VN Reading Club - Yumina the Ethereal

[Arcadeotic]

2 hours ago, Blanc said:

Wait do we torre- I mean download it totally legally?

You can get it pefectly legally here: https://www.jastusa.com/catalog/product/view/id/326

[Fred the Barber]

2 hours ago, Dergonu said:

 RIP in Rance... 

Guess I'll skip this month.

(Because I was SO active the past months  )  

Do yuri month next time, and I'll be so active you guys will hate me for it  

Just FYI, the ground rules for the club are that you should vote only if you intend to play regardless of the vote's outcome - obviously this doesn't remotely happen, but it'd be nice if it did, since at the end of the day, some group of people are going to be playing and talking about the game, and it's nice if they at least get to play something that most of them wanted to play, rather than being subjected to the whims of Fuwa at large.

Edit: Although I don't think I'll have much time for it (and thus didn't vote...), I did pick up a copy and will hopefully at least play a bit. I had been wanting to try one of these VN/RPG hybrids anyway.

[Dergonu]

Just now, Fred the Barber said:

Just FYI, the ground rules for the club are that you should vote only if you intend to play regardless of the vote's outcome - obviously this doesn't remotely happen, but it'd be nice if it did, since at the end of the day, some group of people are going to be playing and talking about the game, and it's nice if they at least get to play something that most of them wanted to play, rather than being subjected to the whims of Fuwa at large.

Oh, so unless I am prepared to play any of the games listed, I shouldn't vote? 

I was not aware of that. 

I'm not really a person who is able to play something I'm not interested in, so I should probably not vote in the future unless there is a month I am interested in all the games then  

Sorry for breaking the rules, I wasn't really aware this actually had rules. Thought you could just kind of join in when there is a game you think is interesting, and kind of come and go. 

[Fred the Barber]

Just now, Dergonu said:

Oh, so unless I am prepared to play any of the games listed, I shouldn't vote? 

I was not aware of that. 

I'm not really a person who is able to play something I'm not interested in, so I should probably not vote in the future unless there is a month I am interested in all the games then  

Sorry for breaking the rules, I wasn't really aware this actually had rules. Thought you could just kind of join in when there is a game you think is interesting, and kind of come and go. 

Not a big deal, like I said, nobody follows that anyway even if they knew about it 

You don't have to vote to join in the reading and discussion, of course, so if you don't feel like you could commit to reading whatever gets picked, I suggest you just refrain from voting and join in when you see something interesting.

[Blanc]

11 hours ago, Arcadeotic said:

You can get it pefectly legally here: https://www.jastusa.com/catalog/product/view/id/326

Too expensive. Happily will perfectly get it in other ways. I want money for my vita lol.

I wish all of these wouldn't be harems tbh as I hate harems. But all of them seem to feature the same cliché many girls one guy choose your path and get hentai thing.

EDIT: I joined you guys and got the VN, were do we discuss it etc.?

 

[Fred the Barber]

12 hours ago, Blanc said:

Too expensive. Happily will perfectly get it in other ways. I want money for my vita lol.

I wish all of these wouldn't be harems tbh as I hate harems. But all of them seem to feature the same cliché many girls one guy choose your path and get hentai thing.

EDIT: I joined you guys and got the VN, were do we discuss it etc.?

 

It's up to Kurisu-Chan, but lately we've usually just been using the same voting thread, repurposed for discussion. Also, there's sometimes a request to wait a few days before starting to chatter, just to give people a chance to read... I don't know if that's in force this time or not.

[Kurisu-Chan]

You can start talking about the VN in 26 May 2016, minor spoilers are accepted, just don't talk about major spoilers.

 

[Kurisu-Chan]

Talk about Yumina the Ethereal can start, now. 

[Fred the Barber]

I'm trying to make a little time to play this, but so far I've probably spent more time fussing with settings getting it to run happily on Windows 10 (about 15 minutes) than with the game (about 10 minutes). About all I have to say so far is that the setting is cute, and so is Yumina. Also, protag with a sprite is always nice.

Has anybody spent some real time with it and have comments?

