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38 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Tell that to Youtube recommendation feed. :vinty:

Though, seriously, I don't really like how memefied this game became. I like DDLC, but I feel like it gets way too much attention. Especially considering that there are hundreds of better vns which aren't even noticed by general community.

Sure, but consider that most of those people would never read/see a playthrough of a VN in their life if it wasn't for DDLC. And the last time I remember something similar happening was over Sakura Spirit and it's hard to argue that Doki Doki isn't a huge improvement over that abomination. :D

Well, maybe Hatoful Boyfriend had its 5 minutes too, but it was so absurd that I don't think it could genuinely draw people towards VNs or dating sims. :P As warped by internet culture as it might be, the whole DDLC phenomenon is a good thing for VNs and especially for the OELVN market. I don't think visual novels will ever go mainstream in the West, but they've just got tons of visibility and in a form that isn't all about cheap popcultural references and oversized anime boobs. I call it a win. :)

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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2 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Sure, but consider that most of those people would never read/see a playthrough of a VN in their life if it wasn't for DDLC. And the last time I remember something similar happening was over Sakura Spirit and it's hard to argue that Doki Doki isn't a huge improvement over that abomination. :D

The whole hype around DDLC is actually a pretty sad thing if you think about it, because it shows that although many people seem to be interested in VN's they don't seem to be willing to pay for it.

DDLC got an 'Overwhelming Positive' rating with more than 55,000 Steam reviews which is amazing considering that's more than most AAA games even get. Now, the next VN kamige on Steam is Everlasting Summer from... 'Soviet Games' which still has over 25,000 reviews with a very good rating which is again free to play. And then we have Tricolour Lovestory which has much less but still an impressive amount of over 7,500 reviews. It would have surely gotten much more, but the developers dared to charge 99 Cent for it and so it get much less.

And now let's have a look on the inferior 'VN garbage' on Steam starting with Stein's Gate which is still looking decent with more than 3,000 reviews, but then it goes down with stuff like Clannad which got at least still more than a 1,000 reviews. It then gets embarassing with Grisaia with about 500 reviews, Dies Irae with about 250 reviews (and its rating isn't even particularly good), Fata Morgana also just with about 250 reviews and Subahibi didn't even make 200 reviews.

Nekopara Vol 1 kind of stands out since it got more than 10,000 votes despite charging a 'ridiculous high price' of 5 € on sale.

So the unfortunate gist of all that is, that a big Steam success has pretty much nothing to do with quality and just indicates that the title is dirt cheap or even free to play for max success.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

The whole hype around DDLC is actually a pretty sad thing if you think about it, because it shows that although many people seem to be interested in VN's they don't seem to be willing to pay for it.

DDLC got an 'Overwhelming Positive' rating with more than 55,000 Steam reviews which is amazing considering that's more than most AAA games even get. Now, the next VN kamige on Steam is Everlasting Summer from... 'Soviet Games' which still has over 25,000 reviews with a very good rating which is again free to play. And then we have Tricolour Lovestory which has much less but still an impressive amount of over 7,500 reviews. It would have surely gotten much more, but the developers dared to charge 99 Cent for it and so it get much less.

And now let's have a look on the inferior 'VN garbage' on Steam starting with Stein's Gate which is still looking decent with more than 3,000 reviews, but then it goes down with stuff like Clannad which got at least still more than a 1,000 reviews. It then gets embarassing with Grisaia with about 500 reviews, Dies Irae with about 250 reviews (and its rating isn't even particularly good), Fata Morgana also just with about 250 reviews and Subahibi didn't even make 200 reviews.

Nekopara Vol 1 kind of stands out since it got more than 10,000 votes despite charging a 'ridiculous high price' of 5 € on sale.

So the unfortunate gist of all that is, that a big Steam success has pretty much nothing to do with quality and just indicates that the title is dirt cheap or even free to play for max success.

Sure, there's some of that, but I've seen many quality VNs, such as Cupid and One Thousand Lies that never go anywhere close to those numbers you've mentioned, as they're niche, demanding products, even though they're just as free. In reality it's much more complicated and at least just as much about accessibility as it is about price. Nekopara won big exactly because of its obvious appeal and optional porn scenes, buying Clannad is pretty much equivalent of being ready to read a very long, sad novel and I don't imagine that many gamers or even anime fans being super-excited about 100 hours of reading a single story. Tricolour Lovestory is also a galgame with obvious appeal, apart from being super-cheap. It's something like a Transformers movie - might be shit, but that doesn't really matter as long as it has cool special effects (or in this case - pretty CGs and big anime boobs) and doesn't force you to think much.

