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4 hours ago, snowbell55 said:

I need to read Eden*. Going to have to bump it up on the to-read list. Is it really depressing though, or (assuming you can answer without spoilers)? Not quite up for something that's too "hit you in the feels" atm.

Just a small piece of advice: read it only when you're free enough to finish the whole game in one or two days. These utsuge VNs work much better if you keep things fresh and don't have time to think about unnecessary stuff.

I'm saying it because I did the opposite and stretched the whole experience over something like two months, because at that time I just didn't have enough free time and mental energy to read VNs. :yumiko: Honestly, starting any VN, especially this one, during that part of my life was the second worst vn-related decision I ever did in my life, considering that, even though I understood that it was really good, I simply didn't enjoy it in the end. The worst decision was reading Narcissu at a summer resort. :leecher:

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1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

Just a small piece of advice: read it only when you're free enough to finish the whole game in one or two days. These utsuge VNs work much better if you keep things fresh and don't have time to think about unnecessary stuff.

That's definitely some really good advice. Since that's just how I go about any VN I didn't think about it earlier, but @snowbell55 please pay heed to his wise words; if you read 5mins of it a day eden* is worthless. It's a VN that relies heavily on the atmosphere to make an emotional connection, all the plot being just a shameless excuse for that.

2 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

The worst decision was reading Narcissu at a summer resort.

:wahaha: It's funny how we both had a similar experience with Narcissu. I read it during a week of vacation while I was supposed to be enjoying myself. Not only that, but after Narcissu I didn't know better than start watching the anime Plastic Memories. By the end of it all I swear I felt physically ill.

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I finished Rikka's route in Da Capo III Platinum Partner. I liked it a lot, the game worked pretty well as a sequel to the original D.C.III and gave me a satisfying conclusion since

Spoiler

the original game ended with an open ending.

Also, as I thought, I really

Spoiler

like Rikka Greenwood a lot more than Rikka Morizono. But well, Morizono is pretty good too.

I thought about reading the other routes, but since the game was longer than I expected and I was already satisfied, I decided to put it aside for now.

 

I also finished Pastel Chime -Koi no Skill Up-, the first one of the trilogy, but the last one I played lol. Nice game overall, but suffers a bit from pacing problems and I found the gameplay a bit repetitive. I liked Celles a lot more than I thought I'd like, she had the best character development in the game. Saya and Colett were pretty nice characters too, I liked their routes. Myu is kinda boring tho, her route is pretty basic too and Kaito was specially annoying here. There's this fantasy world and gameplay elements, but the game is a lot more about romance and a lot less about story, not really a problem though. In the end I'd rank it as the weakest from the trilogy.

 

 Finally I finished Under Night In-Birth. It's a really cool fighting game, I really liked the gameplay aspect a lot. There's a lot of problems with the story, though. The story is incomplete, you end with a lot of questions and few answers, it also end up with

Spoiler

an open ending. Without really making any progress. There's this big fight in this special dimension, but it goes nowhere since main antagonist have her plans stopped but stay alive and will come back in the next time the special dimension appears. There were hints of a bigger picture, a true villain and all that, but since nothing happened, nothing happened. :makina:

But the game brings a lot of cool concepts and builds its own world pretty well. There are a lot of fun characters with lots of potential, but they're too scattered in the story so we don't have a lot of chances to see them interacting with each other, which is a shame. I'm hoping for a new game that looks a lot more complete than this one someday.

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3 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Just a small piece of advice: read it only when you're free enough to finish the whole game in one or two days. These utsuge VNs work much better if you keep things fresh and don't have time to think about unnecessary stuff.

I'm saying it because I did the opposite and stretched the whole experience over something like two months, because at that time I just didn't have enough free time and mental energy to read VNs. :yumiko: Honestly, starting any VN, especially this one, during that part of my life was the second worst vn-related decision I ever did in my life, considering that, even though I understood that it was really good, I simply didn't enjoy it in the end. The worst decision was reading Narcissu at a summer resort. :leecher:

Wait what happened with Narcissu? Why was reading it at a summer resort that bad?