[Eclipsed]

Yumina's great. You'll have your merry band of eccentric heroines and Ayumu charge their way through the Student Presidential Campaign all while enjoying their various banters

The gameplay combat mechanics will appear convoluted / confusing as hell at first, but it's actually pretty simple once you learn it

The VN is long. My last save file for it clocks in at 68 hours. Though, you might be able to get away with < 30 if you absolutely minimized grinding & dungeon crawling and went for story only

[littleshogun]

To FredtheBarber, I think Yumina premise was kind of interesting the first time you knew it. My first impression about Yumina was from the battle actually instead of the premise itself. Other than that, it was quite shonen like I guess. And for a little spoiler, the interesting thing will be happen after chapter 5 ie entering heroine route.

Okay, so I'd finished chapter 1 (Ironically, I'd started to talked about this at the end of May, when this is supposed to be May VN Reading Club). As we knew, Yumina must face some enemy before finally she could became student council president and solve her problem in regard about to be held back. The student council election itself was had tournament form, and well it's more like any shonen fighting tournament if I said it (I mean what's with debate was visualized in fighting). For the first opponent in the tournament, Yumina and friend must face Honma Maino, the librarian. She was quite soft spoken and friendly, but she couldn't did backflip well. And because of that she want the academy had policy to judge the student capability by each of student highest potential ie the student who bad at math and excel at basketball will be tested based on basketball skill (Oh, Maino actually was more academic one so if she won the tournament she will had academic test). For Maino seiyuu, she was Rikimaru Noriko who voiced Konami Manaka back at ToHeart 2 and Caesar back in Eiyuu Senki.

The fighting with Maino herself more like warm up boss in term of story though, since she was decided to campaign fairly and you didn't had many branching (Other than CG difference). I said this because 2nd fighting will had more thing in the tournament, and I'll try to write my thought about it later. One last thing, each candidate who defeated will had sex with Ayumu in the sort of dream world (Although it's optional though). Keep in mind this information for now. For the boss tips, not much other than made good use of 'Endeavor Mind', 'Sincere Brainwashing', and 'I'm not a Cinderella Beta' skill well if you get it (Endeavor Mind buff all vanguard status by 15 for 2 turns, Sincere Brainwashing debuff all enemy status by 12 for 2 turns, and I'm not a Cinderella Beta debuff all allies status by 4 and enemies by 12). And make sure attacking use attack type which enemy vanguard couldn't block ie defense skill had - number for the attack type.

Okay, I think that's all for my comment, and sorry if I couldn't word it well here.

[Pythagoras]

Just finished Yumina's route and it took ages. The common route and the character routes probably don't take a lot of time themselves but the dungeons were extremely tedious and time-consuming. By the way, I wouldn't really consider the first spoiler to actually be a spoiler but I just wanted to be on the safe side.

 

I don't know why they would put a h-scene at the end of Yumina's route AFTER the credits. I mean, there are some VN's that do that, but personally, I think it just breaks the pacing (but hey, that's just my opinion).

 

Anyways, I think I might play hard mode (yes, there is a hard mode after you complete the game) just so I can complete the other storyline in the "fantasy world". But considering how long it took me to complete the game on normal, I'll probably just use Cheat Engine and not do any of the side quests in the training world.

[MercyZombie]

16 hours ago, Pythagoras said:

 

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Anyways, I think I might play hard mode (yes, there is a hard mode after you complete the game) just so I can complete the other storyline in the "fantasy world". But considering how long it took me to complete the game on normal, I'll probably just use Cheat Engine and not do any of the side quests in the training world.

Spoiler

Despite the name it's not really much harder then normal mode. It's mostly there so you don't roflstomp the rest of the game. 

Honestly I agree with the sentiment of the dungeons being tedious. To me the biggest weakness by far of this game is the side-quests. They take way to much time (five hyper battles in a row?... are you kidding me right now?) and they don't even have satisfying conclusions. Of some reason they decided not to have any new text when you turn in a mission making it feel even more pointless. It's not helping that the battle system is really not made for grinding. 

I need to end this post on a less negative point. Ehh so how about that Ai huh. 

Actual spoilers for after the common route.

