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Clephas' VN of the month


Clephas

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I decided to start a column naming my choice for VN of the month for each month's releases.  I will only choose from those VNs released in that month, and I will give a short set of comments on each for those who might be interested.  For now, I'll just give a bare list of the ones I'd recommend from the last three months.

 

June (http://vndb.org/v11865)- Futagoza no Paradox.  This VN was done by the makers of Owaru Sekai to Birthday.  Similar to that game, it is an odd sort of science fantasy, though in this case it involves a terrifying event where the two protagonists' school is suddenly taken out of the world, along with one of the protagonists (who are twins that have that sychronicity thing).  Similar to Owaru Sekai, the writing in this game is very good without being impossible for those just starting to play in-Japanese games.  Runner up was Natsukumo Yururu, for being another weirdly awesome game from the makers of Harumade Kururu.

 

July- For various reasons, I made this a tie between (http://vndb.org/v12246) Otome Riron - the sequel to (http://vndb.org/v10680) - and (http://vndb.org/v12473) Tojita Sekai no Tori Colony.  Otome Riron I chose for managing to be one of those rare sequels that draws out the best elements from the previous game while managing to go in a slightly different direction (though the first game was better, what with the addition of protagonist VA and the after-stories that came with the tokuten from Otome Riron).  Tori Colony is a game that exists mostly to make you rofl, for reasons that are fairly obvious after the first few loops (you end up looping A LOT).  This is a situation where the protagonist essentially treats a time loop like an opportunity to do whatever he feels like at the time, which results in some truly whacky (and horrible) situations.  The story itself is well-written and the endings are pretty good, making sense in the context.  I particularly loved the imouto's ending for taking such a creative way around social limits, lol.

 

August- Unfortunately, there was nothing from August I feel I could honestly recommend.  Those games I was looking forward to were huge disappointments (see my comments on Hakugin no Agreement on its vndb page if you want details), and there were no surprise kamige to take the edge off after those failures. 

 

I hope September's releases are something less of a disappointment than August's releases.

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What's your VN schedule like, Celephas?  To play and compare so many releases -- count me impressed.  I'm really looking forward to following this.

 

Any September titles looking especially promising to you?

 

Also:

Some of the links got a little wonky. June's winner (

Futagoza no Paradox (http://vndb.org/v11865)) included some of the formatting. July's winner was a little obscured by the formatting.  The first link is back to Futagoza no Paradox.  Otome Riron's link is: http://vndb.org/v12246.

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I generally finish between four and seven a month, which I pick from the non-nukige list.  I read at a pace roughly two-thirds that of my English reading speed, which allows me to finish a thousand-page book in just under seven hours.  I played four of August's games (August was really bare, so that was literally all that was available that looked worth playing) but all of them were huge disappointments.  This is my list of games I know I'm going to download for the end of September releases: Samurai Hormone (I might erase this one, if it turns out to be disgusting), Noblesse of Rouge, Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka?, and Magical Marriage Lunatics.  Those last three are all done by companies I've played games from before, and those companies generally produce a certain level of quality as long as they don't stray too far out of their favored genres.  Noblesse of Rouge is linked to one of Alcot's more hilarious games on vndb for some reason, so I have high hopes for it...

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For the August release, I recommend http://vndb.org/v12603. Innocent Bullet. That one was good for me :). And i heard Gensou no Idea http://vndb.org/v11881 was better than Futagoza no paradox. But well Both of them are good ! And I have the same though as Clephas for the september release. If Samurai Hormone doesn't contain too much rape or thing like that. I'm gonna play it. 

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Gensou no Idea is good, but not great.  Innocent Bullet was OK at best, though it was slightly better than I anticipated.  I balanced Gensou no Idea against my other two potential picks before picking Futagoza.  My reasons... were mostly because Futagoza's ending was more satisfying.  Gensou no Idea had better characters (funnier ones), but it glossed over some key elements without touching on them directly (such as the true identity of that detective/bunnyhead/torturer in relationship to the characters of Bloody Rondo). 

 

January-(http://vndb.org/v11193) Natsu no Owari no Nirvana.  This game is an utsuge with a protagonist who is the son of Enma, the Japanese judge of the dead.  He is tasked with judging three girls for their sins, a process that is rather more time-consuming than he would have preferred.  This is a generally hilarious and heart-rending tale whose true ending will probably have you weeping like a waterfall.  Nothing else in this month even came close.

