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Just completed Steins Gate Linear Bounded Phenogram. It contains 10 short stories, all of which were pretty interesting (especially the last one).

Spoiler

Another interesting thing to note is that Okabe isn't the only one who had used the Time Leap Machine/PhoneWave (apparently Luka, Kurisu, and Mayuri had also used it).

Now that I've completed it, I kind of want to re-read the original by reading Steins Gate Elite to refresh my memory, but I guess I will (finally) start on Ef instead.

Edited by wei123
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I've just finished reading Heart of the Woods and it was excellent. Got a little bit cheesy by the end and I think certain plot developments were slightly too convenient, but I don't even agree with Solidbatman's complaints about the bad endings - I think those were quite well-done and more bitter-sweet than downright depressing, so they didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. The aesthetic was wonderful all throughout the game and the prose was superb, even in moments when the "essence" of the story had its weaker moments. The romance was well-developed, but didn't overshadow the tense main intrigue.

Really, an excellent job from Studio Elan - it's a game that should be considered a gold standard for EVNs and I'd be surprised if anything was able to surpass it any time soon.

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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Finished playing Heart of the Woods (last night TAKE THAT LESIAK!)

 

I really liked it though it went from normal to what the fuck am I reading pretty quickly...something, something talking cat.

The writing was good, the story was pretty good, the yuri was great. I liked the protag even though she was a total glasses girl (Her glasses really made her look goofy in her new duds I just have to say) The villain could have been a little better though

In any case I'll give it a pretty dope/10

Edited by Ranzo
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I also finished Heart of the Woods.

My immediate thoughts appear to have been " Much real, much magic, much cute, much worth. "

To elaborate a bit, I thought the setting began very real, and quite modern. A fair bit into it there was something of a shift, and then it became a fantastic tale. The romance was absolutely stellar on all counts.
Things I liked were characters really turning into something different from their initial impressions. Shout-out for Morgan, she is awesome, and she really grew. Still, Tara is best girl. Also, #ThirstyGhost.

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Long time since I've posted but other things in life had to take precedence. Recently I've read Chrono clock, which I wasn't too fond of the SoL and I felt the routes were weaker than the prologue that hooked me in, I enjoyed Makoto's the most but then I never unlocked Cro's route as I lost interest. I've been continuing with Meikyuu (slowly) but really popped on here to say I had just finished 'Lucy' in a single session binge read which bore the fruits of a Planeterian/Chobits baby! :) I very much enjoyed it and would love to read similar (I've already been recommended Himawari and Subarashiki elsewhere). I need more onion filled VNs!

Also while I'm here and waffling, RiP minori, seriously WTF I loved eden and I was really looking forward to trinoline! :rize:

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18 minutes ago, Trickay said:

I was really looking forward to trinoline!

AFAIK Trinoline translation wasn't cancelled. Of course probably it will be delayed, but I suppose it will end up like with Chuablesoft's VNs that MG picked up. (SukiSuki and Byakko)

However, I'm not too hyped about it - judging from some post on forums, it isn't as good as it seems at first glance. (Some even say, that "nakige" tag should be replaced with "nukige" one :P) Also, some tags it has are serious turnoff for me (like, ekhm.. watersports...)

I might try All-ages version if MG really releases it...

Edited by adamstan
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29 minutes ago, Trickay said:

Long time since I've posted but other things in life had to take precedence. Recently I've read Chrono clock, which I wasn't too fond of the SoL and I felt the routes were weaker than the prologue that hooked me in, I enjoyed Makoto's the most but then I never unlocked Cro's route as I lost interest.

Welcome back! I finished Chrono Clock last month, and while I generally dislike SoL, I somewhat enjoyed reading it. All routes were okay, but I liked Michuru's route the most. 

35 minutes ago, Trickay said:

I've been continuing with Meikyuu (slowly) but really popped on here to say I had just finished 'Lucy' in a single session binge read which bore the fruits of a Planeterian/Chobits baby! :) I very much enjoyed it and would love to read similar (I've already been recommended Himawari and Subarashiki elsewhere). I need more onion filled VNs!

While I would also recommend Subahibi, it's for a whole different reason altogether (mystery). I wouldn't say it's similar to Lucy at all ; it's more similar to Umineko.  Can't comment on Himawari since I haven't read it. The most similar VN to Lucy is Planetarian, but you've already read it.

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As for the robot girls...

Ame's route from Dal Segno may also apply if one looks for onion-filled story with AI girl.
48099.jpg

DS was one of the very first VNs I've read, and this route was probably the first one that made me really crying...

