Visual Novels

[Nobody In Particular]

Mine is that one weirdly consistent way Harumi Sakurai gets type casted as "bitchey cunt who messes with the protagonist before becoming obsessed with him".

View attachment 6957908
View attachment 6957912

This also applies to Saya.

 

[Squanto Airi]

Obviously I like Muv Luv but its kind of a big investment for someone who may or may not even like VN

On the one hand you're right. On the other hand, who doesn't dig giant robots?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Return to Shiroganasu Island

That was such a surprise to find randomly on Steam. Really fun.

For the longest time I've been following /vg/'s guide to VN recommendations after I finished reading Umineko. Keep in mind that this guide is close to a decade old but I'd still say it's good. Also check VNDB as there is always some new patch or version that makes the reading experience that much better.
View attachment 6958853

As I slowly make my way in Muv Luv, dreading the infamous chomp moment, might as well see what I played here:
* G-String - Played. Pretty good game. Good system of main route and branching routes.
* Song of Saya - Short and great, like Saya.
* Stein's Gate - Very good.
* Planetarian - Also good and short. Hard to beat dying android in post apocalypse in the feels.
* Fate/Stay Night - It's Fate. I would never suggest it to a beginner though.
* Eden* - On my Steam library, need to play.
* Umineko - Very good but last chapter is controversial.
* Muv Luv - Playing.
* Euphoria - Haven't played but unfortunate enough to see the hentai.
* Rabbit Hole - Extremely fucked up. I recommend.
* House in Fata Morgana - I liked it.
* Yu-No - I didn't like it. Very slow and only reaches interesting shit after dozens of hours.
* Yumina the Ethereal - Keep downloading it but not playing. The whole dungeon thing filters me out.
* Kamidori - Really good, though I only played the black haired girl's route.
* Hoshizora no Memoria - Alright. Has the issue where the final route invalidates the other routes since it's a straight romance.
* Grisaia - Fantastic and very funny.
* Kara no Shoujo - Really good but the hype kind of brings it down.
* Clannad - Classic.
* Little Busters - Classic.
* Rewrite - My favourite VN.
* Ever17 - Really good.
* Utawarerumono - Prefer the anime. Sequels rock though their anime version sucks.
* Forest - Weird little game. Mainly remember it for really unfortunate sex scenes and ripping off Heroes 3 music.
* Shikkoku no Sharnoth - Played the game some years back but stopped for some reason shortly after the start.
* Himawari - Really good, sad the conclusion is supposedly in some audio work that will never be translated.
* Chaos;Head - Rough around the edges but good denpa.
* Demonbane - Fucking rocks. Only did main heroine since the other routes looked the same to me.
* Yume Miru Kusuri - Keep downloading the game and never playing it.
* Tsukihime - It's Tsukihime.
* Dies Irae - Only did two routes. Extremely wordy and has the issue of the main route make a lot of other routes feel less significant. Really it's like 20 fucking Light Novels crammed into a single game.
* Root Double - Didn't like it.

 

[God of Nothing]

* Fate/Stay Night - It's Fate. I would never suggest it to a beginner though.*

* Tsukihime - It's Tsukihime.

lol

 

[Nobody In Particular]

Kamidori - Really good, though I only played the black haired girl's route.

I believe in the nobility, grace, and child bearing hips of the superior elven race.

 

[Gamepads]

Return to Shiroganasu Island

If you're gonna get Return to Shiroganasu Island, make sure to set the game region to Japanese and install the English patch. The English version doesn't have the voice acting.

 

[HexFag]

As I slowly make my way in Muv Luv, dreading the infamous chomp moment, might as well see what I played here:
* G-String - Played. Pretty good game. Good system of main route and branching routes.
* Song of Saya - Short and great, like Saya.
* Stein's Gate - Very good.
* Planetarian - Also good and short. Hard to beat dying android in post apocalypse in the feels.
* Fate/Stay Night - It's Fate. I would never suggest it to a beginner though.
* Eden* - On my Steam library, need to play.
* Umineko - Very good but last chapter is controversial.
* Muv Luv - Playing.
* Euphoria - Haven't played but unfortunate enough to see the hentai.
* Rabbit Hole - Extremely fucked up. I recommend.
* House in Fata Morgana - I liked it.
* Yu-No - I didn't like it. Very slow and only reaches interesting shit after dozens of hours.
* Yumina the Ethereal - Keep downloading it but not playing. The whole dungeon thing filters me out.
* Kamidori - Really good, though I only played the black haired girl's route.
* Hoshizora no Memoria - Alright. Has the issue where the final route invalidates the other routes since it's a straight romance.
* Grisaia - Fantastic and very funny.
* Kara no Shoujo - Really good but the hype kind of brings it down.
* Clannad - Classic.
* Little Busters - Classic.
* Rewrite - My favourite VN.
* Ever17 - Really good.
* Utawarerumono - Prefer the anime. Sequels rock though their anime version sucks.
* Forest - Weird little game. Mainly remember it for really unfortunate sex scenes and ripping off Heroes 3 music.
* Shikkoku no Sharnoth - Played the game some years back but stopped for some reason shortly after the start.
* Himawari - Really good, sad the conclusion is supposedly in some audio work that will never be translated.
* Chaos;Head - Rough around the edges but good denpa.
* Demonbane - Fucking rocks. Only did main heroine since the other routes looked the same to me.
* Yume Miru Kusuri - Keep downloading the game and never playing it.
* Tsukihime - It's Tsukihime.
* Dies Irae - Only did two routes. Extremely wordy and has the issue of the main route make a lot of other routes feel less significant. Really it's like 20 fucking Light Novels crammed into a single game.
* Root Double - Didn't like it.

