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Trying to start on reading on good old VN's starting with Duelist x Engage.

https://vndb.org/v6334

Read Clephas' review first and the one thing he mentions that I really agree with is the setting is crazy weird that you have to suspend your disbelief a lot.  Crazy settings are fine when the game plays it off but it was actually used quite seriously in the game. An example of the crazy stuff background setting is the existence of mithril. Mithril seems to be an exclusive resource on the main heroine's country. It is apparently an extremely strong metal that her forefathers wore riding cavalry charges against machine gun barrages, seriously? A lot of some serious stuff is hooked into that mithril stuff too so you really have to suspend your disbelief a lot. The backstory of the country to is kinda iffy but yeah people shouldn't try to think too much about the setting and enjoy it for what it is and a charage not an amazing world-building vn. 

Also is it just me, or oldie VN's have more donkan protagonists. While there are donkan protagonists in recent VN's it seems that they're starting to be replaced by more less dense but still dense. Yukito in this VN fucking grinds my gears a lot, he is pretty much a symbol of what I hate about donkan protagonists, naive and dumb. A child would have noticed how much the girls liked him but he just kinda doesn't notice. It doesn't help that he is dumb too being manipulated all the time and just kinda being swept by the story, Yukito doesn't have much agency aside from what he does in the ending. He's just kinda there like a walking plot device attracting flags. 

While I have a lot of negative things to say, I did like the game for what it does which is having a coherent story structure and attractive heroines. I liked Violetta and Tsubaki a lot. They're character archetypes I like a lot and there is a lot of plot in their routes which makes it compelling but I do admit I skipped some text here and there on some parts I found tedious. Game isn't like the usual charages which there isn't a speck of plot to be found. This charage has a coherent plot that doesn't get forgotten and is compelling in of itself.  8/10

Thinking of starting moshimo ashita ga hare naraba next

Edited by Larxe1
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I've started reading The House in Fata Morgana this week and I'm absolutely LOVING IT :abipog: 

Chapter 1 was a wild ride, I loved the pacing of it

Spoiler

The broken Portuguese intro song was something else lmao I am Portuguese and even I couldn’t understand it.

Opening the game a few times already, I love the title menu soundtrack, it’s so good and creepy!

HOLY FUCK THAT WHOLE LAST PART WAS AMAZING(LY TRAGIC), I LOVE IT— I actually did guess what Nellie would do to the girl’s hair but I did not expect them to be all siblings, woah there. Fuck, I am so glad I’m reading this and that I’m starting off the year with this gem.

I'm still not done with chapter 2 but so far it's really good!!

Spoiler

man, tales of a beast becoming more compassionate and soft over a human who treats them right is a weakness for my heart; I also do respect how they didn’t make this sexual or romantic, just like a found family (which is a trope dear to my heart)

Anyways, I should be done with chapter 2 by Sunday so I'll probably mention it in my next post! Next week I want to read both ch. 3 and 4 :watame: I now can see why this vn is so well-regarded within the community!

Edited by Fujoneko
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(just a little update on chapter 2 of Fata Morgana)

Spoiler

Okay, the Bestia just saw the girl naked and mentioned her smile, so theory time: is... is he the merchant guy? Idk, he was murdered, but at the same time, I’m very confused about everything LOL

... Holy moly I was right, AGAIN. :pyacchan:

Ok, Yukimasa is going to buy some oranges at the village... it would be a shame if the guy who brought Pauline was to recognize him, HMMM?

Oh wow, it didn’t even get to that huh. Man, this whole story was tragic but Yukimasa is such a jerk, he didn’t deserve any of the girls :disgust:

Tbh, I do prefer the first chapter to this one, but this one was pretty dope as well; they are all so tragic, I love it :iamslain:

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/27/2021 at 12:57 PM, adamstan said:

I think anyone who liked Nine would also like And. It's like Nine, but with group of childhood friends - there's also a bit of Little Busters' mood there. I'm looking forward to other routes

Okay, yesterday I finished '&' - Sora no Mukou de Sakimasu you ni -, and while it was good, I have to say that Nine was better ;)

Main themes of And seem to be friendship and the nature of wishes.