 

February- Hapymaher (http://vndb.org/v10957) Godly music, a great story, and a decent (if messed up in a bad way) protagonist.  This game is one of the few games I could honestly call a kamige from this year.  I cried more for this game than I have for any new game this year by far. Runner up was (http://vndb.org/v10958) Komorebi no Nostalgia, a second kamige in a single month, for whatever insane reason drives companies to put out all their good games at the same time.

 

March- (http://vndb.org/v11194) Lovesick Puppies.  This is your basic comedy/drama/romance VN whose only flaw is that the most interesting girl in the game isn't a heroine.

 

April- Yaneura no Kanojo (http://vndb.org/v10541) similar to August, April was a rather dry month.  However, this game - the sequel to Konakana - was the best of a bad lot.  It doesn't match its predecessor for quality, but then there are few games that do.  It isn't mediocre, but when I played it I was disappointed because it failed to be a beautiful utsuge like its predecessor.  Nonetheless, it is a decent game in and of itself, and a worthy play if you have nothing else on your list.

 

May- (http://vndb.org/v7773) Reminiscence.  This game is my favorite for May, if only because

Kaito (protagonist of the Akatsuki no Goei series) and Kizuna (his bastard daughter by the teacher from the games) are two of the major characters; not to mention that another major character is Kaito's descendant by either Tae or her mother

.  I can also recommend this game for the seriously screwed up relationship between the protagonist and his little sister (and not in the usual fashion of VNs and anime) and the rest of the great cast of characters. 

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Played two of September's end-of-month releases so far: Magical Marriage Lunatics and Noblesse of Rouge.

 

Neither game is worthy of a 'game of the month', though MML manages to be a decent moege, fit for someone who wants a light game to play with no inspiring or truly interesting story to it.  Noblesse of Rouge is downright awful, failing to fulfill any of the promise its setting had.  I just started Karumaruka Circle, hoping that Saga Planets will manage to work the magic it did with Hatsuyuki Sakura and leave me in tears at the end.

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lol... VN of the month has to be above a certain level of quality.  MML is out of the question, for instance, because it is too light with no real substance.  One of the basic requirements I make of VNs that use supernatural elements as a central factor of the story is that they be addressed properly, if not completely.  In addition, pure moege are almost never worth an endorsement, lol

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Got referred to this thread by Tay, and holy shit there are so many titles I'd like to play just from Clepha's posts. 

 

Kinda also gives me a realization that even as I've been writing reviews for about a year, I'm still a beginner. 

 

I appreciate the suggestions, Clepha!

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I finished playing Karumaruka Circle and Himegoto Union, moving on to Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka?!  (which is absolutely hilarious so far). 

 

Karumaruka is about as good as any of the Saga Planets games (with the exception of Natsuyume Nagisa and Hatsuyuki Sakura, whose quality was on a completely different level), meaning it is a game that pretends at being your classic charage with strong heroine paths but turns into a story-focused when it goes for the true ending.  I didn't have many problems with Karumaruka overall, save for the somewhat erratic protagonist (in that he changes a bit too completely, too fast in the story) and the fact that Yukiha's path was so short.  It is currently the number one candidate for my game of the month.

 

Himegoto Union is your classic comedy-focused charage utilizing archetypical characters to create a story in a weird setting full of ninjas, princesses from space, horned girls, and androids.  I honestly didn't really enjoy this one much, but if you are looking for light laughs and airheaded princesses, this is a good choice for you.

 

The game I'm currently playing, Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka, is by one of my favorite companies, Rosebleu (responsible for the Tiny Dungeon series, a group of hilarious fantasy VNs).  True to the company's best work, the characters in this game are hilariously deredere (literally, their deredere antics are so extreme it will have you rofling) and it'll have you crying at least once in the early game.  Since I'm only just finishing the common route, I don't have any comments on the heroine paths yet, but feel free to look forward to my final comments, which I'll include in my game of the month post for September, regardless of whether it wins or not.

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It's been decided, my game of the month for this month is Karumaruka Circle!!!  (http://vndb.org/v12476 reference the post above for my thoughts on it).  I thought about making it "Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka?"  However, when I choose a game of the month, I'm not just choosing for me, I'm choosing what I think is the best overall game I played from that month's releases.  From a technical and writing quality perspective, Karumaruka is simply the better game, even if Ichiban is a more hilarious nakige (it draws out the tears very well, even though the game is relatively short). 

 

While I still have a few games from the past month that I haven't played yet that I'm interested in, one is a moege, one has yet to be released for download, and one is probably not as good as I want it to be. 