Nigga you read Umineko but not Higurashi? Get on that shit. Also after rereading Umineko, I still don't get the hate for EP8. It's not my favorite EP (the pacing is kind of slow at the start but by god that ending is PERFECT), but I never got the hate here and by Japanese fans. I know opinions on Ryukishi are contentious after SotsuGou 5 years ago (oh god has it really been THAT long ) but I will still stand by that the WTC series is still fantastic and a must read.

Also what do you mean by Kara no Shoujo being "Really good but the hype kind of brings it down." I was interested in it because the third entry just got released in English.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Nigga you read Umineko but not Higurashi? Get on that shit. Also after rereading Umineko, I still don't get the hate for EP8. It's not my favorite EP (the pacing is kind of slow at the start but by god that ending is PERFECT), but I never got the hate here and by Japanese fans. I know opinions on Ryukishi are contentious after SotsuGou 5 years ago (oh god has it really been THAT long ) but I will still stand by that the WTC series is still fantastic and a must read.

Also what do you mean by Kara no Shoujo being "Really good but the hype kind of brings it down." I was interested in it because the third entry just got released in English.

I saw the anime for Higurashi at the olden days before even knowing what a VN was, and never felt the need to read the VN afterwards. With Umineko there's the entire spergout thread, but seemingly the opinion towards 8 changes depending on how you look at the portrayal of the goats in that chapter (ie, whether they represent IRL people who butt into someone else's personal tragedies, or it's a representation of the readers who want an actual answer).

Kara no Shoujo is good but I didn't feel it was the masterpiece that it was described as. Basically an 8/10.

Also holy fucking shit that old farmer lady in Muv Luv is my most hated character. It wasn't bad enough she is responsible for an absolutely retarded arc in the previous game, now her retardation causes a civil war.

 

[HexFag]

I saw the anime for Higurashi at the olden days before even knowing what a VN was, and never felt the need to read the VN afterwards. With Umineko there's the entire spergout thread, but seemingly the opinion towards 8 changes depending on how you look at the portrayal of the goats in that chapter (ie, whether they represent IRL people who butt into someone else's personal tragedies, or it's a representation of the readers who want an actual answer).

I felt the same way about Higurashi becuase I also watched the anime before the VN but then you realize that the DEEN anime only kind of does a subpar adapting the content of the VN. I still love it to death because it ultimately got me into the series (along with the OST being good on its own), but I would never recommend it over the VN.

To put the Umineko sperging to death, especially because there is a whole damn thread for it, the goats absolutely represent both IRL people who butt into personal tragedies as well as fans who are annoyed that they are not getting told direct answers. Ryukishi only lampoons those who aren't willing to put in the bare minimum to figure things out on their own, something that had been established since at least EP4 of HIGURASHI. The hints to the culprit are as subtle as a gunshot in EP6 (I would argue this is completely intentional for story reasons) and they flat out just tell you who it is in EP7 as long as you can put two and two together.

Also the Civil War arc in Alternative is pretty good but yeah the way it starts is kind of dumb.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

It Happened. I wonder how people who went in blind for the third game taken it. Up until that moment nothing even close to the level of darkness happened. There were implications but you could ignore them.

If I didn't already know it's not the case, it would have been a really fantastic twist if Alternative 4 was basically to switcheroo everyone in the world with the non Beta universe denizens. Would have made for some of the cruelest fucking moral choice in fiction.

Anyways at least I can finally continue without worrying when is the chomp happening.

 

[Nobody In Particular]

Wake up you fat nerds, Air is coming to Steam in 2 weeks.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

I still don't get the hate for EP8.

