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Finished YU-NO after some marathoning, so here's my thoughts (might have some unpopular opinions):

The Good - Great OST, characters are memorable enough, the puzzles between routes are amazing (best showcased in Kanna's route), plot twists are coherent, historical value for being the first VN with multiverse approach.

The Neutral - Storytelling is about as good as the Hideo Kojima adventure games making me wonder why people were so blown away, the gameplay towards the end of Mio's route can be a little tedious.

The Bad - The final route is ruined by a certain kind of romance for me.

Overall it was good (i'd even call it great gameplay-wise), but i don't consider it one of my all-time favorites. Maybe i'm failing to put things on context properly or something.

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On 1/13/2017 at 0:17 AM, Zenophilious said:

Yeah, if you don't care about him being a massive jerk all the time (a decent amount of people don't seem to be able to get over that), he's pretty funny.  I really liked his absurd brand of humor, it came out of left field every once in a while and made me laugh just because of how silly his jokes and bits could be.

 

He's not that big of a jerk imo. Just pervy I guess. Its starting to get more interesting even though im still on route 1/ week 1.

That Nanaka girl said that there is a reason to hurry up and build that antennae. And then there school is special or something and Taichi is like hella smart and freaks out about blood

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Finished the main story of Kindred Spirits (apparently there are now bonus scenes? is this something I should play? probably). It was amazing. This is kind of a depressing thought, but I really won't be surprised if it ends up being my favorite VN I play this whole year. I'm a sucker for sweet romances like this, and I liked the variety of characters and the amount of attention paid to each of them. For instance, seeing a sharper side to Maki's personality late in the game was a great way to add a little depth to her character, and really made me like her a lot more; or for another example, there were some surprises with Tsukuyo in her H scene which I thought were cute.

This is obviously just a matter of taste, but I especially appreciate that the game tells a lot of interrelated romance stories without it being essentially a harem. I guess I'm much more a fan of the game pairing up a bunch of couples and telling me each couple's story, rather than me picking routes to match up a single protagonist with one of many love interests. Maybe it's because I like having a headcanon where everybody is happy? Or because I feel bad about making the protagonist "cheat" on the previous route's girl when I play through again? Couldn't really say.

I'm a huge fan of the sprite art, too; moderately more realistic body shapes are always a pleasant surprise. And while I wish there were more background tracks (the game is moderately long, and the soundtrack they use for most of it rather short...), I was glad that they saved a few good tracks to introduce in the late game. Both the music for the school festival and the H scene music (surprisingly) were quite good, though nothing ever did match up to the game's go-to BGM track, which plays over the title screen.

I wish I knew of literally any other localized VN that was like this, in terms of tone and themes. I just really like straightforward romances (by which I mean stories that actually depict a relationship being built, not what passes for a romance in most moege or nakige), I guess.

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Finished Himawari.
My spreadsheet:

Spoiler

mo15ABy.png

It would be a really good VN, if it would be like last two 'Afterstories'. Much better written, much more intersting characters, (shitty graphics in only ~5 CGs, no sprites at all, thank god), much better themes and ideas , which was completly absent in "main" story (which is ridiculous, whole structure of this VN is very jumbled). But anyway - this really decent/good last hours with this title provided me with much needed tranquilizers, and therefore I will not have a PTSD from this title (this 'honor' belongs for now only for Sharin no Kuni, Killer Queen and partially - Grisaia1, and Hoshizora no Memoria).
Overall it's a waste of time. Not really 'different' from 'regular' charage, interesting setting is completly unutilized, characters are awfull(Aqua) to not intersting(Aries in 2048) at best and it have single one most terrible character I ever witness. Chinami from Hoshizora? Pff. Kazuna from Cartagra? Not even close. Touka from Sharin no Kuni? Okey, she's close, but only close. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Amamiya Daigo. Worst. Character. Ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I also finished Seiso route in Majikoi A2.
9/10, great route.  A lot of 'slightly chuuni' motives, some battles of wits, great romance and relationship progress and very fitting and surprisingly good written (I read them in their entirety!) H scenes. Very satysfying 5-6 hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...and started Air, by Key. I like the start it was funny. Riddiculous, retarded - yes - but funny. I hate from the start only two 'side' characters, which is a very good sign in charage :P (I loathed almost whole cast, protag included, in Clannad, and that's why I dropped it in the middle of the first 'big' route, Tomoyo). I like the atmosphere, I like music, I like humour.... but nothing great in here as of yet. I started with Tohno Minagi route, heard it's the best one, so I expect to enjoy it a lot.

