Visual Novels

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Do you play visual Novels?

  • No, because that’s fucking gay

    Votes: 83 15.7%
  • Yes, because I read them for the plot

    Votes: 195 36.9%
  • No, because they’re not really video games

    Votes: 34 6.4%
  • Yes, because anime girls are better than real women

    Votes: 116 21.9%
  • No, but I think about playing them

    Votes: 68 12.9%
  • Yes, but I do it ironically

    Votes: 33 6.2%

  • Total voters
    529
Yuzuha used pitty hax, PITTY HAX! Also had Oboro doing the "Leon, you have to fuck my sister!" meme. How she managed to get a child to term is a borderline miracle.

Ignoring it was an eroge originally where he fucked everything except Aruru (thank god for that) which has pretty disgusting implications with Camuy... with how the remake presents itself I asume he bedded Eruru, Yuzuha and was bedded by Karura (Touka bless her soul tried, but interpreting it as grapling adds to her charm). Only struck gold with Yuzuha and it's a given I will see a lot more of said toddler in 2. And well, that last minute name drop to Mikoto in front of Eruru was also pretty savage in hindsight...


Next time a steam sale drops I'll grab 2 and in the meantime will keep playing Lost Odyssey. On the VN front, I'll start progressing proper with Ever 17.
God damn it's yet another to the pile of games where you fuck your daughter
 
Still makes me tear up a bit. The ending hit me hard.
Yeah, it had a similar setting to Angelic Howl in Amane's route from Grisaia.
More Umineko Thoughts:
The scene that makes me think the most about Umineko's story all these years is the confrontation between Ange and Beatrice in the final episode. Its such an important climax to the entire visual novel because it goes to the heart of the matter - how do you handle people like Ange? Its a fundamental problem of existence and the novel itself: how do you address tragedy in one's life?

Ange's arguments for taking her own life seem rational at first. Battler, Beatrice, and the relatives in general come off as super insensitive because they seemingly don't understand the gravity of what Ange lost that day. Battler's decision not to fight Ange himself was a mistake too considering Beatrice is one of the primary causes of Ange's misery. Beatrice would be the worst person you could use to prevent Ange's suicide. There's nothing Beatrice could say that wouldn't make things worse. Its the equivalent of calling an arsonist to put out a fire instead of a fireman. Erika Furudo hints at this when she mocks Battler for not having the courage to address Ange directly during their battle.

More so, they're all too busy playing around, and having "fun", while Ange is thrown out to the coldness of the world at such a young age. The bullying, the loneliness, and abuse she received all those years isn't something you can expect a female, at her age and situation, to just willfully accept. This isn't to say Ange's arguments aren't problematic. Ange's clearly making the same mistake Beatrice made in October of 1986 - being resentful, nihilistic to point of needless self destruction. Ange even acknowledges to Beatrice her actions of finding the truth will send her to hell, and her family won't be there, because she embraced death over the possibility of a future where she could find happiness.

It took courage, an act of self realization beyond her own stunted adolescence to adulthood for Ange to reject suicide, and to embrace life in-spite of tragedy. She realized her family loved her dearly, and it would be against their wishes to destroy her own life for sins she bears no responsibility for and for actions she did not take. In a way, Ange's life is a contra juxtaposition to the life of Beatrice/Yasu that drives the primary event of the novel forward - the destruction of the Ushiromiya family.

Yasu and Ange both suffered from tragedy at a young age. Despite that, Ange took the much more difficult path that Yosu rejected. Ange decided to reject the misanthropy Yasu embraced, and used her existence to make miracles from a tragedy. That's the true miracle, and magic, of the final witch of Beatrice. Its having the strength enough to climb beyond mountains of purgatory, and to embrace the uncertainty and hardships of one's existence without giving up on the possibilities of life.
 
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Hey @Frederica Bernkastel , I'm going to finally focus on Ever 17 himmel edition now. Biggest question is if it's fine going blind or do I have a high risk of "fucking up my experience" if I end up going in some deranged path? For reference, I've only had one decision which is listening to the annoying little girl with the dog and I ignored her.

The other is I'm playing this on Linux through Wine. After some fun with fonts, seems to work fine except for FMV, are there any more FMV outside of the opening that I could miss or not really the case? I can continue it on Windows if relevant enough, but I rather stick to Linux now.

Also, while I'm at it, between the himmel edition or the steam edition, what are the differences? Which is preferable? The biggest perk of the steam one is easy play on the deck, haven't tried setting himmel there but I'm sure it will be a hassle to play, but on the other hand, I tend to prefer playing the "optimal" version of anything when possible.
 
