What are you playing?

[Barktooth]

16 minutes ago, Arcadeotic said:

The fandisk is the best thing since sliced bread purely by the amount of Mare and true best grill it has

I'm not a huge fan of slice of life but if it's Mare, count me in  

[Eclipsed]

On 6/7/2016 at 10:33 AM, Dergonu said:

Answer me this! Will I ever be able to grow a mustache?

My break starts like ... the 24th or something.

I'll destroy you this time

@mustache idk, seems them nosehairs have a better growth rate than them mustachio-hairs, unfortunately. 

~~
FINE, I'll hold off on Fata Morgana until your break starts, I've been, uh, a bit more busy party hartying slacking off anyways  

[Kenshin_sama]

 

This could technically be posted in either this or the video games thread, but I'm posting here since I'm mostly playing Blazblue: Calamity Trigger as a VN with the story mode.

I've finished a couple of the endings for Ragna's story, but the guide I was following on wikia doesn't seem very accurate for the 3rd. I'll try the guide on Gamefaq tomorrow and see if I get it this time. I don't recommend playing this game without a guide as it's really tricky to get the distortion finishes needed to unlock certain endings, and you'll probably hate having to do it on your own.

I do like the kind of storytelling that leaves you confused as heck with a fragmented storyline at the beginning and makes more sense at the end. Could make for a grand experience if it pulls through. I have no hard opinion of it so far since nothing makes sense to me yet, but it's interesting.

Sadly, I am playing the Steam version of this game, and have had a few issues with the video. The subtitles are horribly out of sync with the audio and it looks like I have to play them from the game's directory in order to view it properly. Really sucks that I don't have my PS3 for this game.
 

Edit: Don't like double posting, so I guess I'll just edit for now.

Ugh, this happened to me today.

Considering how this is the most annoying story I've read so far, I'm kinda peeved that I couldn't even 100% it. Not even gonna bother figuring out where that last bit is since the story content might be trivial anyways. As a character, Taokaka probably matters more than I think she does, but there was a lot of pointless and annoying fluff in her story compared to the others and I don't think 1% is gonna make any kind of difference in the grand scheme of things. That and Taokaka drives me nuts with the way she talks.

The others were a different matter entirely. Every seemingly insignificant line that I read felt like it was hinting at something grand. Even the lines that come up when you lose a fight feel like they matter in some way. I'll likely know for sure once I get to the true path. The story is still fragmented, and I'm still kinda lost in a few areas, but it gradually makes more sense.

I also recommend reading the tips as soon as they come up. The sooner you do, the better off you'll be. The last one I read gave more clarification to the setting.

[Turnip Sensei]

Kusarihime was pretty peculiar experience. It's little all over the place, but somehow very fulfilling at the same time. I'll probably have to, and I want to read it again to understand it better and to see the scenes I missed. 

Kusarihime is very much a story where the journey is more important than the destination. It get's pretty strange near the end and quite lot was left pretty uncertain, but at the same time I felt like I read something really cool. It was way more more focused in human emotions and minds than I initially thought. While there is of course supernatural parts to it as well, but it's more about the shadows in people's hears. And Kusarihime has plenty of really impacful scenes concerning those. It's also really atmospheric game and storybook aesthetic makes it even better.

Something I really liked in Kusarihime is how well the story and the writing flows. From the scene to scene, event to next, adding steadily new things to keep it interesting and steadily progressing. Sometimes things go faster, sometimes slower; there's laid-back times and desperate times, but flowing feeling stays the same. Writing helps in this too. It's simple enough and reads fairly easily, but has it own nice feel. And like the story, it flows very naturally between narration, dialogue and sometimes pretty ephemeral descriptions. Kusarihime is just really satisfying visual novel to read. Quite numerous H-scenes were the only things hindering my reading enjoyment, but that's just me finding H-scenes kind of annoying to read in general, since for the most part they are not just throwaway scenes and actually contain content worth reading outside of the deed.

Overall I liked Kusarihime a lot. There are parts that feel little incomplete, yet it has charm that makes me forgive most of it. Kusarihime might be flawed, but it's a pretty damn cool experience.        

