I believe Valve's criteria is a) does the girl appear in a school uniform and b) does the girl have sex during the story.
I would instantly neck myself if this happened.
tbh I didn't know much about Higurashi before starting the games. I tried watching the anime years ago and found it dreadfully dull to the point of dropping it after 3 episodes. For some reason, the VNs have been way more digestible for me.
It's pretty sacrilege to say in the Visual Novels Thread of all places but I quite enjoy the anime for Higurashi after all of these years. It's easily one of my favorite anime despite not really being a good adaptation of the VN, which is odd to say. Without it I wouldn't have ever bothered with reading Umineko and eventually Higurashi. The soundtrack being done by Kenji Kawai of all people also helps. Michishirube is also a great song for Higurashi. Also are you going to read Umineko after this?
I think a big part of why the VN works for me but the anime doesn't is the difference in how tension is managed. In the anime, the violence is almost the centerpiece. It feels like the show is going through the motions so it can finally get to the "good part" where it shows you the SUPER COOL AWESOME VIOLENT SCENE WHERE GIRL STABS HERSELF AGAINST A WALL THIS IS DEFINITELY WHAT EVERYONE WAS WAITING FOR. And that shit is boring to me.
I think it is more simple than that. Similar to how film adaptions of books end up, VNs and anime are fundamentally different mediums. Anime is visual, which lends itself to action, as well as environmental storytelling and nonverbal dialogue in a way VNs are unable to. VNs, similarly to novels, are a textual medium, which means that they are able to include vast paragraphs of inner monologue and introspection without breaking the pacing. Just look at some of the most famous VNs, such as Fate. and the reams of internal dialogue. An anime could never adapt this particular aspect, just as a VN could never replicate something like action scenes or sweeping environmental shots, so they work towards their own particular strengths in the medium. It's why I think no anime adaption of a VN holds up to the original, because it will be constrained by the new medium it is adapted to for a work not suited to it.
Finished reading Kara no Shoujou remake. It's good but it wasn't as amazing as I assumed it will be. The characters are fun but it's hard to get to attached to most of them (especially as it's not really route based), the plot gets too convoluted, and by the end I just followed a guide after getting locked out of the normal ending due to missing a conversation. If I had played it a decade ago the mutilation horror would have probably been harder to swallow, but by now I'm too jaded.
Sad to say but it takes a loooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggg time for the story to actually get to the more notable parts. I'd hazard it's around 30 hours to get there for 10 hours of content that doesn't really fit in with how it was beforehand. It's probably better to just use a guide to get to that part, you will lose some plot points but some are better for your sanity. Spoilerish hint: The game is on my list of the protag fucking his daughters.
Bummer. This and some other comments that also confirmed that I should just give it up and only pick it back up if I absolutely want another VN and it's the only one left that isn't a pile of garbage. It just seems like a solid 6/10 that would have been a 9/10 20 years ago when there wasn't so much else on the market that did it better.
That's how I feel about a lot of the ADV games from the PC-98 era. A lot of them were massively influential but all the good ideas got co-opted and done way more competently in the Windows era.
As somebody who watched it while it was airing Sotsugou is horrid dogshit and not worth your time whatsoever.
Oh loooool no you don't. You'll have to tackle Umineko before Shitsugou, and even then, don't even bother with it. Not even the manga could save that script.
That's for the best. I've heard some alright things about Mitotsukushi (an alternate ending to Higurashi) but as you mentioned you have to read a ton of other okay to middling side chapters to get to it. The other extra arcs are mainly fanservice (zombie, swimsuit arcs). It's up to you if you think they're worth reading or watching the Kira anime for. There's an online guide for all of the console/extra exclusive arcs and its easy enough to setup on PC if you have the 07th Mod and a copy of Himatsubushi.
Yeah that's kinda what I was thinking. If they were short then I'd knuckle down and do them but finding out the Miotsukushi line is about the whole length of the question arcs (which already took me a month to get through) definitely puts me off them. I guess I can come back later and read them.