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13 hours ago, tahu157 said:

Dies Irae spoiler

 

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I was browsing the Dies Irae characters page on VNDB and, at the time, they had Lisa in her nazi uniform. I was super pissed because I didn’t know that she was a villain at the time. They’ve since set that picture of her to spoiler.

 

Hah, our curiosity gets the better of us. In my case I was also checking the vndb page and

Spoiler

Saw that one of the main characters has "subject of: homicide", so I was all "oh, welp, I think I'm starting to see where the nakige side of the VN is gonna strike."

 

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6 hours ago, adamstan said:

it looks like MoeNovel stealthily updated Steam edition of If My Heart Had Wings to match Cruise Sign's main part.

It's a good thing if they've mended some of the damage, , but the heroine routes (which aren't a part of Cruise Sign) are probably still as broken as before, since I doubt they'd go out of their way to retranslate those out of good will towards the consumers. I imagine the poor suckers who don't know about the retranslation patch will be like "Whoa! What the hell happened!?" once they go from a somewhat acceptable translation in the common route to something like Ageha's!

Edited by Seraphim88
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Just went through a pretty confusing scene in Nanairo Reincarnation. The gang was having a conversation at the dinner table, but the text was misplaced and didn't match up with the characters or voiced dialogue.

An example:

Spoiler

3buyHq.jpg

The "present head" is Makoto (the protagonist), so this makes it seem like he's actually talking to himself.

The entire scene went like this, so it was kinda hard to keep track of who was saying what.

Edited by Seraphim88
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18 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

Just went through a pretty confusing scene in Nanairo Reincarnation. The gang was having a conversation at the dinner table, but the text was misplaced and didn't match up with the characters or voiced dialogue.

An example:

  Reveal hidden contents

3buyHq.jpg

The "present head" is Makoto (the protagonist), so this makes it seem like he's actually talking to himself.

The entire scene went like this, so it was kinda hard to keep track of who was saying what.

Are you doing Azusa's route? The exact same thing happened to me, and found out it only happens on this scene, and if you are doing that route (supposedly?)

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2 hours ago, Jun Inoue said:

Are you doing Azusa's route?

Nope, Kotori's. I dunno when exactly the routes branch off, but that scene is probably a part of the common route if both of us got it.
There was another instance where the text seemed to be a combination of several parts of dialogue mixed together.

Spoiler

WhdE5X.jpg

Other than these things, I haven't noticed anything weird except for a few typos.

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5 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

Nope, Kotori's. I dunno when exactly the routes branch off, but that scene is probably a part of the common route if both of us got it.
There was another instance where the text seemed to be a combination of several parts of dialogue mixed together.

  Reveal hidden contents

WhdE5X.jpg

Other than these things, I haven't noticed anything weird except for a few typos.

Well, I'm not sure because the differences for the routes are minimal, as I commented some days ago upon finishing my playthrough. Basically some lines change here and there, and the very end of the game, too. So perhaps that scene is messed up for everyone.

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Finished one route in Maggot Baits, and it was pure garbage. It just consisted of scene after scene of a very specific theme, which I'm not into whatsoever. Namely,

Spoiler

futanari/tentacle porn.

The story was pretty much nonexistent in this route, so I figure its entire purpose is to satisfy people with that particular fetish, meaning it's not all that surprising that it wasn't for me. I just hope the true route is going to be worth it in the end.

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3 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

Finished one route in Maggot Baits, and it was pure garbage. It just consisted of scene after scene of a very specific theme, which I'm not into whatsoever. Namely,

  Hide contents

futanari/tentacle porn.

The story was pretty much nonexistent in this route, so I figure its entire purpose is to satisfy people with that particular fetish, meaning it's not all that surprising that it wasn't for me. I just hope the true route is going to be worth it in the end.

Monkey House route?

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4 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

Indeed. It seemed more or less detached from the main storyline, which probably isn't so strange considering how you enter the route.

I mean, can you even call it a proper route? Felt like a bad end but really expanded.

Spoiler

The story barely begins and 'you' die, so the game shows how the other characters are gonna get tortured till they break, and that's it. I wouldn't expect much story from an after-bad end section.

 

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25 minutes ago, Jun Inoue said:

I mean, can you even call it a proper route? Felt like a bad end but really expanded.

Yeah, kinda. It was pretty long though, so "bad end" doesn't quite feel like a sufficient classification. Well, whatever. In any case, it was a big waste of time for me personally, but I guess people who are into those particular fetishes might find it enjoyable.

I'm at chapter 3 now, and things are looking up now that the main story has moved along a bit.

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1 hour ago, Seraphim88 said:

Yeah, kinda. It was pretty long though, so "bad end" doesn't quite feel like a sufficient classification. Well, whatever. In any case, it was a big waste of time for me personally, but I guess people who are into those particular fetishes might find it enjoyable.

I'm at chapter 3 now, and things are looking up now that the main story has moved along a bit.

Ddi you end up finishing Nanairo? Or taking a break for Maggot Baits?