Hey @Frederica Bernkastel , I'm going to finally focus on Ever 17 himmel edition now. Biggest question is if it's fine going blind or do I have a high risk of "fucking up my experience" if I end up going in some deranged path? For reference, I've only had one decision which is listening to the annoying little girl with the dog and I ignored her.

The other is I'm playing this on Linux through Wine. After some fun with fonts, seems to work fine except for FMV, are there any more FMV outside of the opening that I could miss or not really the case? I can continue it on Windows if relevant enough, but I rather stick to Linux now.

Also, while I'm at it, between the himmel edition or the steam edition, what are the differences? Which is preferable? The biggest perk of the steam one is easy play on the deck, haven't tried setting himmel there but I'm sure it will be a hassle to play, but on the other hand, I tend to prefer playing the "optimal" version of anything when possible.
If I remember correctly, it's relatively alright in choosing which heroines to follow. Not fucking up revaluations if you choose in a different way than the devs decided.
 
If I remember correctly, it's relatively alright in choosing which heroines to follow. Not fucking up revaluations if you choose in a different way than the devs decided.
Cool, I tend to prefer just going with the flow on first play and then focusing on charts for further ones. Also reminded me to reply to this
God damn it's yet another to the pile of games where you fuck your daughter
Well, seeing how all of the furries have Hakuowlo's genetic base... well, there's a lot of fucking with critters close to you genetically...
 
The other is I'm playing this on Linux through Wine. After some fun with fonts, seems to work fine except for FMV, are there any more FMV outside of the opening that I could miss or not really the case? I can continue it on Windows if relevant enough, but I rather stick to Linux now.
I had a similar experience trying to get FSN Realta Nua running with videos under Linux many years ago, and the solution I eventually figured out was to ensure your wineprefix was set to 32-bit and to also install the correct winetricks.


Code:
# to initialize the new 32-bit prefix
WINEARCH='win32' WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' wine wineboot
# install the needed winetricks for FMV support
WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' winetricks quartz devenum d3dx9
# register the quartz dll
WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' wine regsvr32 'c:\windows\system32\quartz.dll'

You can call the wineprefix anything you want, this is just an example. Whenever you run something with the wine command, just make sure to specify your WINEPREFIX env variable on the same line.

No idea if this will help you but this got VN FMVs working for me. Let me know if it works.
 
I had a similar experience trying to get FSN Realta Nua running with videos under Linux many years ago, and the solution I eventually figured out was to ensure your wineprefix was set to 32-bit and to also install the correct winetricks.


Code:
# to initialize the new 32-bit prefix
WINEARCH='win32' WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' wine wineboot
# install the needed winetricks for FMV support
WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' winetricks quartz devenum d3dx9
# register the quartz dll
WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' wine regsvr32 'c:\windows\system32\quartz.dll'

You can call the wineprefix anything you want, this is just an example. Whenever you run something with the wine command, just make sure to specify your WINEPREFIX env variable on the same line.

No idea if this will help you but this got VN FMVs working for me. Let me know if it works.
Thanks a ton for the suggestions. I'm still a Linux newbie, for now I'm doing an update version round since I didn't have the latest of either wine or winetricks and I'm still getting used to just doing that. I'll let you know if this sorts mi problem as well once I fully figure it out.
 
Hey @Frederica Bernkastel , I'm going to finally focus on Ever 17 himmel edition now. Biggest question is if it's fine going blind or do I have a high risk of "fucking up my experience" if I end up going in some deranged path? For reference, I've only had one decision which is listening to the annoying little girl with the dog and I ignored her.
@ShitLurker
I don't have notifications on, so, sorry for the late reply. Go blind for the first route, but if you get stuck, there should be a guide with Himmel edition showing how to get the routes. I recommend the Tsugumi route first. Her choices should be obvious. Do the Takeshi Routes (Tsugumi is one of them). The second is Sora. The kid routes should be last in any order (Yu/Sara). That Coco question is irrelevant. Coco (the girl with the dog) does have a route, but it requires unlocking it after finishing all four of the previously mentioned routes by getting their good endings. It should be obvious what route you're on if you're Takeshi or Kid. The guide doesn't really spoil you; it just helps you figure out how to proceed.

Its a pretty complex visual novel for its age. Its like OG Tsukihime or even YUNO. The guy who made VNDB said it was his first visual novel, and inspired him to make the website.

Also, you don't need to read Never7 or Remember11 because they aren't releated to Ever17 story wise, but share similar themes. The fourth game of the series, 12Riven, is getting an English translation. If you like Ever17 after finishing it, you can try Remember11 next. Never7, despite being translated, is a bit rough around the edges. Its the inferior work of the series.
 
