narrations)

    Sprite draws amazing... well sprites, SDs and backgrounds, so like in koichoco I had a lot of fun looking for easter eggs in CGs and backgrounds. The Soundtrack also kept me entertained without becoming grating after repeating for all four routes.

    I've read the routes in the following order; Mashiro, Rika, Misaki, Asuka. I would recommend following that, with the option to either start or completely skip Rika. Whatever you do, read Asuka last.

    Mashiro - smoll and cute

    Spoiler

     

    She is not a character I got along with right away. She actually got on my nerves during the common route and I snapped her first mostly because I was morbidly curious as to how the hell a romance was supposed to grow out of this... lets call it "unfortunate" character setup.

    Well contrary to what I expected, it just happened to work really well. Mashiro's route is a really cute romance story, featuring a really cute little girl. The more this little shit untangles herself, the more likable she becomes and I'm a big fan of her personality change, because it's gradual and doesn't come out of nowhere. Aside from this really strange stretch of "nothing" happening when Masaya works at her place and she going to Rika for training in which they never speak, I can't think of a single thing I hated. 

    Mashiro's route has the best romance of them all and it has my favorite conclusion; Instead of focusing on the themes of the sport and "defeating the bad guy/girl", this route culminates in a showdown between Mashiro and Misaki, which is great because we as the readers are invested in both characters at this point and makes us care a lot about the result. Thematically very fitting finale and it wraps everything up with a neat bow and tie. 

     

    Rika - Things happens and then it ends

    Spoiler

     

    Lets me get this out of the way: The route is not bad, Rika is a very nice and soothing heroine and it's not so bad, that you'd hate yourself reading it when you're a fan of Rika.

    Now, if you didn't click with Rika in the slightest, you might as well skip this route, because it doesn't really contribute anything to the greater picture. Things just kind of keep happening, the protagonist doesn't do anything all that important and the villain of the route is... very bad. It was physically cringing to myself, due to how lame it she is and her suddenly plot twist.

    It's the only route that doesn't adress the fate of the protagonist (which is strange, considering she knows the most about his past from the get go) and has a surprisingly high number of plot holes regarding the flight psychics and technical laws, mostly because it had a different writer who is not credited on VNDB.

    I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't reread this one either. It was fine.

     

    Misaki - The pity party

    Spoiler

     

    So, this route was amazing. A little messy to be sure, but an amazing mess nonetheless. We are allowed to delve into the complex feelings of frustration and jealousy through the minds of two scarred individuals attempting to, failing to and lastly, succeeding to overcome those emotions. Misaki is a frustrating heroine at times, because her flip-flopping is great for the comedy and sass value, but sometimes annoying to read, which is without a doubt intentional. 

    Misaki's route aside from targetting issues from a fresh (and dour) perspective, benefits greatly from axing the main cast and instead building up a new "party" of support characters. That is pretty nice, because it keeps things fresh. Storywise, the Inui fight was my favorite fight in the whole vn and I was super proud of myself for figuring out their strategy hours before the characters. Unfortunately, the big final fight against Asuka seems a bit less important and isn't as tense.

    Anything I didn't like? Well, yeah the romance. While it gets better towards the end when Misaki and Masaya end up flirting and screwing around, initially the start of the relationship kind of just happens and it's never brought up by anyone else. The tone of route, the science and action came at the cost of the romantic development. Furthermore, the new support cast comes at the cost of not addressing the Mashiro issue in a meaningful way. Or any of their issues in general; It's mostly a problem with Asuka being the "main-route", so the inability to resolve the other, open character plots in this route is the nature of the beast.

    high level nagging, but nagging nonetheless

     

    Asuka - the big finale

    Spoiler

     

    Yeah, so Asuka's route is the main story and you feel it. Despite building up how amazing Asuka is, we still follow a rather classic underdog type sports story that focuses on learning new tricks and exciting asspulls. The big solution is this time dropped right at the start and easy to pick up on, but most readers would most likely forget by the time they reached the finale. 

    This route also delves into some serious topics, mostly related to the protagonist, but mostly focuses on the FC sport itself, which is great for me because I was into that the most. The romance is very cuddly and fluffy, because Asuka is a precious cinnamon roll.

    The finale is big, flashy and a little stupid. The ending spectacle is a bit too flashy for my tastes, but it works as everything was setup. We actually get some nice endings for all the main characters, including the protagonist. However, the script does reach a Return-of-the-kings approximate amount of endings that could've been souped into one, full epilogue just to steamline somewhat.

    When compared to Misaki's route, I think it's weird that she stuck around for this whole thing to go down (considering what's going on with her in Mashiro's and her own route) but I like that you essentially pick your preferred type of story: Do you want to heal Masaya's old wounds by applying wholesome excitement and fun or do you prefer brute forcing your way through the wall by hitting your head until it breaks? 

     

    The protagonist is a cool guy and I love almost all side characters. So much so that I'm baffled that ohohohjou-sama didn't get a route (also why does Arika have those giant knockers? Holy lord in the sky)

    Overall I give Aokana a 0/10, because there's a character voiced by my girl, Mizuhashi Kaori and I wasn't allowed to respectfully bone her into oblivion all night long.  

