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I just finished up two of the Fruitbat giveaway VN's;

 

Magical Eyes - Red is for Anguish.

I liked it, but it felt unfinished and undercooked.

 

Miniature Garden

Started off okay, but faltered big time as it went along. Felt like they tried to be too clever and couldn't pull the story together in the end. I also didn't really like the translation, or perhaps it was just the dialogue full stop. On the bright side, at least it was a short one.

 

Not sure which order I'll read the other three titles they gave away; I'm probably going to go The Graduation - > SeaBed -> Enigma. 

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32 minutes ago, OdaNova said:

I just finished up two of the Fruitbat giveaway VN's;

 

Magical Eyes - Red is for Anguish.

I liked it, but it felt unfinished and undercooked.

 

Miniature Garden

Started off okay, but faltered big time as it went along. Felt like they tried to be too clever and couldn't pull the story together in the end. I also didn't really like the translation, or perhaps it was just the dialogue full stop. On the bright side, at least it was a short one.

 

Not sure which order I'll read the other three titles they gave away; I'm probably going to go The Graduation - > SeaBed -> Enigma. 

Enigma is great, you should read it first

Edited by Silvz
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I'm playing Clannad and I finished Misae's, Tomoyo's and Yukine's routes.
So far I'm not finding Clannad to be as amazing as people claim it is... maybe it's because I don't really like "pure" romance and all that stuff, maybe it's because I played LB before this, I don't know, but let's talk about the routes.

Misae's route is so far my favorite, no doubt about it! It doesn't really focus that much on the romance aspect, which I like :D It was also short... could be longer, but I liked it.

Spoiler

I'm going to be honest, I didn't get that Shima was actually the cat all along and turned into a human for that time being lol I thought he had turned into the cat after... I'm dumb.

Tomoyo's route was... painful to read. Tomoyo did grow on me but Clannad's constant sexist talk and the "girls have to be like this and behave like that" stuff kinda turned me off, well.

Spoiler

Besides that, the route was painfully long and the "growing apart" romance plot isn't really that moving to me... I just could roll my eyes, but then again, maybe I'm just not the target audience for this. I'm also much older than the characters so maybe I just don't relate to all these new romantic feelings and everything else.

Yukine's route was surprising! At first, I didn't like Yukine; every time I had a scene with her, I would yawn.

Spoiler

With time, I enjoyed that side of her that indulges in Tomoya's lap and sleeps for hours haha

 

I am reading Ryou's route right now and I'm finding it pretty damn cute! She's not my type (I like her sister more) but the stuff she does with the cards is amazing haha


P.S: This weekend I'll probably comment on Kara no Shoujo's True Ending... let's see how it goes.

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I mostly agree with your opinions on the routes, except for Yukine's route which I found rather boring. Tomoyo might be my favorite heroine in Clannad but what the way they handle her route just feels like such a waste to me.

The main reason people love Clannad though is probably the true route, although I personally think its individual heroine routes are on the whole stronger than the ones in LB as well. LB has the better common route though.

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5 hours ago, alpacaman said:

Tomoyo might be my favorite heroine in Clannad but what the way they handle her route just feels like such a waste to me.

I like Tomoyo as a character, but Tomoyo After ruined it all for me and made it so I'm unlikely to find any enjoyment from her route in Clannad ever again.

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14 hours ago, alpacaman said:

although I personally think its individual heroine routes are on the whole stronger than the ones in LB as well. LB has the better common route though.

I mean, when it comes to romance, I guess they really are. But when it comes to being really interesting, I prefer the ones in LB haha man, LB's common route is utterly amazing, I never get tired of it!

 

12 hours ago, Ryleona said:

I like Higurashi, but ngl i'm getting tired of Keiichi screaming and crying every time something bad happens.

I... I mean, if you were in his shoes, would you not get paranoid? I personally like that he is such a realistic character. I mean, as someone very anxious, I would probably not yell like that but he is his own character, not a self-insert one :D Everyone has their own opinions tho haha my favorite aspect of Higurashi is Keiichi tbh I can relate to him a lot

 

9 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

I like Tomoyo as a character, but Tomoyo After ruined it all for me

I wonder how bad Tomoyo After is... yikes :x

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Alright, I just finished reading Kara no Shoujo's True Ending (and the whole game, throughout the weeks). It was... disappointing. I get that you are supposed to go read the second episode after that but still... I guess I was just expecting more. Maybe the fact that the normal endings were almost the same made me expect a different outcome for the true ending since the people that recommended me claimed it to be magnific. Part of me doesn't want to say that I disliked it because it didn't have a satisfying or happy ending: okay, maybe I am a little upset about that, but that's not really it.

Spoiler

The thing that really left me confused is that... Was she really free then? That's it? It just felt incomplete...