Also notice that DDLC is both a solid VN (even if gimmicky) and a profitable one thanks to its success. There's 700 reviews of the "fan pack" DLC, which means that many people appreciated this free game enough to actually buy it. That DLC is just that - donation to the author. So I don't see a reason they wouldn't be willing to pay for other VNs. 

Everlasting Summer is a good VN btw and I don't mind it getting a lot of attention, also it's on Steam for a pretty long time. Free stuff will always get more attention, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing. Demanding, mature audience will always be in minority, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and can't be expanded in some ways - DDLC, for anyone smart enough to see past the obnoxious meme culture, is a great ad for VNs as a medium. 

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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I get that "there are better VNs out there that deserve much more attention than DDLC", but also keep in mind that it might be a good entry point for those who didn't know the genre. 

This is like with anime, when from time to time a really average one becomes mainstream who knows why and hardcore anime fans start yelling about how undeserving that is. Who cares as long as it introduces new people to a medium that otherwise they most likely would've never gotten into in the first place. 

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12 minutes ago, Thyndd said:

I get that "there are better VNs out there that deserve much more attention than DDLC", but also keep in mind that it might be a good entry point for those who didn't know the genre. 

This is like with anime, when from time to time a really average one becomes mainstream who knows why and hardcore anime fans start yelling about how undeserving that is. Who cares as long as it introduces new people to a medium that otherwise they most likely would've never gotten into in the first place. 

I'd actually make the case that it's not a good entry level VN, because the twists are not as enjoyable if you're not used to average romance VNs. Definitely agree that it doen't matter as long as more people are drawn to the genre, though.

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1 hour ago, onorub said:

I'd actually make the case that it's not a good entry level VN, because the twists are not as enjoyable if you're not used to average romance VNs. Definitely agree that it doen't matter as long as more people are drawn to the genre, though.

Yep, I definitely can see that, but hey, people not used to the tropes of dating sims actually seemed to enjoy DDLC nonetheless. And, what's more, from what I saw in videos and streamings, they liked even the first appearance of DDLC as a dating sim, which is of course nothing more than a facade and since it was never the main goal or hallmark of the game, it's not polished or original in any way whatsoever. What I mean by that is that yes, DDLC is different and groundbreaking as far as translated VNs are concerned, so it'd be counter-productive if it led to the wrong expectations of what most VNs are like. However, if people even liked the "more typical" part of DDLC, I think it's fair to say that most likely they will find other traits equally enjoyable, if different, in other VNs, which can also be a satisfactory surprise. If X is very different from Y, then Y is also very different from X, is all that I'm trying to say.

Edited by Thyndd
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Finished the main route of Grisaia no Rakuen. What a ride that was!

Spoiler

The duel against 'Typhon' was seriously epic.

And I'm guessing the other choice at that very last choice box leads to a bad ending where you rule the world. Have to check that out later....

 

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46 minutes ago, juss100 said:

Nekopara: Volume 1

My light side has asked myself repeatedly why I might do this, but my dark side insists on repeatedly clicking the mouse button in the hope of more purrra purra purra purrrrrrr.

I think you're going to like the petting feature in Vol. 0, 2 & 3. :D

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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16 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

I think you're going to like the petting feature in Vol. 0, 2 & 3. :D

I discovered that if you press "P" the girls (feline, pet variety) bounce up and down.  I must have spent another 15 minutes just doing this.  I'm not sure it synched up as well as it might have done with the "breast bounce" feature, though.

 

 

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I'm super laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate to the party, but I just finished DDLC for the first time. Spoilers? Everyone already read it. Well, someone must be as late as me, so spoilers.

Spoiler

Almost threw my computer against the wall and did an exorcism after Monika called my name, my real name.

Even so, I was too gentle. I just moved her file and not deleted her. What a nice girl I am~

Anyway, now I'm playing "Embodiment of Scarlet Devil for Busy People", a Touhou game, and it's the dankest thing I have ever read.

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1 hour ago, MaggieROBOT said:

I'm super laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate to the party, but I just finished DDLC for the first time. Spoilers? Everyone already read it. Well, someone must be as late as me, so spoilers.

  Reveal hidden contents

Almost threw my computer against the wall and did an exorcism after Monika called my name, my real name.

Even so, I was too gentle. I just moved her file and not deleted her. What a nice girl I am~

 

Yeah, this particular part was pretty creepy. :D

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So, i finally finished Makina's route in Grisaia no Kajitsu.

Quite an interesting and enjoyable route, although, i had that feeling of unease during the h-scenes, wondering when will the loli police come for me. The endings were a bit confusing, though.