[Tyr]

On 2016/6/6 at 11:21 PM, Decay said:

Not really. The Xtend Episode primarily consists of content that was previously in Route D but they moved it to its own thing because it hurt the pacing too much. It's also just a series of scenes you select from a menu.

No, these scenes didn't hurt the pacing at all. They were essential scenes in the pivotal part of the original VN and just because Japanese readers are ADHD-victims who are too stupid to appreciate a character-driven storyline, they were cut in the Xtend version in favor of the not so interesting storyline (which was never the focus in the first place) and were instead labeled as some kind of side-story bonus scenes thus losing all their emotional momentum.

Thanks to that you EOPs can now read the butchered Xtend version which is neither fish nor fowl. But please stop justifying this mess by blaming the original version for having bad pacing. Because that is just not true. I know that since I read the original VN and Route D was one of the best character-driven drama I've ever read in a visual novel; mainly thanks to the scenes which were omitted in the Xtend cut.

[Decay]

1 hour ago, Tyrosyn said:

No, these scenes didn't hurt the pacing at all. They were essential scenes in the pivotal part of the original VN and just because Japanese readers are ADHD-victims who are too stupid to appreciate a character-driven storyline, they were cut in the Xtend version in favor of the not so interesting storyline (which was never the focus in the first place) and were instead labeled as some kind of side-story bonus scenes thus losing all their emotional momentum.

Thanks to that you EOPs can now read the butchered Xtend version which is neither fish nor fowl. But please stop justifying this mess by blaming the original version for having bad pacing. Because that is just not true. I know that since I read the original VN and Route D was one of the best character-driven drama I've ever read in a visual novel; mainly thanks to the scenes which were omitted in the Xtend cut.

Nah, I'm going to continue to insist that they ruined the pacing since that part of the game was already a complete disaster even without them. I just did not like the super flashback heavy storytelling. Even more of that would have been unbearable.

edit: I'm the kind of guy who prefers character driven stories to plot driven stories, but... not like this.

[Funyarinpa]

Said "fuck Gangamamer" and went and downloaded the original translation of Higurashi. I love the VN's first two chapters - truly amazing- but when MG went and released only TWO FUCKING CHAPTERS OUT OF EIGHT in a year, I ended up being fed up. I'll not be at home at all in July save for one week occupied by my family and Zero Escape 3, so I am not planning on waiting for somebody to prepare a PS3 voice&asset patch for Tatarigoroshi (Higurashi CH3). 

But hot damn the old release is atrocious. Even when prepatched, it's 4:3, PS2 resolution, and there's no voice acting. Sad, but preferable to waiting for seemingly three more years for the rest of the story. 

 

 

[kilicool64]

14 hours ago, Decay said:

Nah, I'm going to continue to insist that they ruined the pacing since that part of the game was already a complete disaster even without them. I just did not like the super flashback heavy storytelling. Even more of that would have been unbearable.

edit: I'm the kind of guy who prefers character driven stories to plot driven stories, but... not like this.

Gonna take a middle ground here and disagree with both of you. Root D was my favorite part of Root Double precisely because it spent so much time exploring its huge web of character backstories and showing how they all tie together. While this did result in very slow pacing, I didn't mind this much at all because the vast majority of the flashback content dealt with things that I was interested in learning about in the first place. I guess some of Jun's flashbacks were a bit weak compared to the rest since most of her backstory is just a less interesting version of Kazami's, but even they had an important in-universe reason for occurring. And aside from them, all the characters' flashbacks not only greatly expanded on characterization, but were also critical components of the main plot.

At the same time though, I also heavily disagree with the notion that the Xtend edition ruined the VN by cutting a lot of important flashbacks. That's flat-out incorrect. None of the flashbacks have been cut at all. They were all moved to the newly created post-game scenario called the Xtend episode where they're presented under a perfectly fine new context along with some new scenes. I heard how these scenes were originally presented, and that sounds like it would have been really tiresome even for me. While it's true that these scenes do a good job at further expanding the characters and setting, unlike most of the scenes that stayed in Root D, they're not very relevant to the main plot. Presenting these side stories as supplementary material that you get to read after you're already done with Root D sounds like a much better solution than delaying its conclusion by 4-5 hours.