However it is unlockable route, available after completing all others first.

I haven't read Lucy yet, but I loved Planetarian.

I wonder how Multi's route in ToHeart will turn out. Some say that she's the best character in whole game ;) And based on the interactions with her in the common route, I already like her :)
6008.jpg

Edited by adamstan
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1 hour ago, wei123 said:

All routes were okay, but I liked Michuru's route the most. 

Little Michuru was truely awesome, sad route ending. I did Makoto, Michuru and Misaki, couldn't be arsed with DD, but maybe the weird attempt to be British turn me off; is it worth fighting through just to get Cro's route?

 

Wei, i just noticed you're reading Ef, I loved eden has it got a similar vibe?

Edited by Trickay
Opened eyes...
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1 hour ago, Trickay said:

is it worth fighting through just to get Cro's route?

I'd say it is - Cro's route was good, and pretty emotional too. Also, loved Michiru's route. Actually, DD's route wasn't bad either, you just have to get used to her weird speech (and its equally weird "reversed" translation style) ;)
BTW ToHeart also has similar character - half-American blonde girl, Lemmy, who tends to throw random English into her speech.
6011.jpg
But she doesn't do it in a exaggerated way like DD, it just slips out ;) I find her pretty likable. But then, I started to wonder, if one wanted to make english version of this VN* - how to approach it? Some people propose to leave English as it is, but use capitals or italics or sth... but then I encountered one scene that would be pretty untranslatable. They are talking about tests, and it went somewhat like this:

Quote

 

Lemmy: (...) Chemistry

Hiroyuki(MC): ケミストリー?  (he didn't undesrtand the word, he just repeated it in katakana)

Shiho: 化学という。 ("It means chemistry")

 

Mission impossible :P

BTW it's interesting how writers portrayed Lemmy's weird speech, as apparently she speaks with foreign accent, so her lines are weird mix of English, kanji and katakana. (VN was intially unvoiced)

* Disclaimer: I'm NOT doing TL project for this, I was just curious :P

Edited by adamstan
fixed kanji typo - there should be 化学 (chemistry) instead of 科学 (science)
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1 hour ago, Trickay said:

Little Michuru was truely awesome, sad route ending. I did Makoto, Michuru and Misaki, couldn't be arsed with DD, but maybe the weird attempt to be British turn me off; is it worth fighting through just to get Cro's route?

Yeah I didn't like DD's route too, but Cro's route is totally worth it. Miu's route was a downer though.

 

1 hour ago, Trickay said:

Wei, i just noticed you're reading Ef, I loved eden has it got a similar vibe?

Well, I only just started on Ef, so I can't really tell. The art is stunning though, just like Eden

Edited by wei123
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1 hour ago, Trickay said:

Wei, i just noticed you're reading Ef, I loved eden has it got a similar vibe?

Very different story wise, but same energy :sachi: I don't think anyone liked eden for the plot, but for the atmosphere, the music and visuals and the cute slice of life. If that's the case, you'll probably enjoy ef. It's my favorite romance VN still to this day! 

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3 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Started Steam Prison.

20190311120751-1.jpg

My first impression: the writing doesn't appear to be very good, and there are some annoying otome tropes, but at the same time the setting is pretty interesting, so I'll continue reading it for now.

I love it. My experience with it is that through dozens of endings it explores the setting thoroughly.

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For a while now I wanted to check out the old VNs by A. J.Tilley, the founder of Dharker Studio, to make a shovelware adventure episode about it. Basically, they are the dark early history of EVNs, games that popped up before the scene got into proper shape and did their part in reinforcing the idea of everything non-Japanese in the niche is shit. I theoretically knew what I was getting into, but still, I wasn't truly ready...

Sword of Asumi is pretty much that extremely embarrassing, edgy fanfiction wrote by a 13-year's old girl and dropped by every reader over 15 after first chapter. How lovely does it sound to have a female assassin protagonist and a bunch male and female romance options in an alternate-timeline Japan, where the shogunate won the civil war before the Meiji restoration could happen? No very, if our "strong female lead" is too dumb to live and the writing doesn't exist beyond spewing all the most ridiculous cliches and tripping over its own feet. Holy damn...

Divine Slice of Life, on the other hand, feels like the laziest nukige setup ever, but doesn't even deliver that much when it goes to lewdness. Thankfully, it also doesn't treat itself seriously, unlike Sword of Asumi, so if not the janky animations, poor voice acting, obnoxious mythological references... I'd would be nearly passable. I also have a soft spot for the childhood friend heroine in it, but that's not enough to not make it complete trash regardless.

