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VNs and the nature of a good path


Clephas

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In the reading club thread for Ayakashibito, I mentioned the idea of 'paths transcending heroines', an idea that is uniquely linked to VN story structure as a whole.  These are paths that can be great for reading despite having a truly awful heroine or heroines. 

 

Now, for those who prefer the moege as a genre, this concept is probably completely alien to your experience... to be blunt, this concept is essentially unknown in the moege genre.  The attractiveness of a heroine is usually at least fifty percent of the actual path's attraction, in most cases.  Moege quite simply do not follow the right ideas to produce this level of quality in a path.  Too much of the story is forcibly built to 'convenience' in order to make a heroine shine.  The events are inevitably almost entirely personal to the heroine, with most of the impact coming from the fact that you like/love/adore/worship that heroine.

 

The idea of a story that is brutally indifferent to what the heroine wants or her personal circumstances outside of those events she or the protagonist can directly influence is very rare in this type of game.  Generally speaking, there is some convenient way that presents itself for the protagonist or the heroine herself to solve these problems without going outside their immediate circle of friends or family... or someone just comes along and presents a convenient solution that solves everything without any truly realistic reason for it to end up that way.

 

Indifference of the world to the characters' convenience is a more common idea in non-otaku circles, though chuuni stories and military ones tend to gleefully include such, with an enthusiasm that sometimes goes way out on the deep end (see Muv-luv Alternative, as an example of this). 

 

Anyway, back to paths transcending heroines... I more or less wanted to just outline how rare this is in VNs or male-oriented otakuism in general.  The fact is that it requires a level of writing skill and disregard for conventions that is unnatural and abnormal for the average otaku-oriented writer.  For a path to both have a heroine and have a plot that completely transcends her own attractiveness is an extremely hard thing to do... and something that should be appreciated when it does happen. 

 

PS:  People who like more serious stories frequently ask me 'How can you play so many moege when you know you'll have to wade through piles of shit to find the gems?'  My answer - and this is unlikely to change - is that finding one gem is more than worth wading through fifteen piles of shit.  Yes, my contempt for the average moege/charage is fairly withering... but that is because I believe there are limits on the value of the virtue of mimicry, though I don't deny that such a virtue exists.

 

Edit:  Also, if I, by wading through all that shit, can prevent pure shit from being inflicted by uneducated enthusiasts upon poor unsuspecting translators, I will gladly do so *Clephas hints at those who grab a random good-looking VN from amongst recent releases and basically decide to start a translation project for it without knowing if it is good or not*

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Well overall, when character design is poorly done, it has an impact on the way a player will perceive the story.

 

And in Moeges, which overall have a really poor plot, if the character itself isn't likable enough, the route is going to be a failure.

I just think it's a matter of having a real, original story to tell rather than relying on the cuteness and the personnality of the heroine.

But, meh, the industry does what the audience wants =/ Pretty girls and H scenes, who needs an interesting non cliché scenario ?

That's why there's so much shit.

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That quality seems to be more present in VNs with an overarching plot, where even if you don't like a particular heroine, there's still world and story building. I think F/SN is a good example of this, as even if you don't like Saber/Rin/Sakura, there's still a lot of value to be found in the narrative itself. SnK is similar, though that game doesn't have what you could call any traditional paths since all the heroine stuff is built around the plot itself.

 

Can anyone else provide some examples of games with a route that 'transcends the heroine'?

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Heaven's feel route is the most obvious one. Sakura is lame, but was a pretty good read anyway. 

 

Clephas might disagree, but Aiyoku no Eustia comes to mind as well. Even though each chapter is essentially focused on one heroine each, I'd hardly call the events conveniently made so a heroine can shine. 

Especially in Eris's case, as well as Collette. I liked Eris before her chapter, and after her chapter I almost hated her, or at the very least was kind of creeped out. Licia's portion kind of made her shine, but her maturing to adulthood was kind of the focus of that chapter. Please don't say the last chapter made Eustia shine. She simply fulfilled her role of the plot, the last chapter sure as hell didn't do her any favors in making people like her, and probably made a lot of people pissed off at caim.

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This was a good read.

I don't know if there was anything I've read where the path transcends the heroine, since I tend to love every character I meet in a visual novel. I guess that's how incapable I am of hating someone.

In that regard, I view a route as good basically because it is good. At least for my tastes. I do agree that sometimes the route shines more than the heroines do. Again, in Fate/Stay Night. But of course, it also depends on the type of eroge, like what you've said.

Haaaaaaah. Guess it'll be hard to know whether I'm reading something that has plot>heroine or heroine>plot or heroine=plot.

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These two come to mind.

 

Majikoi - Kazuko Route: Her determination to excel in martial arts is both an appeal and a conflict. Her character is extensively developed in the route, leading to a devastating but realistic climax that allows romance to naturally blossom from its ashes. I consider this route a rather well written coming of age drama, by visual novel standards.

 

Eden*: The inevitable death of Sion parallels the inevitable destruction of the planet. Time plays a large role in reinforcing the characters' relationship: as Sion embraces freedom and learns more about the world, as they become lovers, the withering environment repeatedly reminds us that her last days are near. The various symbolism used in this route plays in more subtly, for example, Sion's strand of hair, Erika's music box, etc.

 

A few others that may apply to a lesser degree: Muramasa (Ichijou), YU-NO (Multiple).

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That was a good read Clephas, but I have one question: have you ever found a moege you enjoyed and (if so) what's your favorite? I'm personally not into them, but it'd be nice to see if you found a moege gem yet

I've found dozens of moege/charage/nakige gems that others have more or less overlooked over the years.  Some, like Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no, are recommendations from older VN-gamers (Accany, in this case) and in other cases, I simply found it on my own (Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas). 