[Vorathiel]

Yesterday I had no internet day (some minor breakdown).
So I started Grisaia, I had ~3h of Makina route to finish.
I started. And I regretted. Main writter of Grisaia, while writting in nice prose, is worst VN writter I have ever read. Yet again he's doing bullshit like this:
SLIGHT SPOILERS about Makina route.

Spoiler

Infiltrarion of building. Yuji is trying to sneak in, he's dressed up like a delivery man, he's coming in... and the sudden cut later, he's almost at his aim, almost pointing gun at his target! They omitted large chunk of the possible tense and thrill scene, when he's trying to stay in cover, and move through the building till some high floor. But it was cut! Or so I thought. But no! Right after he's at his target, he suddenly starts TALKING TO READERS about what was he doing after wenting into the builiding up to this point. In retrospection! Instead of doing tense, nice 5 minutes scene of building infiltration, whe had tenseless, because we know how it ended, and completly bland 'yuuji talkig how he did it' scene. "Show, not tell" FFS!
And it's very very common ir Amane and Makina route, and probably common In Grisaia 2 and 3, written by this fraud hack.

So I finished this bullshit route and was angered. But since It was only around 15:00 and I have whole day ahead of me (with a break for football match in tv, cause EURO) I imidiatelly loaded save I had on the beginning of Michiru route.

And this happened:

This CG, whis whole scene was so good, so GREAT voice acting I listened to their entirety, I've shivers through this. It was great. Trully great. Finally, for the first time, after boring and unfunny common, stupid and boooring Amane, ultrastupid, but not boring Sachi and stupid, cancerous and boring Makina I've got something great from Grisaia.
Usually CGs' in this VN are very, very mediocre (little to no detail, faces that hardly resembles characters known from their sprites. Escecially noses and upper lips. [I mean, who the hell is this girl  (slightly NSFW) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/24daf09019/340382-212?nl=22886-407169 ? And this girl? Is this Yumiko (slightly spoilerish from Michiru route) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/3f7c61b01d/340382-247?nl=11884-407169 ]), but this one was great.

It hooked me up really quickly, so I read, I read and read, and finished around 1:30.
What I really quickly noticed was...different director (?), or a t least direction. There was much more sprite movement though screen (lower, higher, smaller, bigger, wobbling, falling, all that stuff, not noticeable at all in Makina route), much better directed dialogues (and it was funny I even laughed simple 'hahah' out loud twice!), whith much better directions. People was really cutting in in others statements and it really felt like a peaople talking instead of kindergarden play (one eprson speaks tw sentences, silence, other person start talking his two sentences, etc), which is more than common in VNs.
And it was much, much better written route than anything from Grisaia main writter. This guy responsible for Michiru know how to write a scene, know where to put focus on, what emphasize, what not, where to change perspective, etc.

I have only problems with fanservice scene at the ocean, and of course, ending
 

Spoiler

what a bullshit. Pseudo-science-magic are the worst type of story catalizers. It really ruined the story for me. I could swallow this if there would be some understatements, some backdoor to my theory that it was all in her head, schizophrenia, or something. But no. They deliberatelly made last 20 minutes just Michiru body with two different minds inside. Complete and utter bullshit. But I guess that's what happen if you must have a good end, where everobydy is living happily ever after. They couldn't surpress the other girl in Michiru, they must have fleshed her out. And what if, she wanted to live? What if she told her mother about it all? What if mother of this deceased girl believed? There is so much ethic problems, so much logic problems, there would be constnat sciene examination of Michiru condition, there would be a world scale rpecedence, with gravely repercussions to the world as a whole. But no, fuck logic, we need happy ending. Sigh.

So that ending just took away around 0.8 from my final grade for this route. But oh well, at least I have fun reading it.

[Funyarinpa]

Grisaia never really got to me beyond a particular arc in Amane's route, but I find it interesting how I heard that for most people Michiru being written by someone else ruined it.