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25 minutes ago, Jun Inoue said:

Ddi you end up finishing Nanairo? Or taking a break for Maggot Baits?

I've finished Kotori's and Iyo's routes so far. I've kinda assigned Azusa's route (and later Yumi's) along with The Outer Worlds as therapy for my soul inbetween Maggot Baits sessions. :P

All in all, Nanairo Reincarnation was beyond my expectations both quality-wise and in terms of how heavy the story would be. Like I mentioned previously in this thread, I originally expected it to be just some regular comedy nukige, but it went well above that to the point where I'd say it's probably the game/VN that has surprised me the most (in a positive way) this year. I guess I should thank you for your earlier input, since that was what steered me towards checking it out!

Edited by Seraphim88
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So, I've been reading a lot of short to very short VNs lately to get back into rhythm after all the RL crap prevented me from reading anything for a while. I decided it'd be fun to summarise my experience a bit, so:

Phenomeno was quite a cool experience and actually a lot more robust than some opinions led me into believing. It's disturbing exactly in that way horror VNs excel in, with vague, creepy visuals and graphic descriptions working in wonderful harmony with unsettling music and sound effects. It has a little bit of that "prologue to a bigger story" feel, but still left me plenty uneasy and plenty satisfied. 7.5/10

Soundless had a lot more artsy vibe to it and got straight-up bizarre by the end, but in general, it was just as good as people made me believe. It'll get a full review from me soon, but I was absolutely captivated with its doujin feel and how interestingly it tackled its main themes – and there's a ton of them, with the primary one being mental illness, but with bullying, scapegoating, religion following close by... Quite easily in the top 10 VNs I've read to date. 8.5/10

40 Days & 40 Nights of Rain is an old, rather highly-rated doujin VN about a soldier in an apocalyptic war who takes into his care a strange orphaned girl. There's a lot of meandering and religious symbolism in it and honestly... It felt quite pretentious to me. Maybe the translation has something to do with it, as it felt very clunky, just as the game's structure (NVL text display can be confusing when done poorly and here I often had to wonder who's saying what). There were some really good moments in it, but with me it definitely failed to achieve the emotional/thought-provoking effect it was aiming for. The visuals were cool I guess, I really like these crude artstyles. 6/10

A Midsummer Day's Resonance, on the other hand, was quite a lovely coming-of-age story with a touch of sci-fi and yuri. It communicated quite a lot with a short story and limited assets, ending on a somewhat sad, but ultimately hopeful note. Kind of a bite-sized nakige. 7/10

The Dandelion Girl is one of those rare literary adaptation VNs... And it's probably a really good way of experiencing this short story. It's something of a sci-fi classic, so I won't spoil anything, just say you should really read it if you haven't already in some form. It's short and sweet, and it's referenced in Clannad, so there are no excuses here. 7.5/10

April was a Fool was quite a surprise to me. It's one of those free EVNs I barely expected anything from, at least beyond being a cool distraction... But it proved to be a lot more. It's a humorous, RPG-themed VN about a barmaid that is randomly picked by a team of famous adventurers to stand in for their recently-deceased companion, as she resembles her physically and they don't want the news of her death to spread. The core story is mostly about how that loss destroyed the team's unity and it's up to the protagonist to learn their backstories and patch things up. The premise is used surprisingly well and the heroes prove quite memorable – it's not a particularly deep experience, but I had a lot more fun with it than I expected.7.5/10

I've also finished the prologue part of Maggot Baits and read a little bit beyond it. Quite a strong start, although the first h-scene made me chuckle a bit with how over-the-top it was, even if one particular description really grossed me out too. The first gore scene feels a little bit like the class rep electrocution at the beginning of euphoria: a signal of how far the game is willing to go and a warning to drop it if you're not ready to see that another 50+ times. I'm not yet engrossed in it quite like I was in the death game parts of euphoria, but on the other hand, I immediately liked the three "good" witches. I'll be reading it in short bursts in the next few weeks, we'll see how quick I can finish it and whether it can change my mixed feelings about clock-up stuff. :]

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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Finished Kemomusu, and what I can say is that I like although too bad it's quite short. I really want to see the more on casts life, but I guess what we have here is enough. All that's left from there is collect the sex scenes, which surprisingly need a precise choice to unlock. I didn't pay attention to the choice here, because I thought that since this is a kinetic VN choice wouldn't really matter much only to have it wrong.

For the next VN, still don't know yet.

Edited by littleshogun
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Okay, I'm done with Maggot Baits. So was it worth it? It's hard to say, honestly.
I actually thought the underlying story was pretty good once it kicked off, but all that gore and rape is quite offputting and there's so much of it. After having seen it all, I can safely say that there's really no need for it to be as extensive and graphic as it is. At least for me personally, it didn't add any value to the VN whatsoever. It felt like it was there purely for shock factor or for those people who are actually into stuff like that. A lot of the scenes were really long too, and it felt like a pain in the ass reading it all just because I didn't want to risk missing out on any story-related dialogue (which were in some of the scenes).