The routes can be divided into few groups.

First there are three "introductory" routes - Riko, Tsukasa and Maki. What surprised me is that each route tells completely different story - after finishing Riko's route I expected that this is the gist of the main plot, and now other routes will just fill in the gaps or reveal more, but it was nothing like that. Of course, each route features some kind of trouble related to artifacts, but that's the only thing that connects them.

Those routes mostly let us know the characters more, and provide lots of background info, and also bits and pieces of information about artifacts. I enjoyed those routes, and even though romance isn't the focus here - it's treated like in some action-adventure games or movies - but it was still nice to see MC getting closer with a girl ;) I also laughed often, both in common route and in character routes - and Riko's little sisters are one of the cutest and moest things I saw in a VN for a long time ❤️.

Moving on to the next level, there is Yae's route. It featured very amusing, almost RPG-like adventure with lots of action and kind of set the ground for the true route, introducing some of the important threads and characters. And Yae herself is very interesting girl to be around :)

Completing aforementioned four routes unlocks Urara's route, which is over twice as long as the other ones, and serves as a true route, tying up together all bits and pieces from other routes, and revealing the truth behind the artifacts and wish-granting tree that spawned them. Relationship between MC and Urara is also a bit more developed than in other routes, but it still isn't the main focus. Nevertheless I found this route to be very good, especially since I liked Urara, so I have no problem with her being the main heroine.

While the finale wasn't as epic and emotional as Nine's, it was still very good. And I think the game should end right there. However, there's more - and perhaps that's where they overdid it a little.

First, completing true route unlocks mini-route for Seira - cute girl who's the first character we meet in the VN, right in the prologue. It has a bit of fandisc-feeling, presenting kind of light-hearted what-if alternative to the main story. Seira is cute, her story was fun, but nothing special.

And then console version adds one more route - which seems to be half-joke one, but it was a huge letdown for me :( The main problem was that the "heroine" of this route is a trap Juri. The story in this route was pretty absurd, wandering into Majikoi territory, and while it was supposed to be about restoring the severed friendship - kind of an answer to one of the other endings - it was packed with weird lewd undertones that didn't sit too well with me, so I finished the whole VN with kind of sour aftertaste 😕

Like I mentioned before, I played All-ages PS3 version. It is the "lazy" kind of all-ages version - which might be considered both good and bad, depending on the point of view and implementation. It doesn't alter the story or give any replacement scenes - it just skips the porn, but the characters are banging off-screen. Almost Steam-ready ;)The only additional content in PS3 version is the abovementioned Juri's route - which sadly I didin't enjoy too much. I'd prefer to have Shouko's route if anything - she appears in many other routes, and with her backstory it could make for pretty interesting route, perhaps in the YMK vein...

So, to sum it up...

 This VN looks great - I really loved the art, although it would benefit from some more backgrounds and CGs. Music was also nice, although it got a bit repetitive after some time. Main story was quite engaging. So, considering all that, even though by the time I finished the game I was a bit disappointed, I still think it deserves at least 8/10.

PS While I didn't find it overly difficult to read, it would be a bitch to translate, because it often features kanji puns or creative furigana usage, that would require long-winded explanations in English in place of the few words used in JP.

**********************************

My next read will be probably Tenshin Ranman, since I recently grabbed newly released all-ages PC port from DLsite :)

 

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Playing Hello, Goodbye, the english translated ver.

