Funbag Fantasy review discussion thread

[Fred the Barber]

http://fuwanovel.net/reviews/2016/10/25/funbag-fantasy/

A pleasantly substantial plot for a game mainly about pleasantly substantial "plot".

[mitchhamilton]

yeah this is an incredibly long one to say the least. finished it like a few days ago and really enjoyed it. didnt hate any main heroine, the story was interesting and yes, there is a story with this vn. not my favorite nukige but not something i regret.

[BookwormOtaku]

Glad you enjoyed the first game and here's hoping Mangagamer licenses the sequels which do a good job world building with bringing in other countries and the game universe equivalent of the Vatican into the mix of political intrigue, plus Gladys is given more to do in Gaiden 1 and 2 (not to mention her banter with Shamsiel is always entertaining). Then of course there's the second game and its remake and hopefully MG translates the latter since it is the better version on the writing front.

[Darklord Rooke]

Watched someone play this VN and lost interest halfway through the first ... route? It started fun, but it couldn't sustain that for me - lacked depth, characters too boring (I especially agree with your statement of Gladys. Her character had a lot of potential, but was completely ruined in the second half) etc etc.

 

[Fred the Barber]

4 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Watched someone play this VN and lost interest halfway through the first ... route? It started fun, but it couldn't sustain that for me - lacked depth, characters too boring (I especially agree with your statement of Gladys. Her character had a lot of potential, but was completely ruined in the second half) etc etc.

The major route where Gladys literally never appears is actually quite a bit more interesting than the major route with Gladys in it, IMO, mostly because of the plot. The game kind of has a "heroine of the week" feel to it most of the time, which would be more fun if said heroines were more interesting. Gladys sure was fun at first, though, and Shamsiel was always great. The route you didn't see spends a ton of time with Isis, which is a mixed blessing: she's the opposite of Gladys, in that she's a lot more fun after she falls head-over-heels for the protagonist.

[Nandemonai]

I liked it quite a bit.  It knows exactly what it wants to be, and does it very effectively.  You can tell that the writers spent a lot more time than was strictly necessary planning out how things would work and putting together an interesting story.  I appreciate that.  Too often the opposite is true and the setting and story are all slapdash, thrown together on the fly or only given enough thought to make the story go where the writers wanted.  I hope MangaGamer licenses the sequels.

[CvkHawk1547]

I enjoyed it a lot. It has an interesting plot, each heroine route really enjoyable. Hope MangaGamer licenses the sequels.

[akaritan]

Assuming that I have absolutely no interest or aversion to H scenes or large-breasted heroines, and all I care about is the story, should I pick this up? From what I hear, it's nukige to its core, so I wasn't planning on reading it, but people seem to like it quite a bit for other reasons.

[Nandemonai]

On the one hand, the story is better than average, it's actually good; good enough I was interested in it.  (I was actually playing the game for the articles, I guess.)  On the other hand, the story also is obviously in service to the h-scenes.  There are many h-scenes, and the plot has obviously been designed with the explicit goal of providing good reasons for them to be there.  You aren't going to be interested in a large part of what the game is about.  To use my favorite analogy, the game is still a pizza delivery simulator; there's still huge amounts of pizza with extra sausage being delivered to, well, every major female character (and they all love pizza, can't get enough of it).  This still takes up a large part of the game's running time.  It's just that instead of an excuse plot tying all of this together, there's a real plot.

I'd say that the game gets a B or an A in ero, and a B in plot (and that's overall, not the usual "for-a-nukige" scale).  B is still a really good score; I don't really regret playing games I'd rate with a 'B' story.  To me, 'A' is reserved for the really awesome stories out there, and 'B' means "I really liked it".  The thing is, Funbag Fantasy has a much better plot than the average nukige, but that's still only enough to make it good.  Not awesome.  Which is enough to make it awesome overall if you actually like nukige, and also like good plots; you get both things at once, and that's very uncommon.  Devs making nukige know they don't have to bother, so usually, they don't.  That's why people are gushing about it.

But if you don't like nukige, then that's different.  Let's say there's a mystery novel out there getting rave reviews with people saying it transcends the usual limits of the mystery novel, where the plot wasn't just an excuse to set up a compelling mystery but actually went beyond that.  I still wouldn't recommend that book to someone who has no interest in mystery novels at all.  They might like the book despite not liking mystery novels; but there are too many books and not enough hours in anyone's life to ever read them all.  Might as well read something more up their alley.

My advice?  Probably not.  If you're dying for a visual novel, and have already worked your way through all (or most) of the others that interest you, then go for it.  Otherwise, I'd pick up something more in line with what does appeal to you.  There are plenty of VNs out there with plots that are great and not just good.

[mitchhamilton]

id say you should skip it akaritan. i mean, its not like ultimate boob wars where the mc has to rub girls breasts for energy kind of story, but the character development bits need to have h in order to proceed. and there is a loooooooooooooooooooot of h that you might just find tiring. there is a good story but i think most think "for a nukige, its a good story." nothing life changing or anything just good enough to stand above other nukige stories.

[Fred the Barber]

9 hours ago, akaritan said:

Assuming that I have absolutely no interest or aversion to H scenes or large-breasted heroines, and all I care about is the story, should I pick this up? From what I hear, it's nukige to its core, so I wasn't planning on reading it, but people seem to like it quite a bit for other reasons.

Agreed with Nandemo and Mitch: skip it. There's simply too high a percentage of the time spent in H scenes, so H (in and of itself) needs to be more than neutral for you, or it's just going to be a chore.