That's all for today, Vorathiel out. :P

Edited by Vorathiel
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2 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

Maybe it's because I like having a headcanon where everybody is happy?

...

I wish I knew of literally any other localized VN that was like this, in terms of tone and themes. I just really like straightforward romances (by which I mean stories that actually depict a relationship being built, not what passes for a romance in most moege or nakige), I guess.

It's a common fact in many VNs that there's unhappiness for whoever you don't pick.  That has always kind of bugged me.  In fact, even though they're the most ridiculous endings of all, usually the harem endings are the happiest.  That's kind of silly.

If you want romance that feels real, I recommend picking up Spice and Wolf and Crest/Banner of the Stars.  Edit: Oh, and the Yuka route of Crescendo.  I actually find she has the best bad ending of any game I've ever seen.

Edited by Nandemonai
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Been playing Rance VI and it's been okay so far. The battle system's nice though grinding for orbs and cash does get boring after a while. Storywise it's been okay so far (took care of the serial killer thing and then the bit with Urza)...Rance is basically the same over the top anti-hero I remember from what I played of Sengoku and saw in the OVA of the first game so the comedy's decent. About the only thing is the plot elements that are happening outside of Rance's view are way more interesting than with Rance's and leave me wondering when I'm going to see more of that.

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After another monthly delay, finished the third chapter of Fata Morgana, and it was awesome! It's definitely the best chapter so far. Heavy spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

I strongly suspected that Maria might be the one secretly pulling the strings, but it still managed to shock me somehow. And this ending! Even though I knew that stories in this VN don't end happily, I still hoped to the last minute that it might go some other way. But, well, at least Jacopo learned about Maria's actions in the end. I actually feared that he might die without learning anything. I would feel even more heartbroken then.

It's worth mentioning that at this point I felt that strongly only about two VNs: Umineko and Muv-Luv Alternative.

That said, this VN is extremely to my tastes at this point. I'm pretty tired of Japanese school settings, and this seems like a nice change of pace. I might not have time to continue to the fourth chapter right now, but I definitely going to finish it some day.

So far 9/10, with potential to increase.

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7 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

After another monthly delay, finished the third chapter of Fata Morgana, and it was awesome! It's definitely the best chapter so far. Heavy spoilers ahead.

  Hide contents

I strongly suspected that Maria might be the one secretly pulling the strings, but it still managed to shock me somehow. And this ending! Even though I knew that stories in this VN don't end happily, I still hoped to the last minute that it might go some other way. But, well, at least Jacopo learned about Maria's actions in the end. I actually feared that he might die without learning anything. I would feel even more heartbroken then.

It's worth mentioning that at this point I felt that strongly only about two VNs: Umineko and Muv-Luv Alternative.

That said, this VN is extremely to my tastes at this point. I'm pretty tired of Japanese school settings, and this seems like a nice change of pace. I might not have time to continue to the fourth chapter right now, but I definitely going to finish it some day.

So far 9/10, with potential to increase.

Buckle the fuck up

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Finally finishing Yui's route after several times delay. Yui was kind of glutton (Same as our Flyable Heart MC Shou) and her favorite food was donut. After token triangle love from Amane, there's some sweet moment between Yui and Shou before finally found out about awful truth. Beware of spoiler below.

Spoiler

Namely that she and Shou was twins before finally confirmed it was not ie coincidentally just both of Yui and Shou were had same DNA. However, the biggest wham there was when Shou was revealed to be no existing in the world ie no data about him in the first place (Shou circumstance was not like Yuuji from Grisaia by the way), and yet he still remember about his dad which supposedly already dead four years ago. And Yui was knew about that as well. In the end, Shou was about to disappear and come Suzuno to save his live by giving choice between his former world and Yui's world because in the first place Shou and Yui couldn't be in the same world. In the end it all worked out somehow, and Shou was about to met Yui's new dad as well as his mom (She was supposedly dead when Shou was young). Oh, and apparently Suzuno was some sort of angel who could time travelling and dimension travelling although there's still some answer left at Suzuno's route though.

That's all that I could said, and sorry if I couldn't write it well. As for next route, there's only Suzuno route left so obviously I'll read Suzuno's (Duh). I t was unlocked after finishing previous routes (Mayuri, Sakurako, Amane, Kururi, and Yui) by the way.