[Dergonu]

I think it's for the better that you stop reading grisaia there. 

Based on your opinions about the game, you will HATE the sequels

[XReaper]

8 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

So I finished this bullshit route and was angered. But since It was only around 15:00 and I have whole day ahead of me (with a break for football match in tv, cause EURO) I imidiatelly loaded save I had on the beginning of Michiru route.

And this happened:

This CG, whis whole scene was so good, so GREAT voice acting I listened to their entirety, I've shivers through this. It was great. Trully great. Finally, for the first time, after boring and unfunny common, stupid and boooring Amane, ultrastupid, but not boring Sachi and stupid, cancerous and boring Makina I've got something great from Grisaia.
Usually CGs' in this VN are very, very mediocre (little to no detail, faces that hardly resembles characters known from their sprites. Escecially noses and upper lips. [I mean, who the hell is this girl  (slightly NSFW) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/24daf09019/340382-212?nl=22886-407169 ? And this girl? Is this Yumiko (slightly spoilerish from Michiru route) http://g.e-hentai.org/s/3f7c61b01d/340382-247?nl=11884-407169 ]), but this one was great.

It hooked me up really quickly, so I read, I read and read, and finished around 1:30.
What I really quickly noticed was...different director (?), or a t least direction. There was much more sprite movement though screen (lower, higher, smaller, bigger, wobbling, falling, all that stuff, not noticeable at all in Makina route), much better directed dialogues (and it was funny I even laughed simple 'hahah' out loud twice!), whith much better directions. People was really cutting in in others statements and it really felt like a peaople talking instead of kindergarden play (one eprson speaks tw sentences, silence, other person start talking his two sentences, etc), which is more than common in VNs.
And it was much, much better written route than anything from Grisaia main writter. This guy responsible for Michiru know how to write a scene, know where to put focus on, what emphasize, what not, where to change perspective, etc.

I have only problems with fanservice scene at the ocean, and of course, ending
 

  Reveal hidden contents

what a bullshit. Pseudo-science-magic are the worst type of story catalizers. It really ruined the story for me. I could swallow this if there would be some understatements, some backdoor to my theory that it was all in her head, schizophrenia, or something. But no. They deliberatelly made last 20 minutes just Michiru body with two different minds inside. Complete and utter bullshit. But I guess that's what happen if you must have a good end, where everobydy is living happily ever after. They couldn't surpress the other girl in Michiru, they must have fleshed her out. And what if, she wanted to live? What if she told her mother about it all? What if mother of this deceased girl believed? There is so much ethic problems, so much logic problems, there would be constnat sciene examination of Michiru condition, there would be a world scale rpecedence, with gravely repercussions to the world as a whole. But no, fuck logic, we need happy ending. Sigh.

So that ending just took away around 0.8 from my final grade for this route. But oh well, at least I have fun reading it.

same. michirus route set itself more than pleasantly apart from the others.

[Chronopolis]

Finishing Otoz . It's a fantasy story with battles and armies though like with all of TS's works, you can expect to have a cast of freely interacting characters. Wasn't that interested for the first couple chapters but after I saw where it was going things gradually got more interesting.

It's hardly a typical fantasy story, once you get into it's exciting and interesting all the same.

Kurenai no Tsuki was mediocre in the character drama and the depiction of the routes, though the atmosphere and setting/mystery which were decent.

Was planning on playing Sakura no Mori † Dreamers, but I'm way more exicted to try out リズベルルの魔 (Lisbelluru no Ma).

[Vorathiel]

12 hours ago, Dergonu said:

I think it's for the better that you stop reading grisaia there. 

Based on your opinions about the game, you will HATE the sequels

I love the idea of hating them. :v Never enough of bad/cancerous/atrocious things. ^^

[Unagi-san]

Playing Majikoi, it's pretty entertaining, I like the way it depicts friendship. 

 I chose Momoyo's route in my first playthrough and pretty like it. I heard that her route is not the best though. I wish Ageha had route too...