I can kinda understand the main criticisms of the game which is the setting has a lot of potential and even could be a good plotge but kinda fizzles out, its a solid charage but contrary to its story-heavy setting it is character-focused. Although yeah I am still at chapter 1 lol after the prologue but I could see the signs. The prologue is kinda weak at the start but there is a really amazing hook at the end which could be the start of something great but after that, you would expect an explosive follow up from that amazing hook but nothing, it just kinda returns to the same old wacky everyday school life. Also I'm just gonna play Natsume and stop since Natsume is the heroine I usually like and what people consider the best one

Edit: Okay I actually finished it that was short as hell. It really is a charage which while I like charages the setting could have been used more since espionage and civil wars really interest me but alas they weren't really the focus, it wasn't much used as a setting. It doesn't help that the MC doesn't do any espionage work, he is just practically a student practically in everything. If you look at it just as a charage it is pretty satisfying but not amazing, Natsume is an extremely cute heroine that I'm gonna remember for some time, with i guess okay drama? It doesn't help that one of the main dramas of Natsume isn't actually fully explained as they obviously try to put most of the details in the true route. All in all a pretty fine game, yes I'm done with the game with just Natsume i'm not interested in any of the other heroines so I have a lot of unanswered questions but im fine with it

Edited by Larxe1
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I just started Tenshin Ranman Happy GO Lucky PC. It looks very nice, has the distinctive Yuzusoft's art style, and seems to be nice charage. UI in this version is indeed updated, and seems to be the same as in, for example, PARQUET, with flowchart, lots of skipping and rewinding options etc :)

I just completed the prologue, and during the OP sequence I encountered one weird bug - videos are flipped in both axes - meaning they're upside down and mirrored 😕 I haven't found the patch online - perhaps it hasn't been released yet. Video files themselves are packed into KiriKiri's *.xp3 archives, so fixing that would probably involve unpacking, unflipping them in some video editor, re-encoding and repacking... 面倒くさい... 😕

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I finished the 100% progress of Dead End Aegis and its prequel. I read this because of a certain magical girl connoisseur and non-school setting. I hope for more diverse science fiction genres in visual novels. Decent soundtrack and great artwork thanks to Ueda Metawo. Despite the dark content, I can stomach it.

Spoiler

I followed this order : Earth > Space > Bad End (including minor routes but same ending).

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

[The House in Fata Morgana]

aaa I've finished chapter 7 and I'm a wreck; I haven't posted any updates on the chapters but I will now!!
My comments will reflect my thoughts as I was reading them, not knowing of what happens in further chapters :nyanpasu:

Chapter 3

Spoiler

I don't have the fire I had when I finished this chapter, but Maria can step on me anytime :yes: Anyways, I found this chapter rly entertaining, even if it is one of the poorest ones haha I found the White-haired Girl's clothing so pretty too, aa~ Jacoppo can suck my nonexistent dick-- I felt like the game was trying too hard at the end there for me to empathize with him or find any compassion for his situation but too bad!, he had so many chances to actually talk with his wife but nooooo, what did he do? fucking nothing, what a loser :kyoku: 

Chapter 4

Spoiler

I don't have that much to say abt this one, since my thoughts have been overwritten by the plot twists and explanations of further chapters, but I do remember liking Giselle's character, she was so much fun! Oh, a Michel sure did grow on me haha I do like a tsundere *crys in chapter 7 foreshadowing*

Chapter 5

Spoiler

oh boy,, that rape scene and her breakdown in the forest was painful to read... I almost cried, these things are so infuriating to witness

update: ok, Giselle’s breakdown at Michel after the village bit made me cry, fuck

really, the way the author approaches rape, sexual assault and trauma is amazing, holy shit- I’ve never went through something like that (”only” sexual harassment and that alone was terrifying enough) but as someone with trauma I could really sympathize (and may I say empathize) with Giselle...

Chapter 7 (yes, I skipped chapter 6)

Spoiler

This chapter DESTROYED me :kasumicry: As a nonbinary being who is perceived as female, I can honestly relate to Michel... I may not be intersex or in the exact same kind of situation as him, but the feeling of not being in your right body remains. Aimee can suck it, ffs. And so can Didier, jfc; I want to think Georges was only forced to paint that and did not, in fact, think of Michel was female, but it crushed me seeing the two brothers he still trusted to be the ones who brought him agony and death... I would curse them tbh :ganbarimess:

And now on to the final door!! :ezgif-2-df452814b3f1: LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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Quite some time since my last update, so I guess it's about time to write a few words before I forget everything.