    NSFW PS: bless Madoka, she a good girl.

    Spoiler

    jvV6zLN.jpg

     

    Haretaka aka Farther Than the Blue Sky Discussion [UPDATED]

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    I remember being super sold on Suki Suki initially. Yuuki was perfect, Rinka was overall good (route a little contrived, but the novelty of the idea behind it I liked) and Mahiru was at least great if you are into that sorta thing...

    What knocked it out for me however, was that first, Ayame's route, which starts off nice and neat, utterly shits the bed in it's second half. It falls so flat on it's face, I could still plug pieces of asphalt out of it's face. Really bad stuff. Then secondly, Chiho happend. Dudegirl was a clusterfuck of bad writing, bad management and strangely enough bad translation. Chiho's route makes no sense and doesn't fit into the story of the common route and the four other heroines whatsoever, while all three side girls who had more development AND screentime than Chiho get nothing. From what I understand, Chiho's route only exists because one guy at the company was like "but I wanna do that though".

    The reason I mention this, is because I'm now reading Haretaka and praying to whatever divine beings are out there, that this one doesn't have a "chiho" route. On the other hand, I am morbidly curious if there's another Ayame hidden in here. 

    Apparently, Overdrive's last VN is now called Musicus! instead of Musica!. And there's now official cover art and character profiles.

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    I completely disagree, Kira*Kira and Deardrops have a very different tone and themes. One is a story about that one last trip before becoming adults in a music setting, while the other uses music as plot, setting, theme and basically main character. Kira*Kira could be a story about interpretive dancing or flying gliders and it wouldn't change the all that much, while Deardrops doesn't remotely work at it's core without music.

    Overdrive is on a 3/1 good/bad ration for music vns, so my hopes are high. Just keep the curtain call prick out this time and maybe don't try to give every single character a route if there's no material to work with at all.

    Prettiest school uniforms in VNs?

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted · Edited by TexasDice

    I wholeheartedly wish I knew more about fashion to use actually correct terminology here, but lemme go ahead and embarrass myself on the internet anyways:

    So the way I see it, for girls there are like three general designs for school uniforms (Blazer, Sailor and the ... corset type? You know, the one where the boobs are really fun to draw) and a fourth category for fantasy and unconventional ones. And then shit gets even more complicated, when the summer and winter uniforms are different types, like how Hoshimemo has sailor uniforms in Summer, but blazers in winter just to annoy me. :komari:

    Getting something similar to a coherent judgement was rough; For general blazer uniforms, Little Busters came to mind because I love the red/black combo and Comyu because it was a Harry Potter gag, but I would say my favorite uniform of that type would be the Daitoshokan uniform. It's very bright, with the white and red and the vest some of the girls wear helps make it not so boring in Summer when they take the actual blazer off and only rock the shirt. Good fashion, would force a girl to wear IRL/10

    In the Sailor category, the To Heart 2 uniform came out on top over the Suki Suki uniform. Both contestants enter with the tried and true white/red aestethic. But when in doubt, go with the classics and do Ittaku a good one. Also, the 2Heart (I think To Heart 1 has the same, but whatever) uniform looks more like something an actual student would wear, while the other one looks like a cosplay from amazon. Honorable mention to Dracu-Riot, because I have to.

    Entering the corset... half-shirt... tiddy window... the third category, I immediately remembered Koichoco and the thicc dream supreme: Wagahigh. Koichoco has a very simple, but effective design that scores points from how easy it is to customize it (I like it when the school uniform gets some personal touches by the characters, like Michiru's shirt or Nozomi's lab coat) and the greenish-blue is cool. On the other side, the Wagahigh uniform is a technical marvel, capable of containing to sheer amount of (totally anatomically correct) waifu flab within it's confines. Neither of those take the win for me though.

    Not gonna touch up on the fantasy stuff, because I can really think of is Rewrite with the dress uniform.

    So now I wrote out of my ass for a while, what is my favorite uniform? *drumroll*

    A9Jvpp4.jpg

    Spoiler

    Princess Evangile! What did me in? The white/brown with a little bit of red coloring? The noble feeling? The fact that it doesn't charge design between summer and winter? It's the boob window, isn't it? 

    fd3V9dF.jpg

    Everything, really. I just love this uniform and it's one of those  where I think it genuinely looks just great on every single heroine we see wearing it. 

    K4OjHvP.jpg

    OaOfiWd.jpg

    3ssFr5o.jpg

    UmR1GDs.jpg?1

    It even looks good when you're about to jump off a building.

    Spoiler

    NZWaslM.jpg

     

     

    For men, Visual Novels aside, the best is the Persona 4 cloth. Sorry chinese powerpoint boyos, you will never come anywhere close to the absolute thuggery that is the checkerboard collar and the swagass stichlines. I love this one so much, I actually bought one. 

    KEY is holding a character popularity poll that ends on September 12. You can only vote for ONE character a day from all KEY's history, so choose wisely.