Then I tried Momoyo's afterstory and was pretty disappointed. Despite H-scenes were not that bad)

Well, it's all about Momoyo's personality. She's strong, not easy to get, obsessed with girls and teasing Yamato. She never gives up and lets someone do the things she doesn't approve. She can be cute in romantic moments though. That's how it was in her route and I liked it. However, afterstory messed it all up. 

I will speak about events in her afterstory, so please read the following text only if you already comleted it.

Spoiler

It starts good, Yamato and Momo date, kiss on the ferris wheel, I blush and get ready for the nice Momo-style romance. However, they continue kissing for almost 30 minutes in different places, and Momo looks like another person. She becomes weak if she with Yamato, and I would believe in it if it have taken more time, but it was just few days since they have started going out, and it was just  1.5 month since she has rejected him. She changed so quick and unrealistic so I don't believe it is the same stong character I liked. On top of that, she doesn't dominate in bed. Well, scene with her on top was Momo-like, and scene when she refused to lick Yamato's dick was also Momo-like, but some time later she gives him blowjob in neko suit and acting like truly another person. She couldn't change her personality so fast, even for Yamato. If she could, she would break her habit to fight but she couldn't, so I can assume she is very stubborn and hard to change her mind. 

I wanted from afterstory to show me the way they develop their relationships, but instead I got the Momo driven crazy by Yamato's dick that hard so she stop being Momo at all.

I don't mind if you like new Momo, so don't be angry at me in this case. It's just how I see it.

I want to know if someone shares my opinion about that.

[Vorathiel]

Yeah, afterstories are mostly shit (one except is Myiako).

[Kenshin_sama]

Alright, I've gotta hand it to BlazBlue's writer, this guy is crazy smart with how he writes his story. There's a very intricate science fantasy plot and the grand scheme of things aren't explained outright. There are several hints that are laid out regarding the plot throughout the whole story, and it's basically left up to the reader to put everything together and come to a conclusion. I thought everything would be explained a little more simplistically in the true end, but it turns out I was wrong. I'm not entirely fond of this kind of storytelling since I prefer to just take in the emotional parts without having to think too hard about what's going on, but the story is intelligent enough that I can appreciate it more than I normally would.

I probably could have figured the plot out if I wanted to, but I decided to read a plot analysis instead. It probably would have taken me several days just to come up with half the stuff I found in the plot guide on GameFAQ, so yeah. Why do the all the work when someone else has already done it for you, right?

My final score for it on VNDB isn't gonna be very high, and that's mostly because the regular paths were mostly there for build up and not too entertaining by their own merit. They do keep you interested though. I tend to rate VNs based on my experience in every route, and most of the excitement is in the true end. It really is a great game though. And if you're the type of person that likes to figure out complex plots using scattered hints on your own, then you'll likely enjoy BlazBlue more than I did. I definitely plan on playing the rest of the games in this series.

Oh, and if you're able to, get the console version. The Steam version has sync issues with the video and subtitles, and the dub's not that good, lol. The video problem isn't that big a deal since there aren't that many of them, but it's still annoying. Unless you understand Japanese, the only reasonable way around this problem is to play the English dub videos in the game folder since the subs won't work on the Japanese videos, and they're kinda difficult to read when out of sync (they don't show up at all in the last video). It's not worth it to switch the game's audio except for the opening video. The videos in the true end will require you to replay certain game segments (saves are limited and you have to navigate to the options menu outside of story mode) and it kinda breaks the immersion.

[XReaper]

thought it was a good thing to bridge some time until the advent of purino party (yes, seriously so) , as well as waiting for the everlate postman-chan and therefore started reading 2 rather unknown ones, namely cyber-rebeat & kagerou, which stand in stark contrast to eachother plot- & theme-wise. regrettably i got hooked pretty badly on them so far.

edit: going to have legit nightmares for sure

[Funyarinpa]

rereading Higurashi's second chapter Watanagashi, because it's amazing and Tatarigoroshi is too late for me. Was craving something with as likable as a cast and found nothing.