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If one of the ones I play later is better, I'll change my pick later, but I seriously doubt it.  What I have left are moege or guro for the most part.  Karumaruka isn't a work of genius, but it maintains Saga Planets' usual quality.

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Yume ka Ututsu ka Matryoshka (http://vndb.org/v11081) was one of the games I had the least hope for, but it managed to surprise me (especially considering that no one was playing it, as far as I could tell). I won't make it the game of the month, but it definitely would have been if it weren't for Karumaruka. It's a good story - very linear though - that is full of friendship, seishun drama, and personal growth... and not in the annoying fashion that some using the same themes tend to produce.  It's a nakige (there are a lot of scenes that will have you crying throughout the story) but the real draw is the story in each chapter and the interactions between the protagonist and his group of friends. 

 

The story structure is identical to that of Sharin no Kuni, in that, rather than having individual heroine paths, you have a chance to choose each heroine during her chapter, and that choice effects a few scenes down the line, as well as the epilogue, without changing the overall flow of the story.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here are the candidates for October's releases (incidentally, I filter out all nukige)

 

http://vndb.org/v10983

http://vndb.org/v12602

http://vndb.org/v12561

http://vndb.org/v12392

http://vndb.org/v11072

 

tbh, I don't hold out much hope for this month's releases.  However, if they don't ruin it completely, the Walkure Romance fandisc might be ok.  Monobeno... doesn't need a fandisc, so I'm sort of dubious about it.  Feng's games have a bad habit of making games that epitomize what is wrong with moege, so I don't have much in the way of hopes for Chiisana Kanojo.  Cocoro@ Function has a chance of being interesting... but after Komorebi and Reminiscence (both games that used an interesting sci-fi setting to enhance their stories), I doubt it is going to measure up.  Usotsuki Ouji looks like it will be a classic Whirlpool game, with the usual mild laughs, archetypical love story, and archetypical story progression. 

 

Like I said, I'm not exactly enthusiastic for this month's releases... more like it is a holdover until November, which has a huge number of interesting games set for release.

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Monobeno... doesn't need a fandisc, so I'm sort of dubious about it.

 

Monobeno FD seems to have even more lolis, and that's why I'll be reading it. They probably understood what was the best part of the original (half-joke, yes).

So from your list – Monobeno FD and probably Feng's new game (I like its title).

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tbh, I don't hold out much hope for this month's releases.  However, if they don't ruin it completely, the Walkure Romance fandisc might be ok.  Monobeno... doesn't need a fandisc, so I'm sort of dubious about it.  Feng's games have a bad habit of making games that epitomize what is wrong with moege, so I don't have much in the way of hopes for Chiisana Kanojo.  Cocoro@ Function has a chance of being interesting... but after Komorebi and Reminiscence (both games that used an interesting sci-fi setting to enhance their stories), I doubt it is going to measure up.  Usotsuki Ouji looks like it will be a classic Whirlpool game, with the usual mild laughs, archetypical love story, and archetypical story progression. 

 

Like I said, I'm not exactly enthusiastic for this month's releases... more like it is a holdover until November, which has a huge number of interesting games set for release.

 

MY FEELS, GOOD SIR. TAKE MY FEELS

 

You just wrote down my entire feelings for this month's releases down to its last specific point in a few sentences; that is amazing. I'm probably going to lay low and finish some old games before touching any of these (for the reference, I won't be going for any of the FDs, so no Walkure (didn't even play the main game because it didn't sound interesting), and no Monobeno. 

 

feng's game, I might get into purely for completion's sake, along with the fact that in their most recent games, I made my knee red from slapping it too much via laughter. Other than that, not too much hope for them. I kept Cocoro at bay for the exact same reason as you; Nostalgia made such an impression on me that I don't think I'll be playing any "sci-fi" storyline until Nostalgia wears out for me (icwutididthar). Along with this, it seems as if it's going to be really similar to other of Pulltop's games, which wasn't exactly the best for me. 

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Walkure Romanze's original game was a fairly decent 'confront the mistakes of your younger self' seishun/romantic comedy.  The heroine paths were pretty distinctive (though the main issue for the protagonist was the same in all of them, for the most part).  My main issue with it was the way they deliberately kept the setting/location and other issues blurry.  Considering how well they detailed the characters and their passions, it kind of surprised me that they didn't come up with some kind of explanation for why jousting got revived and turned into a pro sport. 

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