Anyways, this visual novel was amazing in a lot of ways, the only thing I could really do without was the unnecessary h-scenes... looking at you, Reiji. I guess I'll be reading the second episode soon! This time, with no expectations, I hope!

The next I'll be finishing is Clannad but right after that will be time to continue 11eyes~! :D I'm only halfway through the common route but now that I am reading this for my personal vn book club, the progress will be much faster, hooray!

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Completed Baldr Sky Dive 1, and currently in the midst of completing Dive 2 (left with one last route). Rain's my favorite character, so I was a little disappointed when I found out that her route was the first one (I always liked to save the best for last). Considering that Baldr Sky has an enforced route order, I really had no choice but to go in this order: Rain -> Nanoha -> Chinatsu.

Now, on to each route. While Rain was my favorite character, considering that her route was the first, there were still way too many mysteries which were left dangling. Some of these mysteries get revealed in the second route, Nanoha, but I never really liked Nanoha, so her route's pretty much a miss to me. As for Chinatsu's route, however, this is where many important plot points start to get revealed, to the point

Spoiler

that the Dominion's priestess' identity was accidentally revealed. I already had my suspicions of Makoto being the priestess, but that scene put the final nail to the coffin.

mikoto-priestess-spoiler.png

 

I've already completed Aki's route and Makoto's route in Dive 2, but since I haven't completed the final route, I'll hold on to my review of Dive 2 until I complete it.

Anyways, final score for Baldr Sky Dive 1: 8/10

P.S Gilbert feels like a Shinji clone with all that inferiority complex, and I'm also getting Guilty Crown vibes from Baldr Sky (Lost Christmas vs Gray Christmas).

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1 hour ago, wei123 said:

Completed Baldr Sky Dive 1, and currently in the midst of completing Dive 2 (left with one last route). Rain's my favorite character, so I was a little disappointed when I found out that her route was the first one (I always liked to save the best for last). Considering that Baldr Sky has an enforced route order, I really had no choice but to go in this order: Rain -> Nanoha -> Chinatsu.

Now, on to each route. While Rain was my favorite character, considering that her route was the first, there were still way too many mysteries which were left dangling. Some of these mysteries get revealed in the second route, Nanoha, but I never really liked Nanoha, so her route's pretty much a miss to me. As for Chinatsu's route, however, this is where many important plot points start to get revealed, to the point

  Hide contents

that the Dominion's priestess' identity was accidentally revealed. I already had my suspicions of Makoto being the priestess, but that scene put the final nail to the coffin.

mikoto-priestess-spoiler.png

 

I've already completed Aki's route and Makoto's route in Dive 2, but since I haven't completed the final route, I'll hold on to my review of Dive 2 until I complete it.

Anyways, final score for Baldr Sky Dive 1: 8/10

P.S Gilbert feels like a Shinji clone with all that inferiority complex, and I'm also getting Guilty Crown vibes from Baldr Sky (Lost Christmas vs Gray Christmas).

Bruh self spoiled rip.

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Completed the final route in Dive 2, and with that, I have finally completed Baldr Sky after 2 months. Honestly, I could have completed it much sooner, but due to other commitments, I had to stall it for a long time (I was in Nanoha's route in Dive 1 before I stalled). Only managed to get back to it this week, and boy was it well worth it. Each moment didn't feel dull (except for Reminisce, since that was ,for the most part, slice-of-life), and my eyes were always glued to the screen. 

At first, I felt like Baldr Sky was slightly similar to Guilty Crown (Gray Christmas vs Lost Christmas), but as I went on further, I started to see similarities to Yuno and Evangelion (especially the latter). I'll discuss more on the reasons in the spoiler review below.

Anyways, what I liked about Baldr Sky is that it explores the possiblity of AI and humanity coexisting with one another, something which I have not seen being done in other visual novels. I also liked the pacing here, which is surprising considering that many >50h VNs have terrible pacing. Last but not least, I really liked the openings for both Dive 1 and Dive 2. When either opening was playing during the final few battles in the final route, I actually stalled killing the enemy because both openings were just that good. However, one thing which I didn't really like is how the antagonists were treated: One of them is a sadist who has an inferiority complex with the only motivation behind his actions being the typical "abused from childhood" story, while the other doesn't even that much of a presence until the very last route. 

Spoiler review:

Spoiler

 

First things first, since Sora's route is the one which provides the most plot points, what I say below is based on her route only. 