[Fred the Barber]

Since they're all I've been reading lately, I'll take a moment to say good things about the last project I edited for and the one I'm currently editing:
To Heart 2 is pretty entertaining. It's a straightforward moege with a huge cast of heroines, and to some extent represents the solidification of many of the tropes you see today. One interesting thing about this is that there are some tropes there that didn't end up being popular enough to become super common, but which might be to your taste. And on that note, I'd like to recommend:

Spoiler

 

 

Tama-nee is the older sister figure you secretly wish you had in your life, but wouldn't admit to it even here. She was my favorite character I encountered in the game, even though her route didn't live up to her character. Also, her H-scene at the end of the route is intense
And then there's the twins.

Spoiler

 

They've got the opposite thing going on from Tama-nee - none of the characters on this route are as amazing as she, but the route is way, way better than I anticipated going in. The drama is surprisingly real. I was a little bit leery when I picked it up. I mean... twins? Sounds like an obvious play for whipping up teenage males into a frenzy without putting out too much effort. And, yeah, it is that. But it's also filled with relatable conflict and relationship difficulties that feel less like your typical moege artificial obstacles and more like understandable human problems. And then at the end:

Spoiler

 

twincest

 

So yeah, play the twins' route, too.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't heartily encourage you to play through all the bad ending scenes for the twins (one wrong choice and you'll land there, anyway). That's not just me wanting someone to read the stuff I edited - it's often legitimately hilarious, and one scene is crushingly heartbreaking. I'd find it a tragedy if nobody else ever played the game-within-the-game, Love Love New Heart, and equally tragic if you don't get to have your heart broken the way mine was by some of those scenes.

 

And so, that leaves my current project, MajoKoiNikki:

Spoiler

It's good. Like, really good. So far I've only read the prologue (which I've now read most of twice, and first-pass edited half of myself), but I'm very, very excited to keep reading and see what happens next, and I'm basically head over heels for all the characters. When we were divvying up first-pass edit duties for the character routes a couple days ago, I literally couldn't decide which routes I wanted because all the girls are so much fun. Look forward to it!

[akaritan]

I finished No, Thank You!!! a bit ago. It was my first BL title, and I liked it enough. The art is very nice, and it's one of those stories that you can tell has been very well planned out in advance, which always makes me happy. There's a lot of replay value, and the addition of new text after finishing portions of the game helps with that, but it does make it very annoying to get 100%.

 

I might move on to Ozmafia, but I'm going to want to read Grisaia no Meikyuu when it comes out as well. Should I wait on Ozmafia and get Grisaia as soon as it comes out, or start Ozmafia now? And is there a recommended route order for Ozmafia?

[Eclipsed]

Rip in pieces @Zenophilious, but I'm finally ready to commit to Fate/Stay \/

[BookwormOtaku]

Finished the Brute route for euphoria, that was...interesting

Now moving on to try and finish the true route and after several minutes of skipped text...I was not expecting this game to remind me of an episode of Red Dwarf

Spoiler

"Back to Reality" Actually in that scene if they'd revealed Keisuke's real name was Duane Dibbley this game would get an instant 10/10

 

[Kawasumi]

4 hours ago, BookwormOtaku said:

Finished the Brute route for euphoria, that was...interesting

Now moving on to try and finish the true route and after several minutes of skipped text...I was not expecting this game to remind me of an episode of Red Dwarf

  Hide contents

"Back to Reality" Actually in that scene if they'd revealed Keisuke's real name was Duane Dibbley this game would get an instant 10/10

 

I always love the last scene

Spoiler

What a beautiful collection  

 

[gunter]

On 19/06/2016 at 10:46 AM, Kawasumi said:

I always love the last scene

  Reveal hidden contents

What a beautiful collection  

 

hehehe, i totally agree with you on this point x)

i just finished kara no shojo the second episode (i'm amazed by how intricate the relations betweens the characters are,and by how we had clues about how all this will end from the beginning )  and i just find kinda low and depressed right now (it had to be expected from this kind of game ) nonetheless,i'm waiting for the third episode .

and currently,i'm playing Steins;Gate, i just finished suzuah's end . all the technical description are slightly hard to understand for me,but i enjoy it a lot .