44108.jpg 44109.jpg

I guess I'm late to the party, but I finally read ~150 hours of Higurashi. I had somehow missed the news that this also got a graphic update from PS3, so I ignored that for quite a while, since I didn't want to be emotionally scarred by Ryuukishi07's drawing skills.

That said I enjoyed the ride quite a bit, at least for the most part. Higurashi is widely considered as *the* classic horror and mystery VN, which I think isn't really accurate. I'd say Higurashi is first and foremost a VN about friendship. And it might well be the best VN I've read about that theme so far. Actually, it frequently reminded me of Steven King's It, which also has a group of friends trying to fend of an ancient evil and which is also a personal favorite of mine (both movies actually - I didn't read the book).

Along with the friendship goes a lot of slice of life and comedy, which somehow hit a nerve with me. I found the slice of life very entertaining and the comedy freaking hilarious for the most part. Mostly because Ryuukishi07 found a good balance of when he could get a bit over the top and when to get serious. Especially the gaming sessions reminded me of my own youth, even if I didn't cheat that much. I swear! :P

It also has to said that with the graphics update, the VN felt extremely polished. The art style did fit perfectly and the music and voice acting were also top notch for the most part. Ryuukishi07 also has a talent to create powerful scenes by choosing the right music and sound effects to emphasize his writing. This applies for both comedic and serious scenes. On the other hand, he also a tendency of not finding an end. Actually, for people who want to read this mostly for the thrills, this might actually be a rather boring experience, due to the excessive slice of life and comedy. I personally enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't really bothered by it.

The actual plot is a bit of a mixed bag and I want to split this into two parts.

The first part is the world building, which is imho one of the biggest strengths of the VN. The whole history of the village and the aftermath of the damn conflict on the different characters is really well written. Especially the two Mion/Shion episodes 2 and 5 shine brightly in that regard, finding the almost perfect balance between slice of life, comedy, drama, world building and horror.

The second part is the actual main plot about the repeating Watanagashi murders, and that's the part I wasn't completely satisfied with. First, it takes literally 6 episodes (!!!) until this part actually progresses. Until then, you just get some hints about what could go on, and tons of unrelated side stories. The VN in structured into 4 question and 4 answer arcs, but it's actully more like 6 question arcs and 2 answer arcs. The individual endings also felt a bit lackluster since having one of the characters go nuts for no reason wasn't really that interesting, especially if it's repeated in a similar manner half a dozen times. It's probably best to see episodes 1 - 6 as character routes and the final two episodes as true route, though episodes 5, 6 and part of 7 from the answer arcs felt like they could have easily merged with their equivalent question arcs to get a better pacing and progress.

The final episode which should have been the great show-down was also unfortunately more a huge let-down. The hints in the previous episodes weren't particular difficult to follow, even if you ignore the somewhat obsessive hint sections of each episode, so I wouldn't exactly say I was surprised by the final resolution. However, it was probaby the most boring story resolution he could come up with, bundled with the worst writing of the whole VN. Honestly, you expect a show-down with a great ancient evil and what you get is instead:

Spoiler

Captain Obvious and the evil power rangers vs. Karate Kid & friends. :amane:

Seriously, did he play too much Resident Evil at that time? The only well written parts in episode 8 were the orphanage scenes. Though it already started in the second half of the previous episode with Satoko's overdramatized story arc. And as well as most characters were written, Ryu really has to work on the quality of his antagonists.

Nevertheless, despite its flaws this was overall a very well written story, I enjoyed quite a bit.

Character ranking: I loved the whole group of friends, though Rika, Mion and Hanyu maybe a bit more than the others.

Overall rating. 7.5/10 (Could have easily been an 8+ rating with a better story resolution)

Edited by ChaosRaven
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@ChaosRaven thanks for your review :)

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

I guess I'm late to the party

I'm even more late to the party, since I haven't started it yet. I got interested in Higurashi after I found out that I liked World End Syndrome (BTW where's the damn sequel!?).

I'm still on the fence whether to read this in Japanese or in English, since it's already veeeeery long, so with my JP reading speed it would take ages to finish. How would you rate translation quality?