PS - Oh, and speaking about seiyuu this time there's The Danza (Seiyuu and character name was the same by the way) in which Yui was voiced by Ogura Yui who also voiced Himiko from Eiyuu Senki, Nanase Rio from Imouto Paradise, and Yanase Eika from Ikikoi. 

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Dracu-Riot! h-scenes are awful (mostly voices bother, overly done mosaic too), this is so far only VN where I voluntarily skip most of them with Ctrl. It's also focused on characters and not story. Also reading Root Double, which is pretty good :).

Edited by pual
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28123.jpg

So I finished Dracu-Riot! now, or to be more precise Rio's and Miu's routes. Originally, I planned to at least play Nicola's and maybe even Elina's routes too, but decided against it at the end. Dracu Riot has a great prologue, a funny and entertaining common route, but somehow after that, as soon as the individual routes start, it stops being good. And there are several reasons for that.

First, I had the impression that they pretty much run out of budget when they finished the common route since almost nothing new was drawn anymore except for the H-scenes. You can count the number of event CG's for each route more or less on one hand and even major characters aren't drawn anymore. I appreciate Yuzusoft's attempt to add an interesting story, but it's not particularly convincing if they abbandon it half-way and don't even give a rats-ass about it anymore. They kept a good balance until the common route ends, but after that... ugh! :marie:

The second major problem is that the romance scenes and the H-scenes in particular are akward at best and cringeworthy at worst. Yuzusoft's biggest strength is the comedic interaction between the characters, but the actual routes focus more on rather unconvincing romance scenes and a half assed story instead of that. It was a real chore to go through it. Though partly that's also a general problem of comedy VN's. Good romance requires a certain amount intensity and sincerity, which comedy VN's usually lack.

The VN is also a bit too 'light' for a vampire VN. The characters are far too over-cutified for vampires and the whole theme is more about comedic detective work than vampires anyway. Dracu-Riot might be a good comedy VN, but it's certainly not a good vampire VN. And considering how the overall quality drops in the individual routes, I would also call the story barebones at best.

That's not to say they wouldn't have had have some funny ideas. I'm still awed that one of Dracu-Riot's 'greatest' vampire strengths is that they can drink booze with 100% alcohol without dying. ^_^

On the other hand, where's the fun if you don't even get drunk from it... :leecher:

Overall, it was still a solid read thanks to the great start, the entertaining common route, the good comedy and not to forget, Yuzusoft's great sprite dynamics which are almost unrivaled in the business. But yeah, two routes were enough for me.

Heroine rankings: Miu > Nicola > Elina > Mera > Rio

Overall rating: 7 / 10

Edited by ChaosRaven
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1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

Dracu-Riot thoughts

I think you should give Mera's route a try, as that was the best route IMO (a bit cliche with the racial approach, but is more than you can say for the other routes). You can skip Elina's and Nicola's routes no problem though. (Elina's was 2 hours of decent romance and then 4 hours of build-up for a villain that ended up crappy and Nicola's was 3 hours of sexual tension until a new character tries to save the route and fails)

Edited by onorub
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Part of the problem with the common route having better comedic writing than the heroine routes is that the common route was (partially) edited while the heroine routes weren't, save for Miu which had a quick pass that will be getting a second pass. Don't say we didn't warn you, though, this kind of inconsistency is what you get when you grow impatient and read unpolished, unfinished patches.

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Been playing more of Maya's route in DC2PC and I'm quite enjoying it. The two have surprisingly good chemistry and the story so far is taking advantage of getting us to learn more about her as a character compared to the little we do in the original along with having that go along with Maya herself getting to know more of the core cast better as she her interactions with them are implied minimal in the original too. I'm currently at the winter holiday portion and I must invoke the meme "Is this a JoJo reference?"

http://imgur.com/a/POdPt

 

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14 hours ago, Decay said:

Part of the problem with the common route having better comedic writing than the heroine routes is that the common route was (partially) edited while the heroine routes weren't, save for Miu which had a quick pass that will be getting a second pass. Don't say we didn't warn you, though, this kind of inconsistency is what you get when you grow impatient and read unpolished, unfinished patches.

This goes deeper than just a mere editing pass. The common route is more about 'friendship comedy' and the individual routes more about 'romance comedy'. And if it comes to Yuzusoft's comedy styles, I like the former but the latter not so much. It's more a matter of taste. I had similar issues with Noble Works. I'm also not the biggest comedy fan anyway, and it therefore speaks for Yuzusoft's writing quality that I can still appreciate it to a certain degree.

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