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I had a similar experience trying to get FSN Realta Nua running with videos under Linux many years ago, and the solution I eventually figured out was to ensure your wineprefix was set to 32-bit and to also install the correct winetricks.


Code:
# to initialize the new 32-bit prefix
WINEARCH='win32' WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' wine wineboot
# install the needed winetricks for FMV support
WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' winetricks quartz devenum d3dx9
# register the quartz dll
WINEPREFIX='~/WIN32VN' wine regsvr32 'c:\windows\system32\quartz.dll'

You can call the wineprefix anything you want, this is just an example. Whenever you run something with the wine command, just make sure to specify your WINEPREFIX env variable on the same line.

No idea if this will help you but this got VN FMVs working for me. Let me know if it works.
OK, so I went down a rabbit hole where devenum was failing when instancing a certain object class and after blowing a day trying to figure it out, I just went fuck it. If I get another fmvthat doesn't work I'll pass the save over to windows and continue there... Thanks for the proposal though, learned quite a bit about Lutris and wine while flailing around.
I don't have notifications on, so, sorry for the late reply. Go blind for the first route, but if you get stuck, there should be a guide with Himmel edition showing how to get the routes. I recommend the Tsugumi route first. Her choices should be obvious. Do the Takeshi Routes (Tsugumi is one of them). The second is Sora. The kid routes should be last in any order (Yu/Sara). That Coco question is irrelevant. Coco (the girl with the dog) does have a route, but it requires unlocking it after finishing all four of the previously mentioned routes by getting their good endings. It should be obvious what route you're on if you're Takeshi or Kid. The guide doesn't really spoil you; it just helps you figure out how to proceed.
Got it, so biggest take away is do a Takeshi route first.
 
Finished Chapters 3 and 4 of Higurashi.

Overall both chapters were good. Chapter 3 was heartbreaking at first and then it started feeling strange that Keiichi was so focused on revenge to the point where he didn't even mention Satoko for a while. Then, of course because these games are so well written, Keiichi calls himself out on that later on so that was really neat. The ending of Chapter 3 did come out of nowhere though, but what was even more interesting was that Chapter 4's ending then called that out as an event.

If I had to take a guess now, I'm still convinced there's some sort of demon possession going on since the girls all act concerned when Keiichi has his own personal demon possession moment, but then when he comes back and they tell him about the "other" Keiichi that showed up on the night of the festival they all start getting creepy themselves.

I also had some suspicions confirmed that Higurashi is using the cicadas to indicate something because I swear the cries got all weird during a couple of moments, and then by happenstance I paused the game with the 07th mod up and it confirmed that the name of the cicada sounds were suffixed as "creepy" haha.

Chapter 4 at least gave some backstory to what's going on and why Rika is worshipped by the old people of the town, but now it's just widened the conspiracy in my head.

Takano, Rika, and Mion have all raised some major red flags for me since they've all been involved in some way from the beginning now that I've finished Chapter 4. Rena is still a mystery since she's sometimes just fine and other times the most "possessed" of the bunch. I can't tell if it's involuntary or not given what we learn in Chapter 2 from Mion being possessed and talking about it.

Overall, it's like the town and the girls in particular have two sides: the nice happy friendly side and then this hardcore insular gang conspiracy attitude. When Mion straight up hits Rena in the head in Chapter 3 when Rena is freaking out about the festival murders it was like watching one person hit another one for almost revealing too much info to a sucker they're trying to draw in, but I really don't want to believe all the girls are evil to the core...

So far, Satoko's the only one who doesn't necessarily seem cursed personally or personally involved in the conspiracy and is instead having it inflicted on her.

Now I'm on to the Answer arcs!

Edit:
Mid Chapter 5 Reaction

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT WITH RIKA?
 
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One day I'll hop on the Key VNs, I scooped up most of the games on sale (minus Harmonia HD because despite it being on Steam it wasn't in the bundle and I didn't think they'd put two versions of the same fucking VN on steam :bossman:) and I'll probably start with Little Busters or Rewrite once I find the best version/patch for each respective VN. That being said I'm going to be really pissed if these Key VNs are as good as people say they are because that means the current efforts are being put towards a fucking gacha game of all things.

I had also finished Full Metal Daemon Muramasa recently and that was a fucking rollercoaster. I absolutely wasn't expecting it to be as silly or funny as I thought it was but it was constantly throwing jokes in left and right that were actually funny, something that's hard for most japanese media to do, though VNs have had a pretty good track record. The fights were also extremely fun to go through, as there is usually some gimmick or mechanic per each fight that keep things fresh. Though I will say the best fights were the ones outside the tsurugis for sure.
 
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