1 hour ago, Thyndd said:

That's definitely some really good advice. Since that's just how I go about any VN I didn't think about it earlier, but @snowbell55 please pay heed to his wise words; if you read 5mins of it a day eden* is worthless. It's a VN that relies heavily on the atmosphere to make an emotional connection, all the plot being just a shameless excuse for that.

:wahaha: It's funny how we both had a similar experience with Narcissu. I read it during a week of vacation while I was supposed to be enjoying myself. Not only that, but after Narcissu I didn't know better than start watching the anime Plastic Memories. By the end of it all I swear I felt physically ill.

Thank you both! I'll be sure to do so in one or two sessions then. This is really helpful since I was thinking it'd be easiest to read through it over the course of a week or so. Would like to get the most out of it though. Hopefully it'll live up to the hype :D.

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Well, I finished Eden and it was pretty wonderful as I said before though it kinda dragged towards the end. But, what an end!

Maypole
Maypole you've spun me round and knocked me off my axis mundi
Maypole
Maypole
Maypole the ties that bind you will unwind to free me one day
And everything decays

Yes, everything decays
Forest tumbles down to make the soil
Planets fall apart
Just to feed the stars and stuff their larders

And what made me think we're any better
And what made me think we'd last forever
Was I so naive?
Of course it all unweaves


Pyramids and palaces to dust
Empires crumble in
Wedding cake begins to must and molder

And what made me think we're any better
And what made me think we'd last forever
Was I so naive?
Failing to perceive

 

I think I might play Tokyo Babel next?

Edited by Ranzo
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5 hours ago, snowbell55 said:

Wait what happened with Narcissu? Why was reading it at a summer resort that bad?

Because it's a story that makes you want to grief for a little bit, and summer resort really isn't the place for that? Would at least be my guess. I would say the best way to enjoy it is reading it on a rainy autumn day with some time to spare for an evening walk to collect your feelings and thoughts after you're finished.

 

I finished Root Double and, well, my feelings on it are very mixed. The overall plot is incredibly complex and the writers manage to pull it off without leaving even the tiniest plot hole open. The way some new information makes you see previous events in a completely new light is impressive. The endings are satisfying (even the numerous bad ones). When it picks up the pace it's very engaging. But there are just too many things that annoyed me to really love it.

My main critique is that the storytelling lacks focus. Instead of focusing on the bigger picture it tries to explain every tiny detail. When a bigger twist happens you have to watch most of the scenes again that were impacted by it. When you learn that character X was actually working for organization Y the story doesn't just give you the information and a reason for why the character did it but you have to watch flashbacks about what their relationship to someone important to them was like, how that brought them into the mindset to work for Y, how they made contact to organization Y, and so on. Usually I'm a big fan of "show don't tell" but in Root Double the over-expositon sometimes really breaks the flow of the story imo. Especially since it's often implemented quite mechanically. A major part of chapter 4 is structured like this: Find person X -> short action scene -> flashback -> repeat for next person. At the point you go into the flashback you usually already know too much about the character to really be surprised by what happens. Additionally the story often shows you scenes several times, only from different perspectives that often don't add that much that it couldn't have been handled with less repetition.

All that being said, it's still pretty good (I rated it at 8/10 on vndb). I'm just frustrated because Root Double wasted too much of its potential to be really amazing.

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8 hours ago, snowbell55 said:

Wait what happened with Narcissu? Why was reading it at a summer resort that bad?

I mean, you're supposed to feel happy and relaxed at the places like that, and the story of Narcissu is just outright depressing. :michiru: And the problems it raises are a lot more down-to-earth than in most similar VNs, and the story requires some serious thoughts to be understood, so I really just wasn't in the mood for something like that.

9 hours ago, Thyndd said:

:wahaha: It's funny how we both had a similar experience with Narcissu. I read it during a week of vacation while I was supposed to be enjoying myself. Not only that, but after Narcissu I didn't know better than start watching the anime Plastic Memories. By the end of it all I swear I felt physically ill.

In my case, my brain just decided to cancel out all the sudden negative experience in favor of all the interesting things I saw in Greece, because I honestly feel like the whole story just went over my head. :yumiko: Actually, I'm not even sure 100% I really finished it back then, because I somehow really can't remember how exactly it ended. I just remember that

Spoiler

they left the hospital to go somewhere, but that's it.

