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Here is my first try out.

Please leave critism, ideas, improvements, corrections to be made.

Please try to leave aside actual opinion on the game, keep that for the real thing ^^

 

I will add pictures later on. Added images

 

Edit :

I made quite a bunch of mistakes. I am correcting them (missing words changing a sentence's meaning.)

Please reconsider reading it.

And please leave an impression even a short one.

 

Working on V2

 

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Little Busters

 

Introduction

 

Game info:  Fuwanovel

 

 

Summary

 

You will play as Riki Naoe, the fifth member of the Little Busters!, a group of childhood friends composed of Kengo Miyazawa, Masato Inohara, Rin Natsume and her older brother Kyousuke around whom the group revolves. The game starts on the 13th of may, day in which Kyousuke comes back from his job hunting in Tokyo.
The plot will consist in living Riki's everyday school life in which your choices will guide you to one of the 6 main girls path.
 
Review (No spoilers):
 
I had a really hard time gathering up enough courage to start a new Key game after my Clannad experience, but since Little Busters was stated as a must play, I soldiered up
sneezed, i finally clicked the start button.
 
It begins as every basic Visual Novel introducing slowly but carefully the characters, first the 5 Little Busters then progressively to each girl you will get and will have to date.
You will get to chose beetween the 6 following girls : 
Haruka : A lively and talkative girl always causing trouble in the school
Kud : A cute and energetic little girl always harbouring a smile on he face
Mio : A quiet and expressionless girl. She loves books and likes to tease Riki even though he has a really time telling whether she does or not.
Komari : A friendly and naive girl, she's very clumsy and gives a great importance to her friends.
Kurugaya : She is a very clever girl, very strong and a pit perverted.
Rin : Kyousuke's sister, member of the little busters, a very shy girl who loves cats.
(I can't seem to find a proper way to describe them.)
 
2xf6Utf.jpg

 
Keep in mind that this is a Key game, so emotionnal (emotive?) people, prepare your tissues for Key are the drama masters.
Every heroine has her own concerns, her own problems and it is your role - yes, you here !- to heal her wounds. (Congratulations)
So if you do not like the kind of story were the 10 day relationship guy will solve the girl's lifelong problem, beware.
 
 
The game is full of comedy, funny moments, and the characters were designed really well. 
All of them have their own distinguished personnality and a trait that makes them remakable and none of them is irritating.
I beleive most of the players won't find anyone to hate in our little group of protagonists.
 
But the problem kicks in right at the beginning ... well not really at the beginning, well ...
Let's say the beginning is the time before the action starts right ? 
Well I welcome you to the longest beginning ever. 
The game starts on the 13th and if you are lucky, you will only foresee the beginning of a route around the 24th (If you are lucky !).
Well 11 days is not a big deal you may tell me. It wouldn't be if a day wasn't easily about 1 hour long.
And if you are unlucky like me, no action will happen before 17h of gameplay (yes sir!).
 
The baseball minigames, the fight scenes do add a lot of time in the first walktrough though.
 
But praise the lord, Little Busters has a functionnal skip button (Thank god!) and the mini games, rankings, optionnal fight scenes can be skipped too.
 
As for the routes. I'd say the scenarios were too easy.
Scenarists didn't seem to have taken much time to think about the first part of the game.
You want drama ? Then let's put our girl in a quickly found traumatising situation let's build around that in a few minutes.
In some routes it did feel like that.
Some on the other hand were much more complex and interesting in my opinion.
 
As for the walkthroughs, Little Buster is a game that can be done without one as every character is associated with an action or a specific place in the school. Just stick to one girl and it'll go swiftly.
There are very few tricky choices before you get set on a route.
Once you are on a route, there aren't many choices so save at each one if you fear chosing the wrong choice and load if you were mistaken (You have tons of save slots).
 
The scenario is very disputable on some routes, and very good on others.
Overall a player should find at least one route which fits him and will make him at ease.
But the game get really intersesting once all the routes are done and you finish Rin's second route. If you didn't like the beginning, try hard, go through it,  and get to that last part named Refain because it is the part many people praise in the game.
 
The art is overall good, it's the classic Key-ish style.
It depends on every player's tastes, most of the CG's are really good and describe/draw the atmosphere really well.

Yeah, some CG's look really good
qIQ1X9T.jpg

 
But the main reason I kept playing the game was for the troumendous, gourgious, brillant OST.
Even though the story didn't captivate me as much and wasn't the drama VN I was waiting for, make me listen to "Song for friends ~instrumental~" while watching Masato do push ups and I'll cry like a baby. (Overstatement)
There are a few musical jewels in this game and that alone made me glad I played it.
 
So an overall good game which was worth playing for it's artistic input and the last part but when only 3 of the 6 girls have and intersting route, I guess I can't call this a Master piece.
Personnal rating : 7.5/10
 
Personnal Thoughs (Spoilers)

Major spoilers in this section. If you haven't played the game I'd strongly recommend you to stop here.