And then there's Highschool Possession... So, what do you do when you wake up in the body of your high school crush? Of course, YOU MASTURBATE. And this is just the first layer of creepy in this game. The way it tries to establish itself as a legitimate drama VN while mixing in some of the most uncomfortable fanservice imaginable (like, I would not ever think of some of the situations that lead into sex scenes in it) is just miserable to observe. It had a few decent ideas but damn, I want that scene of being in a girl's body and getting coerced into sex by her abusive boyfriend out of my mind. :isla::rubycry::notlikemiya:

But hey, I wouldn't be the trash-easter that I am if I stopped there and... Highschool Romance, despite being a "trap protagonist in an all-girl boarding school" cliche is actually pretty cute. Not genuinely good, but decent filler to run in the background while tediously editing databases. I've only seen like 20% of it so far, but I don't think it's going to get any near as dumb or off-putting as those previous three. That will only leave me with Beach Bounce, which, as I imagine, should be an equivalent of a mid-tier Sakura game. Should also be nowhere as painful as those earlier ones, although I might leave it out for a separate post, as it's spawned its own, embarrassing little series... :wahaha:

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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I'm currently reading Rewrite, and it's pretty underwhelming so far.
 

Spoiler

Kotori's and Chihaya's routes, which I went through last week, were decent, but Lucia's route, which I just finished, left me with a bitter aftertaste.
I actually enjoyed it at first, but her "Boohoo, I'm a sad, lonely and misunderstood girl" act got tiresome pretty fast. She started bawling when she thought her power accidentally killed Chihaya, but it's pretty damn hard to sympathize with her during those (supposedly) touching scenes, when she had just wiped out a city full of people and tried to kill Kotarou by crushing him under a huge chandelier. Not to mention the fact that she fights her so called "best friend" with a sword, tries to kill Kotarou again by chopping his head off with said sword, and says she's going to go around killing people in other cities as well just because she wants some artificial purpose in life.
Am I seriously expected to feel bad for her after all that? She's just a selfish prick, and I'm actually kinda annoyed that she got a somewhat happy ending.


I hope the last routes will be more interesting than what I've seen so far. If they're not, Rewrite will probably be the VN that has disappointed me the most.

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After being away from the Visual Novel world for a long time, I'm reading Supipara, chapter 1.

A shame that I will never know the end of the story since minori is no more...  :rubycry:

A little off-topic but I'm also really happy that the Irotoridori Kickstarter campaign was successfull, I can't wait to play it when it is complete!

Edited by nekofuwafuwa
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Continuing my musings on AJ Tilley that are interesting to no one but myself, I'm genuinely surprised by how decent Highschool Romance turned out to be. I'm pretty sure I liked it this much mostly through contrast with the absolute abominations that Sword of Asumi, Divine Slice of Life and Highschool Possession were, but still... It left me with only positive emotions and I even digged the cartoonish artstyle. It's all-around passable and that's so much more than I can say about most of those early Dharker games. I'm even slightly excited to watch a let's play of Magi Trials the next time I have 10 hours of boring office work to get through. :P

It also reminded me that while there are many possible layers of "good" when it goes to entertainment , there's way more layers of "terrible". It's my personal opinion that while there are limits on how brilliant something can get, there's nearly a botomless depth of dreadful out there and it's darkest chasms are not populated by people that don't give a fuck and spew shovelware, but those that genuinely think they're creating something interesting but have no freakin' idead what they're doing. :P

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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5 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Continuing my musings on AJ Tilley that are interesting to no one but myself, I'm genuinely surprised by how decent Highschool Romance turned out to be. I'm pretty sure I liked it this much mostly through contrast with the absolute abominations that Sword of Asumi, Divine Slice of Life and Highschool Possession were, but still... It left me with only positive emotions and I even digged the cartoonish artstyle. It's all-around passable and that's so much more than I can say about most of those early Dharker games. I'm even slightly excited to watch a let's play of Magi Trials the next time I have 10 hours of boring office work to get through. :P

It also reminded me that while there are many possible layers of "good" when it goes to entertainment , there's way more layers of "terrible". It's my personal opinion that there are limits on how brilliant something can get, there's nearly a botomless depth of dreadful and it's darkest depth are not populated by people that don't give a fuck and spew shovelware, but those that genuinely think they're creating something interesting but have no freakin' idead what they're doing. :P

Good job. You've convinced me to try Highschool Romance.

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