I guess, I just really need to reread it at some point.

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I just finished Koi ni, Kanmi o Soete

It's short, nice and fluffy :) The very beginning feels little sluggish, but then fortunately it picks up decent pace.

I liked the heroines, so I was able to enjoy it. But a word of warning - it's filled with moege tropes, so if it's not your thing, stay away from it.

Spoiler

Childhood promise? - check
Festival date? - check
Endless talking about food? - check
cute imouto-like character? - check
Pet mascot? - check
and so on, and so on... ;)

As far as story is concerned I have one complaint - where are the other routes? I mean, at least Chisato or Ciel not having a route is a crime. What about "First girl wins" trope, huh?

Art is good - both backgrounds and characters. Music wasn't too memorable, but wasn't annoying either ;)

The ability to quickly switch between languages is really nice, and I'd like to see it in other VNs too. (From the ones I played, only LB! had this.)

Now about English version. Translation itself seems decent, but editing must have been done in a rush, as it is rather messy when it comes to names and honorifics. I mean, if you want to have honorifics left in TL, at least don't mix them and naming conventions up, because then it makes no sense at all :P

Spoiler

Example: Until the protag gets close with one of the girls, he addresses both of them using "surname-san". Yet at one point, for reasons completely unknown to me, he addresses Richer by "Richer-chan", despite original text clearly saying "Shionomiya-san" - and that's what is used eariler and later too. Him saying "Richer-chan" at that point makes no sense whatsoever.

Or when Rira calls you at the beginning of her route, and says "Niwasaka" when announcing herself, yet translation uses her first name here.

Also sometimes names in dialogues are mixed-up. Like Richer speaks about Rira, but english text has her name instead and vice versa.

So it looks like editor couldn't make up their mind or was in a hurry.

Despite some flaws, I enjoyed it. It's short, so can be used as a breather between more serious titles.

Nothing great, but enjoyable. 7/10.

PS. I played all-ages version.

Edited by adamstan
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Started playing 428 Shibuya Scramble a few days ago and I'm really enjoying it so far. I read it from some site that it had 87 different bad ends (Nasu’s influence, perhaps?) and in addition to the fact that there wasn’t a single English text walkthrough out there on the Internet, I was initially put off by it. However, after learning that the game actually spawned an anime adaptation, I decided to give it a try. Now that I’m playing it, I’m glad that I did not stick to my initial thoughts. While the sheer number of bad ends can be very confusing at first, it gets easier to understand how the game works as one progresses. 

One thing I didn’t like about the game though was the user interface. The fact that you can’t use a mouse, change text speed settings and the lack of a conventional skip button make things a bit unfamiliar. Thankfully, there’s a backlog function (using the up and down keys) and it can apparently also be used to skip to certain scenes forward (if the scenes have already been read) and backwards. This helps to somewhat alleviate the skipping problem, but it’s still deadass troublesome. There are also a bunch of in-game mechanics which needed time adjusting to, but thankfully the tutorial does its job just fine.

That aside, I’m still enjoying this reading experience a lot. Sure, there aren’t any animation, and sure, we ain’t got no voice acting, but it’s a good change of pace. The game’s played in 5 different perspectives, and some of the decisions each protagonist makes can have an impact on other protagonists (heck, I remember this one guy called Minorikawa caused 4 bad ends for the other protagonists because of one choice that he made). Though I wouldn’t say that it’s as intense as some of the other vns I’ve read, it’s pretty interesting and never gets boring.

I’m sure there will be more interesting stuff to be discovered and really hope that the Canaan chapter is as good as many people hype it out to be (since it was written by Type Moon and an anime adaption was made based on the chapter).
 

 

Edited by wei123
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As for Shibuya Scramble, yeah I did try that and to be honest no mouse was bothering me here, so I decided to not play this lol. I guess Chunsoft didn't have enough knowledge to port the console VN to PC, or perhaps to put it nicely they rushed the PC release. Anyway, if they also did no mouse interface to their YU-NO remake release later, then I'll say that YU-NO remake release is a redundant one lol. Oh yeah Shibuya Scramble here did need quite a number of HDD space at 11 GB, although it's still not as bad as Danganronpa V3 in which it did need 26 GB HDD space.