If you're considering reading Maggot Baits and know you're easily disturbed, you should probably stay away. There's an option to decrease the level of the explicit content, but I don't know how much of a difference it actually makes. I'm pretty sure the dialogue won't be changed much (if at all) and that's plenty disturbing in and of itself.

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So I finished Hoshizora no Memoria and it was pretty great, all the characters had their unique, mostly interesting plotlines and everyone of them took part in getting the whole picture of this story. It was a bit slow-paced, but that actually felt appropriate for this story. It really felt well thought out and the only complaint I might have would be that there was nothing truly exceptional either story or character wise. 8/10

Since Hoshimemo was slowpaced I thought I could read some short VNs with, hopefully, a quickly advancing storyline that would also quickly come to a close.

So I read How to Raise a Wolf Girl and was actually surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did. Granted, I didn't have high expectations, but the characters where more nuanced than expected and the story went in a satisfying direction at a satisfying pace. No masterwork but worth a read. 7/10

Then I read Neko Nin Ex Heart 3, mainly because my OCD doesn't allow me to leave any story I started behind... It was okay, completely middle of the road, easy going, lighthearted. A quickly resolved plotline, some more members to the harem, never change a running system. 5/10

Next I started Maggot Baits. I can see it being very polarising. I actually liked it a lot. Unapologetic, violent, obscene, with some deeper messages/plotlines, really rare to read something like this. I think it's the kind of VN someone can appreciate more after reading/watching a ton of different media and just wanting something radically different. That's the kind of stuff you would otherwise only find in the doujinshi market and even there it's very niche. With some budget, glorious artwork and a kicking OST it's elevated to a different level. The writing outside of the sex scenes is pretty concise, it allways feels like the story advances at a good pace. Not for everyone, but I'm a horrible person and I liked it. 8/10

Spoiler

The Monkey House ending overstayed it's welcome a little. I don't mind those scenes, but a long chain of similar scenes was a bit tiresome. I know beastiality and total mindbreak/livestock stuff is a staple of guro, but I could do without, they get a chuckle here or there but mostly go on for longer than I'd like. The gore was manageable, expected worse. Liked the other two endings, they were satisfying in their own ways, they felt like grand events came to their respective end, the true end was more uplifting than I expected, a welcome respite to this VN.

Since I started Maggot Baits I wanted something really lighthearted to read along with it, so I started Amatarasu Riddle Star. This VN was definitely not made for me. The insertion of an Alice in Wonderland kind of world into our world sounds fun in theory, but the execution made it a very unenjoyable endurance test. Most of the time I was just advancing text boxes thinking, "get to the point of this". Funnily enough it ended up being more exhaustive for me than Maggot Baits. 3/10

Spoiler

I can understand that the world is reduced to a chaotic mess where illogical stuff happens, for me it really becomes a problem though if every character that should be from the real world instantly takes a "if you can't beat them, join them" approach and everything is swept under the rug. This creates a plot convenience playhouse, where unrelated events are brought into a random order to create an illusion of progress in the story. What makes this worse is that the problems and events created this way are resolved by approaches that are completely inconsistent. This may be personal opinion, but I just can't stand a story where I can't make out any rules. Even Alice in Wonderland would have the rule of constantly trying to defy expectations, but here characters may or may not act logical to different extents at a whim.

 

Edited by Ruberick
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1 hour ago, Ruberick said:

So I finished Hoshizora no Memoria and it was pretty great

Have they fixed the translation yet? There were a ton of errors when I read it last year.

I actually didn't think Hoshimemo was all that special at that time, but I've found myself appreciating it more and more since then. There's something about it that has made it stick to the back of my mind in a way that not many other VNs have managed, but I can't quite pinpoint the reason for it. In any case, I'll probably reread the entire VN once the fandisc is released.

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I played the version that was translated by Staircase Subs and it was a bit of a pain to get it running correctly with patches to install in the correct order, a font to install in windows and set in the game. Once all of that was done it was allright, there were a few cases where the text boxes had more text than they could display and you needed to read the last parts from the backlog. Don't know what you have in mind, bad translations? Bad text to text box ratio? Definitely had huge issues with the display from text boxes until I had it set up correctly.

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Ah, I read the Steam version. It had so many issues (an enormous amount of typos, grammatical errors and even untranslated text), the publisher actually started a retranslation project. Checking VNDb, it seems that new translation was finished just a few months ago. I have no idea how good it is, but I guess I'll find out when I reread the VN.

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27 minutes ago, Seraphim88 said:

Checking VNDb, it seems that new translation was finished just a few months ago.

Unfortunately it wasn't. It's still in progress. This description is copied from previous Steam release (r44996), and it means just that it is different than StaircaseSubs fan-TL (r9721, which reportedly was pretty bad too. At least @Fred the Barber wrote in his review here on Fuwa, that even current official TL, with all its problems, is better - but still bad :P). Newest Steam release (r65207) just adds Chinese TL.

Edited by adamstan
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