Best girl:

PlN4btm.png

I won't post my thoughs here yet.

Let's keep this thread discussing the actual topic rather than my thoughs.

 

 

Edited by Guest
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V2

haT8gx0.jpg

Little Busters

 

 

 

Game info:  Fuwanovel

 

I had a really hard time even considering playing another Key Visual Novel after reading the master piece named Clannad. I was afraid of either it being and emotionnal bomb or a big deception.

Little Busters was a popular and pretty well rated game overall, often stated as a “must play”, so I have to give it a try..

Gathering up courage, and full of expectations, I lanched the game.

 

You incarnate Riki Naoe, a young boy who lost his parents as a kid and suffering from narcolepsy, disease which causes him to randomly fall alseep. He is the fifth member of the little busters, a group of childhood friends well known for causing trouble and playing extravagant games.

He was invited after his parents' death by Kyousuke Natsume, leader of the Little Busters and around whom the group revolves.

The other members are :

Kengo Miyazawa, a kendo fighter with a very calm personnality. He always wears his blue kimono and is very popular among girls.

Masato Inohara, he's Riki's roomate. Often stated as an idiot and finding fulfilement only in his muscle training, he nevertheless is very considerate towards his friends.

Rin Natsume, the main female protagonist and Kyousuke's sister. She is very shy which causes her to have a hard time making friends but is very lively when it comes to Little Busters.

 

The game begins as every standard Visual Novel introducing slowly but carefully the characters and prograssively the different girls you will get and have to date.

Your choices will guide you to one of the following girl's route :

Haruka, Kud, Mio, Komari, Kurugaya, and finally Rin.

 

2xf6Utf.jpg

 

Each heroin as her own concerns, her own problems and Riki's role will throughout the game be as you may guess to heal each of their wounds.

Every one of them has a distinguished personality, and Key succesfully managed something that unfortunately does not happen often which is balancing the different characters.

What I mean is that all of the girls character design seem to have been perfect with the same care, not letting one of them fall behind, and that is quite the achievement I must say.

 

The game is sprinkled with comedy, and the atmosphere in which the game drew me felt warm and cozy. Dialogues fit the mindset of a teenage group, not to sophisticated but mature enough to go beyond appearences.

 

You will sail on this ocean of peacefullness in the beginning of the story.

There kicks the first big issue.

The game starts on the 13th of may.

Absolutely nothing will happen and no clue that anything actually will happen, will be given to the player before the 24th IF you are lucky and get on a route that starts early.

Well that wouldn't be a problem if 1 day didn't amount to at least 1 hour of reading.

I was unlucky and got Rin's first route in my initial walkthrough which amounted to 17h of Riki's joyful everyday school life. Well written or not this is way too much and quickly becomes boring.

 

Thank the Lord that Little Busters! has a functionnal skip button and that the baseball minigame, the rankings, the optionnal fight scenes can be avoided to.

 

I'm going to give my opinion on the scenario now.

Key's speciality is Drama. They love it and are known for their tearjerking games.

But this time, it felt that rather than creating a good story from scratch, they created their story knowing that they wanted it to be drama.

Let me explain what that means and why it had a rather bad involvment on the scenario.

It is really easy to make drama, take a young girl whose familly was killed before her eyes, was treated like a slave, beaten up, lived in the streets, is bullied and has to listen to a Taylor Swift CD all day long and you just created a terrible story with a really pitiful girl.

This story is bad for a simple reason : it makes no sense. If you put a female character in such a situation just for the sake of making her past sad enough to make you cry (with violins and stuff), you are not making a good plot and it's even worse when it's not justified properly.

This is how Haruka's route and part of Kud's felt.

And that really upset me.

 

The other routes were good enough. Each of them had something to offer and were linked somehow to what we learn in the last route.

 

Once you finish all the 6 girls path, you can access Refrain which is the really interesting segment of the game. This is what would make this game recommendable so I would advise sticking to the game until it comes.

 

The art is good over all in this very Key-ish style.

How to describe it … I think an example would explain better than words

Some of the graphics are powerfull, even more in context.
qIQ1X9T.jpg

 

It really depends on the player's tastes and most of the CG's are good (some are really good but some are lacking, so it is fine)

 

But the main reason I kept playing the game was for the troumendous, gorgious, brillant OST.

Even though the story didn't captivate me that much and wasn't the drama VN I was waiting for, make me listen to "Song for friends ~instrumental~" while watching Masato do push ups and I'll cry like a baby. (Overstatement)

There are a few musical jewels in this game and that alone made me glad I played it.

 

So and overall good game which was worth playing for it's artistic input and Refrain

But when only half of the girls have and intersting route, I guess I can't call this a Master piece.

Personnal rating : 7.5/10

 

Feel free to talk about your own opinion.

If you want talk about something that might spoil the game please use the

code

 

How about this one, do you think it's fine enough to be finally posted ?

Maybe I can organise it with titles a little more.

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