Edited by adamstan
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1 hour ago, adamstan said:

@ChaosRaven thanks for your review :)

I'm even more late to the party, since I haven't started it yet. I got interested in Higurashi after I found out that I liked World End Syndrome (BTW where's the damn sequel!?).

I'm still on the fence whether to read this in Japanese or in English, since it's already veeeeery long, so with my JP reading speed it would take ages to finish. How would you rate translation quality?

As a non-native English speaker I'm probably not the best to judge the translation quality, but I personally had no issues with it. And if I remember correctly, MangaGamer did re-translate all episodes from scratch for the Steam release back in the days, which took quite a while. So they certainly spent a lot of effort to get the translation right.

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Yesterday I finished first route in Tenshin Ranman Happy GO Lucky - Hime's route. It was... okay, I guess? How to say it... it wasn't bad, there were lots of quite funny moments, and I cannot say I didn't enjoy it, but at the same time it felt a bit bland - as in, it didn't make me want to immediately read the rest of the routes. I'll probably do it anyway, since there might be some gems hidden there, and the game isn't bad, but I guess I expected something more from the "main girl's" route.

Or perhaps it's just that the standard Yuzusoft's moege formula doesn't work for me as well as it should? So far I finished four Yuzusoft's games - Noble Works, Sanoba Witch, Natsuzora Kanata and PARQUET. And even though I rated them all with 8 points, I think that nakigey Natsukana was the best. Perhaps I should raise its score to 8.5? Sanoba Witch and PARQUET also had nakige elements. And Noble Works might be a bit overrated by me, since it was one of the first few VNs I've read.

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9 hours ago, Silvz said:

I'm also enjoying White Album 2!

I have high hopes for WA2 - but at the same time I'm a bit afraid to start it - I had similar feeling about Clannad ;)

9 hours ago, Silvz said:

Also started to reread Little Busters!

I have very fond memories of LB!, but it might be too long to reread right now, with my backlog ;) So far I've reread Princess Evangile (two times - once in English and once in Japanese) and Konosora (in Japanese).

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13 hours ago, adamstan said:

I have high hopes for WA2 - but at the same time I'm a bit afraid to start it - I had similar feeling about Clannad ;)

I have very fond memories of LB!, but it might be too long to reread right now, with my backlog ;) So far I've reread Princess Evangile (two times - once in English and once in Japanese) and Konosora (in Japanese).

Man, I have to say that White Album is being great so far! I'm still in the beginning of the Introductory Chapter [which was also covered in the anime version] but I'm already hooked.

I love Little Busters, but it is a VN that at the time I first read it I could not fully appreciate, not because I didn't like it, but because I didn't understand it. Since I still have the Ex routes to read blind, I decided it would be nice to read everything again knowing about the true nature of the story so I can enjoy the hints and nuances in the characters' routes.

My backlog is also packed with many VNs and books to read, but I decided to devote only one hour per day to read LB while I do other readings at the same time.

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On 2/4/2022 at 9:30 PM, Silvz said:

I love Little Busters, but it is a VN that at the time I first read it I could not fully appreciate, not because I didn't like it, but because I didn't understand it. Since I still have the Ex routes to read blind, I decided it would be nice to read everything again knowing about the true nature of the story so I can enjoy the hints and nuances in the characters' routes.

Yeah, that would make nice reason for reread :)

****************************************************

Today I finished another route in Tenshin Ranman - this time it was Sana's (little sister) route.

Spoiler

Actually they aren't blood-related ;)

It was great - much better than Hime's route, at least for me. How to say it... - it had proper tension, and just the right amount of drama. And quite satisfying ending.
 

Spoiler

 

Family ending after a timeskip - my favorite kind for moege ❤️

HGL-screenshot-2022-02-06-14-29-30.jpg

 

 

Edited by adamstan
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Yesterday I finished another route in Tenshin Ranman - this time it was Aoi's route.