Spoiler

What's supposed to be the difference in them? And in the other bad endings, they didn't show me the ending credits with all the CGs, so does that mean that both of them are considered good ones? And in that case, i have no idea what could have happened to Yuuji when you choose to kill Makina's mother. IMO, the wounds he suffered weren't as fatal as the ones on the other path. And how would he die anyway? i thought he was pretty much invincible, lol. And what about Makina's child? The ending without Yuuji skipped only half a year, and she was pregnant, but on the other one, they skipped a whole year, but they didn't mention her child for some reason

 

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16 minutes ago, Zidan209 said:

So, i finally finished Makina's route in Grisaia no Kajitsu.

Quite an interesting and enjoyable route, although, i had that feeling of unease during the h-scenes, wondering when will the loli police come for me. The endings were a bit confusing, though.

  Hide contents

What's supposed to be the difference in them? And in the other bad endings, they didn't show me the ending credits with all the CGs, so does that mean that both of them are considered good ones? And in that case, i have no idea what could have happened to Yuuji when you choose to kill Makina's mother. IMO, the wounds he suffered weren't as fatal as the ones on the other path. And how would he die anyway? i thought he was pretty much invincible, lol. And what about Makina's child? The ending without Yuuji skipped only half a year, and she was pregnant, but on the other one, they skipped a whole year, but they didn't mention her child for some reason

 

Spoiler

Yeah, the endings are a bit of a mess, so I'd say, pick the one you like more and ignore the other one. I think she wasn't pregnant in the other ending, but it was never explained. I think they only added it for the shock value, but I still like this ending nonetheless. ^_^

And, yeah, probably the only route where I prefer the all-ages version.

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1 hour ago, Zidan209 said:

So, i finally finished Makina's route in Grisaia no Kajitsu.

Quite an interesting and enjoyable route, although, i had that feeling of unease during the h-scenes, wondering when will the loli police come for me. The endings were a bit confusing, though.

  Hide contents

What's supposed to be the difference in them? And in the other bad endings, they didn't show me the ending credits with all the CGs, so does that mean that both of them are considered good ones? And in that case, i have no idea what could have happened to Yuuji when you choose to kill Makina's mother. IMO, the wounds he suffered weren't as fatal as the ones on the other path. And how would he die anyway? i thought he was pretty much invincible, lol. And what about Makina's child? The ending without Yuuji skipped only half a year, and she was pregnant, but on the other one, they skipped a whole year, but they didn't mention her child for some reason

 

Spoiler

As I can't be bothered to reread the sections, I don't remember why she was pregnant, though I'm sure it must have some sort of symbolic meaning.
As for your other questions:

In the ending where she was pregnant, Yuuji died. What Makina was talking to was a garbage bag with Yuuji's remains (or at least, that's implied). She even comments on nobody else being able to hear him. This ties back to her kidnapping and her dad's death, if you'll recall.
The tree sapling is also dying. Haha.

Killing your parents is a bad thing, no matter what. These endings may be slightly confusing as is, but they will make a bit more sense once you play other titles in the trilogy.

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3 hours ago, Mr Poltroon said:
  Reveal hidden contents

As I can't be bothered to reread the sections, I don't remember why she was pregnant, though I'm sure it must have some sort of symbolic meaning.
As for your other questions:

In the ending where she was pregnant, Yuuji died. What Makina was talking to was a garbage bag with Yuuji's remains (or at least, that's implied). She even comments on nobody else being able to hear him. This ties back to her kidnapping and her dad's death, if you'll recall.
The tree sapling is also dying. Haha.

Killing your parents is a bad thing, no matter what. These endings may be slightly confusing as is, but they will make a bit more sense once you play other titles in the trilogy.

I would only agree if that statement came from "Killing another human being is a bad thing", "Your parents are human beings", therefore "Killing your parents is a bad thing". I don't see why a genetic relation should put a person over another, to be honest. But even then, death penalty is a controversial topic. I tend to be against it, but I'm really not sure if there could be situations where I would find it warrantable :unsure: I'll just say that I don't regard death as a punishment, but as a permanent solution to a problem in some cases.

As for Makina's endings:

 

Yep, in the bad ending she's pregnant just because. It's more fucked up that way, isn't it? 

I've already said this before in this same thread when I was reading Grisaia and giving my two cents, but yeah, I'll repeat myself. I didn't like Makina's endings because the result was based more on "moral correctness"  and "karma" than logical reasoning. 

Edited by Thyndd
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1 minute ago, Thyndd said:

I would only agree if that statement came from "Killing another human being is a bad thing", "Your parents are human beings", therefore "Killing your parents is a bad thing". I don't see why a genetic relation should put a person over another, to be honest. But even then, death penalty is a controversial topic. I tend to be against it, but I'm really not sure if there could be situations where I would find it warrantable :unsure: I'll just say that I don't regard death as a punishment, but as a permanent solution to a problem in some cases.