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    My gut (or the region below) wanted to go with the aunt from Kanon until I realized that I only remember her from hentai and as "the aunt from Kanon".

    I'll go with Kyou, who was robbed of having the best possible Clannad After Story scenario, by two bad girls, despite being perfection incarnate. Honorable shoutout to Sasasasasasa Salsa Salami, because real men remember the Nosebleed odyssey. 

    Create a vndb profile based on your IRL self using vndb tags

    in Members' Lounge

    Posted · Edited by TexasDice

    Quote

    Hair: Bald, Beard, Mustache

    Eyes: Brown, Shadowed

    Body: Average Height, Pale, Muscular, Young Adult

    Clothes: Shirt, Jeans, Dog Tags, Crotchless Catsuit

    Personality: Lazy, Funny, Smart, Genius, Sly, Idiot, Arrogant, Rude, Sharp-tongued, Chuunibyou, Donkan

    Spoiler

    Tsundere

    Role: Delinquent, University Student, Gamer, Poor, Not a Virgin

    Engages in: Online Chatting, Athletic, Sarcasm, Unarmed Fighting, Gambling, Cooking, 

    Subject of: Teasing, Disappointment, Breakup, Sandpaper

     

     

    I'll be leaving out the sex tropes, I would be here all night.

    Majokoi aka Witch's Love Diary Release by Sekai Project [UPDATED]

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    3 hours ago, wyldstrykr said:
      Hide contents

    which part of the "replay"?? all i see is h-scenes

     

    Right here:

    Spoiler

    toqbAG1.png

    Did you finish reading it? I browsed the CGs, noticed 1 was missing and when I wanted to go back to the main menu, I saw this Replay option.

    44 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

    And since it's on the same topic, I'll take this opportunity to add some more thoughts on the themes that I wrote up a while ago. Would not recommend reading until you've finished Alice's ending.

    #deep

    But it's there. A bit unfortunate that this commentary and awareness is undercut by really stupid filler. Kanon&Rei #1 was actually just the entire prologue again with ~15% new lines. 

    Majokoi aka Witch's Love Diary Release by Sekai Project [UPDATED]

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted · Edited by TexasDice

    Majokoi is a good one. The pacing is absolutely dreadful and half the "routes" could've just been cut entirely. The setup is interesting and the main girl is such a silly quirky doofus, Alice is just a blast. During the stretches that are the actual plot, I was basically glued to the screen and couldn't stop reading. Her story ends really strong.

    Just a small thing... very minor spoilers

    Spoiler

    There's a second ending, an ending for the overall plot of Jabberwock and the desert part. It's fucking annoying to get; you have to 1. wait in the main menu forever and then 2. skip through 80% of the whole VN. Select [Remember] 4 times and you are there.

    Honestly, it's not worth the effort.

    Spoiler

    I feel like it kind of breaks the strong emotional note I just ended on and the tone (and background music) of that very last scene is so bad: It's as if it's building up excitement to a new chapter or a sequel and feels completely out of place.

     

     

    Western Visual Novel Publishers Often Release Games at a Loss Due to Piracy (ft. words from CEO of Sol Press, Xeviax)

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    1 pirated download doesn't equal = 1 lost sale.  Most (not all) pirate activity originates out of boredom and because it's free. If you took away the source for it, most of them would just find something else to pirate rather than begrudgingly pay for the thing. 

    I hope SOL will have more success with their upcoming titles. I don't hate Newton as a first release, considering the company came out of nowhere and doesn't have free access to really big titles.

    However, if we take a look at Sakura Sakura I'm mildly confused: Was this title chosen because someone a Sol Press wanted to do it or because they simply couldn't get their hands on anything else? Because it's really a niche title if you consider 1. Retro-like visuals but with modern day quality, 2. multiple protagonists and 3. a really bad script. Last point aside, the first two wouldn't be what I would consider to be "generally appealing".

    Not that I'm opposed to taking chances, but betting on Sakura Sakura for the current audience was kind of like staying on a 5 during Black Jack like Austin Powers.

    And Yotsunoha is old. Which is bad, because I believe you need to be a Fate or Yu-no to sell if you're old.

    Best Kiss Scene In A Visual Novel

    in Visual Novel Talk

    Posted

    Aoi Isuzu from Hoshimemo. 

    Everything (yes, the whole 30 hour slog) was building up to this moment and the location is both perfect on a visual as well as a thematic level (it helps that the hoshimeme banger plays in the background).

    I think it's fair if I call this the only good scene in the entire route.

    Spoiler

    nyY741E.png

     

    Share a weird/stupid/disturbing dream

    in The Coliseum of Chatter

    Posted

    I was 14 or something, when I walked past my local LIDL (a German grocery store brand) with my best friend and witnessed a robbery. My friend ran for his life and I stood there watching the culprit run. When the police came, I told them everything and after all that, my friend came back and told me that I made a huge mistake.

    On the next day, when I walked past the store again, a hot girl called me by name. I walked up to her, she put a gun in my face and blew my brains out. Then I woke up.

     

    Moral of the story; Don't be a snitch and if you are, THOT beware

×
×
  • Create New...