It was good route - perhaps even better than Sana's. I have soft spot for childhood friends, but I think this wasn't 100% typical osananajimi route. I mean, Aoi wasn't the kind of childhood friend that would come everyday to wake him up, bring the homemade school lunch and confess her everlasting love ;) Instead they had pretty nice friendly relationship, with healthy amount of banter. And so they struggled pretty hard to step-up to the lovers level.

Spoiler

Also, actually Aoi had a crush on Haruki for a long time, but the "curse" he's suffering from made her suppress that feeling deep into the subconscious. And finally, as another side effect of the curse, those deeply suppressed feelings burst out creating the second Aoi. So not the split personality, but actually split person. "The other Aoi" starts dating Haruki, while the "true one" doesn't know about it at all, which creates a bit of turmoil.

The thing mentioned in the spoiler above is the story gimmick that could be seen already in various charage titles, but nevertheless they handled it pretty well. Also, when they finally overcome the difficulties, the route has quite good dose of ichaicha ❤️ - even in All-ages version. Or, dare I say, the making out in all-ages version of this route is even sweeter than the sex in the original version ;)

Spoiler

And, as a cherry on top, there's marriage ending ❤️❤️

So, all in all, very nice moege route.

Now I think I'll try the two mini side-routes for Mahiro and Yukari, and after that I'll tackle Ruri's route (which is recommended by various reviewers to be read last), and then finally Mikoto's route, which is exclusive to all-ages version. It seems that Mikoto is another goddess.

Spoiler

I wonder if perhaps she's the Hime's "boss" who appears in other routes but never shows their true shape. I said "their" because Hime's boss appears through mediums - speaking either through Kotarou or Ruri ;)

Also, interesting fun fact - this game seems to be the first untranslated one to be reviewed on the Joyjason's blog, and there he said that he prefers all-ages version - even though he confused the platform it was released for back then (it should say PSP, not PS2) ;)

Quote

There’s the PS2 game with more CGs as well as Characters. This version, while excluding sexual content, is recommended over the PC version. (At least for me)

Judging by my experience with the game so far, I second this :)

I also read Micchi's and Zen's review, and my feelings about routes seem to be exactly opposite. They thought that Aoi's route was the worst, while so far it seems to be my favorite one. Hime's route that I played first wasn't bad, and the "plot/action" part about preparations for school festival was nice, but the romance part felt somewhat lacking.

Edited by adamstan
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  • 2 weeks later...

This week I finished The House in Fata Morgana and Fault: Milestone One:ezgif-2-df452814b3f1:

Fata Morgana (mostly just my conclusion)

Spoiler

oH GOD, I was ugly crying the whole time at the end there; I loved everything about this work!! Ok, maybe not everything - chapter two and three as stories alone were pretty hum... well, not as impacting as the first; but honestly, it was damn worth it! This might have a place on my top vns ngl

 Fault:

Spoiler

Hmmm, it was pretty mid for me... a pure 5/10. I feel like if it was a bit longer and the mystery was better developed, it might have been better; either that or I would be bored out of my mind lol it's a 50/50 :footsip: The ending with Selphine getting sadistic was curious, I might play the sequel soon, who knows.
P.S.: The art for the translations (for each language, I mean) was lovely!

This week I'll be reading Root Letter and I'm so excited!! I remember reading the first half of the game on the PS4, three years ago (I think?). I'm now reading it on my computer and the hype and nostalgia is absolutely real :iamslain:

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22 hours ago, Fujoneko said:

I might play the sequel soon

I'd actually recommend against that, unless you're fine with then waiting several decades for the conclusion to the story (judging by the developer's current pace). Both the next part in the series and the prequel should've been out by now, but they've been delayed so many times that the developer seems to have stopped giving any estimates at this point. Furthermore, we can probably expect more sequels after those two titles, because I sincerely doubt they will be enough to conclude the story without it feeling rushed and unsatisfying.

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I'd say the second part is worth reading on its own. It's a lot better than the first one and its main plot is pretty much self contained anyway. Most of the overarching plot and worldbuilding is kind of lame anyway, so I wouldn't mind it never being completed as long as AiD manages to put out at least one or two more episodes on the level of M2S:a (is that how you abbreviate the title?).

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