I had my suspicions that the Kou in World 0 (Sora's route) was actually the simulacrum, since pretty much everyone around him was telling him that he was supposed to be dead. Therefore, I wasn't really surprised when the revelation came. Additionally, before Sora's route, I knew that there were 2 higher existences controlling Father Gregory and Agent in the other 5 routes, and I suspected one of them to be Sora, but never really knew who the other one was, so I'm glad that cleared up in Sora's route. I also never would have guessed that the scale at which Sora and Neuzehn played their "multiverse" game was this huge. There is where I got those strong Yuno vibes when Sora started showing the world tree map thing, with multiple branches and divergence points. Additionally, the fact both Yuno and Baldr Sky have their first 5 routes be 5 possible worlds and the final route be considered the "True" world, further strengthening my conviction that Baldr Sky was slightly influenced by Yuno. 

I mentioned earlier that besides getting Yuno vibes, I also felt Evangelion's influence here, and the reasons are simple:

1. The "collective human mindset" aim of the Ark Project in Baldr Sky is very similar to the Human Instrumentality Project in Evangelion

2. Aki is a clone of Kou's mother in Baldr Sky. This is similar to Rei being a clone of Shinji's mother in Evangelion.

And finally, before I forget, when Rain started to die, I really felt like it was going to end up like a certain visual novel famous for killing people off. Instinctively, I knew that Nanoha would be the one to die next, and everyone else would later die off one by one for dramatic effect. That actually turned out to be the case, but then I certainly didn't expect them to revive all of a sudden (especially the Fenrir members; they had an extremely minor presence in Sora's route so I didn't expect them to revive too). I have mixed feelings about this tbh; on one hand, I'm glad that everyone's alive and well,on the other, I'm wondering just how much emotional impact it would have left me if they had stayed "dead" in the Es.

 

Overall, a 9/10 for Dive 2. Thought I wouldn't like it that much since Dive 1 wasn't particularly outstanding, but I'm glad this wasn't the case for Dive 2.

On a side note, the OP for Dive 1 has some parts which sound like some parts from the Schwarzesmarken OP

On another side note, I just realised I've only completed 2 VNs this year. If only my schedule this year wasn't this packed...

Edited by wei123
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The only one I've read is the one on Steam, meaning the all ages release.

Spoiler

From what I can tell, the 18+ version is the original one, so you're saying that one's even more depressing than the one I've seen? (Which is sort of inconclusive, but it's strongly inferred that Tomoya either died from the operation or was left with permanent brain damage.)

 

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Been playing more of Sengoku Koihime X and have gotten to the character interactions before the Echizen battle and I am liking how a lot of the character interactions are building up the harem arrangement Kuon puts together and Yuina managing it

Spoiler

though the revelation she had superpowers all along and the only reason she didn't use them back in rescuing Shino was because she just didn't feel like it is a tad annoying.

About the only complaint I have is out of all of them Karasu and Suzume's stand out from the rest; basically for characters that just showed up it feels a little too early for them to suddenly want to be in the harem (though even Kensuke points that out) while another new character Shizuku seems to be more properly built up into it.

On the English end I'm giving Fureraba a try...and it took me several tries to get through its prologue as the comedy in it was horrible mainly in the dialogue somehow being too over the top even for a comedy, like it was trying way too hard to land a joke. Thankfully it gets better after the prologue where it tones things down so the humor fits with the characters better so the scenes can actually be funny. I'm doing Himari's route first and I am liking the in story scenes between them, though the conversation bits are pretty bland so far compared to those.

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Finished Chuuostu! First Graduation Time after Time today;

 

Spoiler

Did not expect the 'legal child prostitute' twist... at... all. Yikes.

 

I thought it was good overall, if you can get beyond the zany writing. 

 

Really interesting concept about the P3 Law - that everyone is given a compatible job etc upon. However... I felt the VN didn't make use of its 'Chuuostu' = unemployed and therefore thick as bricks premise to its full extent, and in fact, was pretty much ignoring that whole concept, because the three girls were churning out some fairly intelligent discussion for people too thick to understand what they're talking about... 

 

Not sure if I'll continue with the sequels, but I enjoyed it in anycase.

 

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7 minutes ago, OdaNova said:

Finished Chuuostu! First Graduation Time after Time today;

 

  Hide contents

Did not expect the 'legal child prostitute' twist... at... all. Yikes.

 

I thought it was good overall, if you can get beyond the zany writing. 

 

Really interesting concept about the P3 Law - that everyone is given a compatible job etc upon. However... I felt the VN didn't make use of its 'Chuuostu' = unemployed and therefore thick as bricks premise to its full extent, and in fact, was pretty much ignoring that whole concept, because the three girls were churning out some fairly intelligent discussion for people too thick to understand what they're talking about... 

 

Not sure if I'll continue with the sequels, but I enjoyed it in anycase.

 

To be honest, I feel like there's probably some unreliable narration there or something, and they aren't really as thick as everyone believes them to be. But I see your point. [\spoiler]

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