 

The fact is, moege aren't always godawful... it is just that the medium produces a ridiculous amount of mediocrity for every gem it produces.  I frequently roll my eyes at the stuff I see people translating (Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort and Koiken Otome are examples of this...), but can I seriously expect people to have the same level of experience I have in wading through the mud to find the gems?  The answer is no.  It also isn't their fault they don't read my VN of the Month thread, because - to be blunt - that thread has gotten ridiculously huge for what is basically a monthly blog of mini-reviews (it is surprising how many posts will build up after over a year of writing on an average of four VN releases a month). 

 

If you want a few examples of high-quality VNs that are basically moege (excluding the two I mentioned above)...

 

Komorebi no Nostalgica (kamige... almost unheard of in a moege, lol)

Irotoridori no Sekai

AstralAir no Shiroki Towa

Ore no Tsure wa Hitodenashi

Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou

Minamijuujisei Renka

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Clephas said, "PS:  People who like more serious stories frequently ask me 'How can you play so many moege when you know you'll have to wade through piles of shit to find the gems?'  My answer - and this is unlikely to change - is that finding one gem is more than worth wading through fifteen piles of shit.  Yes, my contempt for the average moege/charage is fairly withering... but that is because I believe there are limits on the value of the virtue of mimicry, though I don't deny that such a virtue exists."

 

If you told me, "Nine out of ten cute romance games aren't interesting," then I might be tempted to reply, "But the remaining one of out ten is worth dying for." Perhaps this statement will not make much sense. I acknowledge that there are a lot of strictly formula stories, as well as ones that don't live up to my expectations. I also acknowledge that there will be just a few per year that I genuinely like enough to read them until the end.

 

Keep in mind that I look for pop culture media that holds my interest. I don't care who wrote it, or what format it's in, or how expensive it is. I can talk for quite some time about all the fantasy / scifi prose fiction that I used to read, as well as a variety of comics and video games. That said, no matter how the story is presented, if I do not care about the fictional characters and their situation, then I will most likely not finish reading the story.

 

One last thought: if you're frustrated by experiencing story after story that you don't enjoy, ask yourself, "What would Theodore Sturgeon say?"

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I've found dozens of moege/charage/nakige gems that others have more or less overlooked over the years.  Some, like Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no, are recommendations from older VN-gamers (Accany, in this case) and in other cases, I simply found it on my own (Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas). 

 

The fact is, moege aren't always godawful... it is just that the medium produces a ridiculous amount of mediocrity for every gem it produces.  I frequently roll my eyes at the stuff I see people translating (Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort and Koiken Otome are examples of this...), but can I seriously expect people to have the same level of experience I have in wading through the mud to find the gems?  The answer is no.  It also isn't their fault they don't read my VN of the Month thread, because - to be blunt - that thread has gotten ridiculously huge for what is basically a monthly blog of mini-reviews (it is surprising how many posts will build up after over a year of writing on an average of four VN releases a month). 

 

If you want a few examples of high-quality VNs that are basically moege (excluding the two I mentioned above)...

 

Komorebi no Nostalgica (kamige... almost unheard of in a moege, lol)

Irotoridori no Sekai

AstralAir no Shiroki Towa

Ore no Tsure wa Hitodenashi

Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou

Minamijuujisei Renka

It's disappointing to hear that Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort is among the bilious part of moege. Thank you for the recommendations though, it'd be nice to expand beyond the genres I typically read in order to experience another side of VNs

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I have to half agree I guess.

 

I see nothing wrong with moege other than the fact that there's too many of them. Like seriously. The potential of this genre is completed wasted on just cranking out moege.

 

However I don't see the appeal of having the main conflict of a story being solved independent of the main characters unless the story is written as a "how they live through the situation" like say a holocaust story. I mean then what's the point? This applies to any medium, not just VN, and this seem to be a very mainstream opinion.

 

I personally have a high toleration for characters. As long as they're not selfish jerks, I am probably okay with them. That said, I have to echo the above: If I don't like them, why should I care for their problem?

 

What is a 神ゲー and what is good is down to personal taste of course.

But 俺の彼女はヒトでなし...why?

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lol... it isn't a kamige, but Hitodenashi is a fun read... and it has some really good bad endings.

 

Edit:  Mephisto is right about my opinion on Eustia... I felt that the main path was spectacularly bad, especially the fact that the main heroine, whom you'd have to actually care about for the main path to matter to you, is one of the most spectacularly unsympathetic heroines I've ever run across (though again, this is just my opinion).  For me, it fell short of a path transcending a heroine... because it didn't make up for how awful Eustia is as a heroine.  This isn't even mentioning the fact that the side-heroine paths make absolutely no sense in the greater context of the story, simply because their endings are literally impossible - as is made evident in the main path. 

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Objectively it's hard to say, but subjectively I liked some routes better than others, despite liking heroines from other routes more. I like Saber better than Rin, but UBW better than Fate. An example from a more traditional format would be Grisaia. Michiru would be in my top 3 heroines, but her route was my least fav. Similarly Yumiko is my least fav heroine but I like her route better than Michiru's at least. There are a few other subjective examples like that from what I've read. But yeah, generally there's a positive relationship between heroine quality (again, mostly subjective) and route quality. I'll often ignore a route entirely if I dislike the character, mainly if they're selfish jerks like stated above. Though this is only really applicable to typical moege. I don't wanna see a selfish jerk romance, but I don't mind as much if a selfish jerk takes the spotlight in an otherwise interesting story.

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