Spoilers for Labyrinth of Grisaia:

Spoiler

Annoyingly enough, I am quite convinced this ending is based on future titles more than on Fruit of Grisaia itself.

It doesn't have as much to do with what's correct as it has to do with Yuuji's psyche and past. Killing his parent is the event that set Yuuji on his miserable path (worse off than he already was, possibly). It is the event that scarred him the most in his life and, if I recall correctly, was used by Asuko to set a 'limiter' on Yuuji -- it made him unable to kill a person. Killing Makina's mother breaks two of Yuuji's taboos: killing and, even worse, killing one's parent. Therefore, if he kills Makina's mother, he breaks and eventually we get a bad end.

So... I guess this is foreshadowing more than anything?

 

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2 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Spoilers for Labyrinth of Grisaia:

  Hide contents

Annoyingly enough, I am quite convinced this ending is based on future titles more than on Fruit of Grisaia itself.

It doesn't have as much to do with what's correct as it has to do with Yuuji's psyche and past. Killing his parent is the event that set Yuuji on his miserable path (worse off than he already was, possibly). It is the event that scarred him the most in his life and, if I recall correctly, was used by Asuko to set a 'limiter' on Yuuji -- it made him unable to kill a person. Killing Makina's mother breaks two of Yuuji's taboos: killing and, even worse, killing one's parent. Therefore, if he kills Makina's mother, he breaks and eventually we get a bad end.

So... I guess this is foreshadowing more than anything?

 

I can see that. However I would still say that the bad ending you get in the story is arguably not due to Yuuji's mental breakdown. When you choose to kill her everything goes wrong for no apparent reason. If Yuuji's trauma was what they wanted to foreshadow, they could've done it differently (and in my opinion, better) by making him conspicuously unstable during his life with Makina.

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so after finishing refrain I thought the extra routes were just gonna be small addons like the side routes in majikoi, like 30 mins to of reading but after doing sasasasamis route I realized I was wrong... very wrong. Sasagawas route was pretty long and I have to say actually really well integrated into the overall story

Spoiler

I suspected they were gonna do it outside of the "fake" world but I did not think they were gonna make another one and the plot twist of the cat being the master of the world caught me so off guard, I was so sure sushimi was the one who made the world and the scenes of his dreams were her dreams, kinda how it was with the agave route in majikoi

a few things of note tho, the music was way off in this one, I always felt the music did not match the atmosphere, goofy music playing at what I perceived as serious moments all the time, also adding new character "models" <idk what they are called> after reading like 60 hours of lb was kinda shocking, not to mention the new "models" for sasegawa do not feel like they fit in with the others, kinda like how in majikoi s the new "models" for koyuki felt awful

I started saya's route and even tho I'm only 2 or 3 days in I gotta say I'm somewhat impressed at how they shook things up

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Finished Little Busters! English Edition. A great VN to start the year ! :sacchan: It's not as good as Clannad but It's clearly better than Air. 8,75/10.

Route ranking : Rin 2+Refrain > Saya > Sasami > Kurugaya > Mio > Komari > Haruka > Kud > Futaki

Note : Rin1 does not count :sachi:

Girl ranking : Kurugaya > Rin = Mio > Komari > Sasami = Saya > Haruka = Kud = Futaki

 

+ Kyousuke is cool.

+ The Secret of the world is not a joke. It is really solid and mysterious.

+ Saya's and Sasami's routes are a good follow-up to Refrain.

+ Each ending unlocks (a bit of) additional content in the common route

+ Memorable OST

+ A lot of alternative and/or bad ends

- Riku is a bit bland in most of the routes.

- Mini-games quickly become boring.

- Futaki's route was a bad idea...

- No real waifu for me :(

 

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Didn't play VN in months, and the last Grisaia's finally out, so I guess it's time to read a little. Kinda a pain to reread Kajitsu with how long it is, but it's been more than 4 years since then, so I have to. Hope it won't take too long if I read quickly without caring about the voices.

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Grisaia no Meikyuu. I already finished most of the short stories (plus the lewd scenes...the one with Makina's mother was...slightly disturbing :michiru:) and the Yumiko's After Story (it was fairly good...especially the ending :wahaha:). Now I'm reading Michiru's AS.

Spoiler

Oh my ! I'm not a big fan of Michiru (and her voice irritates my eardrums). However her first H-scene is SUPER Hot :Chocola:Too bad the rest of this AS is meh...except the running gag witch the vase XD

 

Edited by Canicheslayer
Michiru’s AS finished !
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