Spoiler

So did any of you guys actually expect her to be an alien? I actually thought she was going to be a robot. In my defense she did have red terminator eyes at some point

 

[littleshogun]

Finishing Chapter 2, and well the campaign was quite different compared to Chapter 1 (The opposite party throw some ambush to threatening Yumina by using violence ie one of new thing that Yumina party must face). The enemy compared to previous chapter was quite strong (I mean the enemy was basically had many support ie follower and one of the top candidate to be the winner). The enemy name was Hinomiya Rei, and he was boy tennis club president. For the personality, he was quite fond of the strong and very arrogant, but he slightly adored his little sister, Tomori (Forgot to said, but before Yumina joining the election she had 2 more friends. One of them was Tomori) which to said lightly bothered her (By the way, since Ayumu wonder if Rei's folder had imouto game in his PC, I'd like to suggest maybe Rei could also play Imopara and Koiseyo). For last word, since Rei adored his sister, he would do ANYTHING to protect Tomori no matter what, including once again ambushing Ayumu in the afternoon. For the seiyuu, Rei was voiced by Kentarou Itou (Daijuji Kurou from Demonbane, Orochimaru from Beat Blade Haruka) while Tomori was voiced by Yanase Natsumi aka Maki Izumi (Kamikita Komari from Little Busters, Shindou Chihiro from ef, Itagaki Tatsuko from Majikoi franchise). Forgot to said, but in campaign Rei was slightly dislike Ayumu because he was near Tomori.

The gameplay itself also introduce dungeon and we also had 4th party member at this chapter (Ai was joined Yumina party in this chapter). The dungeon battle was using same debate mechanic for battle (Duh). The dungeon enemy to be honest was easy to stomp as long as you knew which attack you should use to the enemy and apply buff or debuff (Also make use of support attack). The challenge here was more in term of how much your skill left, and naturally since dungeon had many enemy while skill usage was limited sometimes you need to avoid fighting. Of course, sometimes it lead to annoying situation when you had little number of usage and we suddenly had enemy block the way while we still didn't find the teleporter. Other than we had quest, I think there's not much I could talk about dungeon, but for the tips just equip as many attack skill as possible, also since your inventory limited if you got 'Skill Ring' discard it since from my experience it was only defense skill which you could buy from the store.

About sex scene for this chapter, if you following the reasoning it should had been Rei instead of Tomori who had sex with Ayumu just like Maino. But instead here we will had sex with Tomori. While it's understandably causing some questionable plot, I think I'd rather ask if the complainer want to see yaoi sex scene between Ayumu and Rei lol. Speaking about yaoi, I'd read back in Seinarukana Animesuki thread that there's many woman who hope we got Zetsu route in Seinarukana according to the poll. Well, I think that's all for my comment about Chapter 2, and next time we'll fighting miko candidates (Which JAST translated miko as shrine maiden).

[narigane]

What with this reading club?
I did read all of those mentioned... years ago... and I can't realy afford to read VN these days (so much works and so much game)
But what I remember about Yumina was... That I got disappointed by the fact Kaguya Naruta Senpai is not one of the heroines... And since I can not read and too dumb to use tools like agth or something I didn't play the FanDisk, which is the answer for my dissapointment...

Anyway, Since I played Aselia long before Yumina, I find that their different yet similiar battle and formation system is very interesting, specialy the part where the Interupt phase become OBJECTION phase! It was very amusing.

I should do Ai-Kirara-Yumina in order if i knew how the story went... or at least do Ai 1st. For some reason I like Yumina story but I prety much captivated by Kirara's, and I plainly dislike Ai's.

A side note, when I 1st play yumina, and use the song skill and hear the song, I was having a deja vu sensation. "I feel like I knew this song" only to find out that i have played the 3rd series long time ago even thou i didn't finish it.. because of runemoons

[littleshogun]

I'm writing this using tab, so if I messed up somewhere forgive me.

Finishing Chapter 3, and this time Yumina team must face unusual campaign method from Miko Commitee, shady meeting and brainwashing (Actually more like showing Tsukuyo ability to see the future, but of course it would be very effective method to gain follower that close to the believer). Although the candidate from Miko was Tsukuyo, actually she was more like just figurehead while the true leader of Miko Commitee would be her older twin sister, Youko. By the way, for more trivia don't ever call Youko old or oba-san because she was slightly dislike it.

As for the twins history, it was like their parents run some of con that involving religion. Their parents were of course arrested and the twins had hard life until they entered the academy. For more story, Youko was try to follow her parents footstep and hope that she will be successful, while Tsukuyo just follow her sister along. Actually, both of them felt that their way was meaningless, yet both of sisters didn't had enough courage to tell each other until Ayumu interfere. That's all I could understand from their story. For seiyuu info, Youko voice was Sakurai Harumi (Kanemoto Akari from Noble Works, Takamori Haruka from Beat Blade Haruka, Lily from Himegari), and Tsukuyo voice wad Sakata Kayo (Kisaragi Suzu from Ayakashibito, Arashima Honoka from Shinikiss, Inamura Rio from Dracu Riot).