There is an EP9 - are you aware of that one? But I loved EP8. I think my favorite scene is the confrontation between

Spoiler

Ange and Beatrice

because it makes you realize how tragic, and unnecessary, the whole ordeal was. It's a very climatic moment - the synthesis of everything up until that point. I'm not sure what you could say to someone in Ange's position. Brad at the end of LISA (if you're aware of that game) said something very similar to her. She went through a lot of unnecessary suffering because of the stupidity of a single person. Since you're familiar with Higurashi, it's much like how a teddy bear in Watanagashi fucked everything up.

 

[HexFag]

There is an EP9 - are you aware of that one?

I read Saku. I liked it a good amount too, though its not nearly as hard hitting of a conclusion as Saikoroshi-hen from Higurashi.

Wake up you fat nerds, Air is coming to Steam in 2 weeks.

Good to hear, Tori no Uta is a 10/10 OP.

In other news, the Switch version of Kanon is censored for some reason.

 

[Nobody In Particular]

In other news, the Switch version of Kanon is censored for some reason.
View attachment 6981837

They did this to the Switch port of Clannad too.
Reminder: you see Ruika's nips in the Switch port of Amakano 2nd Season because they forgot to edit one of her CGs that shows up in the credits. All of this is just NOA being faggoty.

 

[Poop A Loop]

It Happened. I wonder how people who went in blind for the third game taken it.

Anyways at least I can finally continue without worrying when is the chomp happening.

I'd heard about CHOMP and how it was this thing that everyone who plays MuvLuv says freaked them out, but other than that I went in blind since I didn't know when it happened or who it happens to.

It was horrifying. Caught my completely by surprise and gave me nightmares that night haha.

 

[Nobody In Particular]

I've been busy as fuck so I only just got around to finishing HBR chapter 2. I liked it a lot.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I feel like I'm going to be crucified for it. But I really find it hard to keep reading Muv Luv past the coming back home arc. It had a really fantastic pacing up until then and now the game slowed to a complete crawl. It's either endless info dumps, absolutely way too long conversations about the same topics, having new characters I don't give a shit about while having the original characters fade into the background, or the protagonist feels sorry for himself for the billionth time only to get a motivation speech from another character on how great he is.

It really feels like another game stapled into the previous half, but the pacing is so laborious. Even the Sumika relationship is starting to wear our its welfome.

 

[HexFag]

I feel like I'm going to be crucified for it. But I really find it hard to keep reading Muv Luv past the coming back home arc. It had a really fantastic pacing up until then and now the game slowed to a complete crawl. It's either endless info dumps, absolutely way too long conversations about the same topics, having new characters I don't give a shit about while having the original characters fade into the background, or the protagonist feels sorry for himself for the billionth time only to get a motivation speech from another character on how great he is.

It really feels like another game stapled into the previous half, but the pacing is so laborious. Even the Sumika relationship is starting to wear our its welfome.

Yeah a lot of people consider either the Civil War arc or the Age Cameo arc the worst in the VN but the final act is very solid. I think the Age cameos are cool if we lived in a world where more than Muv Luv got translated (I know KimiNozo got translated but Kimi ga Ita Kisestu still isn't). I liked the characters shown here but I felt if they were introduced sometime in Unlimited or some shit instead of ALL AT ONCE, it'd be more impactful imo.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Yeah a lot of people consider either the Civil War arc or the Age Cameo arc the worst in the VN but the final act is very solid. I think the Age cameos are cool if we lived in a world where more than Muv Luv got translated (I know KimiNozo got translated but Kimi ga Ita Kisestu still isn't). I liked the characters shown here but I felt if they were introduced sometime in Unlimited or some shit instead of ALL AT ONCE, it'd be more impactful imo.

Yeah, they are basically all there to be killed off so it's hard to get attached. The main team getting sidelined and having what amounts of offscreen character development is badly written. At least now I'm after the base attack arc and it seems to be the endgame (and yeah they nearly all died/wounded horrifically).

I think the lore for the Betaverse is well made and surprisingly feels grounded, but it would have better to use a codec system than literally a class lecture (which itself is weird since you'd think people would know this shit by now). The beta themselves feel too OP to be a fun threat. Like god damn, having one solid victory would be something.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

And it's done. I'll admit I was teary eyed when Kasumi showed in the epilogue. Girl got her happy ending. I already knew the finale was going to be a bloodbath and it didn't disappoint, though the ending was happier than I expected. Muv Luv really is one in a genre game that is not only extremely well made, managing to make 3 solid VNs, but defines media around it for decades to come. It does drag at times though, but that's far after you're hooked.

Also is Sumika the goddess of yandere? Takeru being unfaithful literally thrown him into a hellish timeloop where the only way to exit was realizing his love to Sumika.