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started reading world end a few days ago economica and left it half way then went to majikoi and finished it then found out there was majikoi s and all that and burned out and decided to return later for later so I can read muv luv alternate chronicles ep 3 then GW2 fever took me by storm and left muv luv halfway for now... but planning to return soonish kinda feeling like returning to monster girl quest wish they had some sort of sequel on it.   hey I keep hearing of YU-NO is it worth the read?

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27 minutes ago, Artos said:

I keep hearing of YU-NO is it worth the read?

Yes, but it is almost impossible to complete without walkthrough - unless you are seasoned hardcore adventure game veteran ;) But the story, art and music are great, so definitely worth some effort.

 

There is also remake being translated by Spike Chuunsoft, which reportedly has somewhat frendlier system, but it has two cons:

 - it isn't ready yet ;)
 - the art in it is terrible :(

Edited by adamstan
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So I just read the sinopsis of Newton and the apple tree. I had heard of this VN before, but I thought the title was just symbolism for something, I didn't expected it to be literally about Newton. My reaction to this: DID THEY REALLY LOLIFY FREAKING SIR ISAAC NEWTOOOOOON? :pyaa::pyaa::pyaa: And I thought after F/SN that I'd seen everything...  

Now, as a physics student, I think I need to play this for the memes. How good is it? The rating is decent enough in vndb :vanilla:

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Well, I get to cross an item off my VN bucket list today - I finished off The Fruit of Grisaia. Just the Yumiko route, mind, but still, I'm really happy about it as it's one VN I've been wanting to read since having finished Katawa Shoujo, which means, in essence, about as long as I've been reading VNs. Unfortunately, though, I didn't really like it and I'm quite underwhelmed thus far (probably due to having overly high expectations). Part of that is probably because I wasn't actually all that interested in Yumiko (I stumbled onto her route by accident) and the other part is most likely because I found her route to be, well, underwhelming. 

The Fruit of Grisaia Yumiko route spoilers

Spoiler

It seemed to be your generic "come out from under the thumb of your corporate father" route which I've seen before in Noble (☆) Works. Admittedly, it was fleshed out better here, but I still felt like it was overwrought and manufactured. I didn't really have that much a connection towards Yumiko (not sure if that's the right way to write it), and I think shortly after the flashback happened it became clear that that was going to be an issue going forward, which sadly wound up being the case. If I'd cared more about her story then perhaps it would've hit harder but alas. The other thing I didn't like was the time-skipping. After the climax of the route there was a bunch of timeskipping and it felt like it was going to fast-forward to try and pack in a few emotional moments (oh look the Dad has been visiting to try and find peace with himself - oh look now they have a kid) but didn't have the time to actually flesh those points out or make them impactful so they wound up coming across as being by-the-numbers. I found this to be especially egregious with the baby (who's been there for maybe 15 minutes at most) somehow making Yumiko's dad "thaw" - something he never really did during the rest of the story. 

Things aren't all bad though - I really liked the SD art, and the common route sections were great too. I also like the music, and the extras portion of the VN is the best I've come across yet, with several options I've not seen before, like being able to choose specific scenes to replay. I really like the amount of options they packed in there. 

I'm still hoping (and expecting) that the other routes will be better, and I'm going in terms of least interested to most interested, so will read the Makina route next, then Sachi, then Amane or Michiru (still undecided) before finishing with whichever route from the previous two I haven't read yet. It is entirely possible, though, that I might make a pit stop and read eden* before continuing onwards.

Edited by snowbell55
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4 hours ago, snowbell55 said:

I'm still hoping (and expecting) that the other routes will be better

For what it's worth, Yumiko's route was also my least favorite. I liked her character, but her route was for me, as you said, pretty uninteresting. My favorite routes were definitely Sachi's and Amane's. Without spoilers, Sachi is a big hit or miss and I ended up loving it :sachi: (it might be totally different for you though), while Amane's route is the most generally considered "solid route overall", and it's many people's favorite. Makina is also pretty interesting... as long as loli stuff doesn't weird you out :makina: And as you've already experienced during the common route, her lines are gold, so you ain't getting bored. She was my first Grisaia heroine btw, being the order I followed Makina -> Sachi -> Amane -> Michiru -> Yumiko. It's often suggested as a starter route because it provides a little more insight into Yuuji's character, which is appreciated when it comes to understanding his interactions in the other routes down the line.