For gameplay, okay I'd find out another annoying thing, item limit. Although I didn't tried this, my suggestion would be just store healing item if you go to dungeon at Chapter 3, because I'm sure that I didn't use any of usable item in the dungeon. I think back there I'm more focused to not let any material was discarded because actually it would be your money source (By the way, monster didn't drop money), and you need to update the skill from the store (Or if you want to save money, just identify skill drop from enemy and buy defense skill from store). One more thing, you'll get your chance later if you want to do some grinding.

I think that's all for now, and hopefully I managed to write Chapter 4 commentary before June end.

PS - By the way, will all of VN Reading Club staff continuing VN Reading Club for July? Just asking here.

PPS - Forgot tonsaid, but here we had threesome for sex scene with Ayumu and the twins from Miko Commitee.

[littleshogun]

Finishing Chapter 4, and this time we're up against Kagura Nayuta who was the previous student council president and want to extend her leadership by joining student council war. As for seiyuu, Nayuta voice was Misaki Rina aka Shizuka Itou (Chris from Majikoi, Kousaka Tamaki from To Heart 2, Kaede from Duel Savior PS2 Version).

For this chapter, if you follow walkthrough ie didn't train, then the battle in this chapter was definitely wake up called boss ie you couldn't just brute force it like previous boss. The reason was because you attack will deal little damage to Nayuta and any Nayuta attack was enough to damage you heavily. But no you didn't really need to grind to level 18 or so, because Nayuta here had weakness that you could exploit. The weakness is that most of her skill using very big number of color (Around 20), and her strongest attack need 2 color to cast. The trick here would be checking which attack she will be use and how much it'll be the cost (Of course watch for color/audience bar too). Then, switch the vanguard with appropriate attack and using the highest cost attack (Even if it's only deal little damage, it's enough as long as Nayuta fumble). Beside you'll want to collect approval rating anyway, which could be raised from attack (Fumbling Nayuta stop her to increase her approval, and approval target for this battle was 81%).

About Nayuta chatacter, she was like perfect in everything and she will not fighing dirty like previous 2 rounds, because she was very strong. And she show her strength by totally crushing Rei. She was also manage to got Yumina frightened, something that previous candidates couldn't do. Although Nayuta might be perfect, her perfectionist way was in fact her major weakness. In fact, she was using pad in order to cover her small size. While it may normal for female student according to Yumina, for Nayuta it was more like major weakness because of her pride. In fact the strongest attack to fight Nayuta was gotten from knowing this. Oh, and for backstory Nayuta was like want to success where her mother failed or to be exact her mother train her to be successful in student council president war (Actually her mother already realized that the training and the goal was pointless, but when Nayuta's mom sighing Nayuta think that's mean she should did her best to fulfill her mother wish).

Well, that's all for now, and for next chapters I'll write it in spoiler box, because it was very major spoiler from the premise.

[littleshogun]

Long time no seeing this thread, so let me bump it here now because I finally finished Chapter 5 after long delay here.

Spoiler

 

This chapter was had some genre shift revelation namely from school life to space battle. The new enemy was some sort of alien called Extra Dimensional and you could only using the Ethereal to combat it. Oh, and the true goal of Student Council War was to get the strongest Ethereal user from the Earth in order to combat the alien themselves. I think while the goal was good, the method that was employed by the Galactic Federation was not so good (Or to be more precise Terran Government), because it's involving forcefully bring Yumina to the space ensuing Ayumu to rescue here. Oh well, at least it worked out in the end I guess. For more revelation, turn out Ai was from the Federation and sent as spy, and so far Kirara was had another agenda there.

 

There's a combat too here of course, and it's quite hard if one play normally if only because you'll bound to underlevel there. My suggestion there would be just using Fumble strategy ie using higest color cost against the same color enemy (For example when enemy vanguard was black, you better respond with Kirara and fire her highest cost skill in order to reduce the black color mana considerably), and don't using any support skill to make sure that the enemy couldn't take the advantage of increasing mana (By the way, mana mean audience). I think that's all the strategy that I could think for Chapter 5 battle.

Edited March 20, 2017 by littleshogun