Michiru... I adore her, but her route doesn't harmonize at all with the rest. Really, if you feel like taking a break from Grisaia, reading Michiru's route can ironically have a similar effect :michiru: 

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I read Sono hanabira ni kuchizuke wo, the first game, which is both my first yuri eroge ever and my first nukige (that I played to completion, at least) :makina: The only other nukige I tried was Nekopara and couldn't get past the first half (is Nekopara a nukige? I mean, it must be right? I can't fathom why else people would play it). Welp, since Sonohana is very short this time I managed to finish it in not much more than 2 hours. 

I went in with zero expectations aside from some cute yuri scenes, but I'm not even the biggest yuri fan, so not even that factor could've made it more appealing for me. Verdict? Wow, it's actually not terrible! Of course I wouldn't expect full-fledged characterization in a 2 hour long game, 1 hour being exclusively dedicated to h-scenes, but the relationship between Yuna and Nanami had some interesting aspects. Honestly, the fact that I went back and forth between feeling conflicted by the nature of their relationship (you know, emotional blackmail) and seconds later I understood that as some sort of game they both enjoyed is a pretty amazing feat for this kind of game. I can definitely see why it's considered top quality within the yuri eroge world.

Not the kind of thing I'm used to reading, but now and then it's good to try new stuff :vanilla:

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Finally completed the entirety of 428 Shibuya Scramble after 51 hours.

prismatic_bookmark.png

 

I had actually completed the main story 2 days ago but because I was supposed to complete a walkthrough, I had to go over everything that needs to be completed. The effort that I had to go through for meh content kind of dampened my experience with the game, but I still quite liked the game nonetheless. Contrary to my initial expectations, there are actually voice acting and animated images in the Canaan chapter. It was an interesting read and provides a bit of background information for 2 prominent characters in the game. While there weren't any mind-blowing plot twists or super emotional moments in the game, it doesn't suffer from any major pacing issues (if you discount the bad ends) which is always a plus. Overall I'm going to give it a 8 out of 10.

P.S Canaan kind of reminds me a little of Ryogi Shiki from Kara no Kyoukai LOL

 

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I think the time has come for me to play Umineko. I've been putting it off because it's long af and from what I've heard, a pretty dense read, and I'm lazy :leecher: Furthermore, I easily get obsessed over a mistery or challenge of some sort and yeah... I can waste all day thinking about it, so I'm pretty scared of what Umineko might do to me. 

I only know the basic premise. The head of some rich family is going to kick the bucket and everyone gathers in an island to discuss over the inheritance, then they get killed  :nico: The setting looks like something out of Meitantei Conan. Oh, and I've also heard that:

There is super natural stuff, magic and witches. This kinda spoils a little the mistery I guess, and probably I'd be better off not knowin, but oh well, what's been seen cannot be unseen.

 

Well, that's all, wish me luck :makina:

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6 hours ago, Thyndd said:

I think the time has come for me to play Umineko. I've been putting it off because it's long af and from what I've heard, a pretty dense read, and I'm lazy :leecher: Furthermore, I easily get obsessed over a mistery or challenge of some sort and yeah... I can waste all day thinking about it, so I'm pretty scared of what Umineko might do to me. 

I only know the basic premise. The head of some rich family is going to kick the bucket and everyone gathers in an island to discuss over the inheritance, then they get killed  :nico: The setting looks like something out of Meitantei Conan. Oh, and I've also heard that:

 

  Hide contents

There is super natural stuff, magic and witches. This kinda spoils a little the mistery I guess, and probably I'd be better off not knowin, but oh well, what's been seen cannot be unseen.

 

Well, that's all, wish me luck :makina:

Well, I wish you the best of luck :sachi:Umineko's not an ordinary murder mystery where everything gets revealed in the end. Most things are purposely made vague and you gotta wrack your brains to figure out what the murders are all about. Even if you search online for answers, there won't just be a single theory to explain everything. If you still have doubts after finishing the game, I would suggest reading the manga (which is what I'm doing now btw) since I've heard that it explains many vague areas which weren't properly covered in the vn.

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