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
Muramasa is a game with a lot of good shit but goddamn it's one of the worst morals in fiction.
Totally agree.
I still really liked it and can appreciate what it was going for but the moral justification Kagaeki reached is absolutely wrong. Maybe it has something to do with Eastern moral philosophy? I know I've heard that if you ask a Japanese person if they believe in God or Shinto 80% will tell you both because they're inherently subjective with how they apply that kind of stuff and don't understand the concept of a moral or spiritual absolute.

It was still a great ride but I felt less conflicted about it when I approached the true ending from the viewpoint that I'm watching a sympathetic villain descend into madness as a result of his curse or something.
 
Muramasa is a game with a lot of good shit but goddamn it's one of the worst morals in fiction.
I never really had a problem with any of the morals/ideals shown as the story never outright says that any of them are objectively better than another or they're the "right" way to go about your life. The story is constantly showing the good and bad to very many ideals and it'd make sense for Kageaki to have one that is just as objectionable. Even at the end of the True ending Kageaki chooses to treat his acts as a necessary evil in order for somebody to reach a higher form of peace. I never thought that Ittetsu was trying to tell me that this is the right way to live your life, he was just saying that this is the choice that he made at the end of the day.
 
Totally agree.
I still really liked it and can appreciate what it was going for but the moral justification Kagaeki reached is absolutely wrong. Maybe it has something to do with Eastern moral philosophy? I know I've heard that if you ask a Japanese person if they believe in God or Shinto 80% will tell you both because they're inherently subjective with how they apply that kind of stuff and don't understand the concept of a moral or spiritual absolute.

It was still a great ride but I felt less conflicted about it when I approached the true ending from the viewpoint that I'm watching a sympathetic villain descend into madness as a result of his curse or something.
The moral ranks up there with Death Stranding in being something that only applies to modern Japanese society plus anime settings. Interestingly, The Hungry Lamb did it far better with the protagonist having a code of not hurting women and children only to discover that him killing a peasant directly doomed his entire family. No need for literal "killing a person means taking the life of an innocent" plot device.

It does though make for a fantastic final fight scene though.
I never really had a problem with any of the morals/ideals shown as the story never outright says that any of them are objectively better than another or they're the "right" way to go about your life. The story is constantly showing the good and bad to very many ideals and it'd make sense for Kageaki to have one that is just as objectionable. Even at the end of the True ending Kageaki chooses to treat his acts as a necessary evil in order for somebody to reach a higher form of peace. I never thought that Ittetsu was trying to tell me that this is the right way to live your life, he was just saying that this is the choice that he made at the end of the day.
They do shit a lot on Masamune though, which was an absolutely bad writing with having someone that was alive during the Mongol invasion never being exposed to the atrocities of war
 
Even at the end of the True ending Kageaki chooses to treat his acts as a necessary evil in order for somebody to reach a higher form of peace. I never thought that Ittetsu was trying to tell me that this is the right way to live your life, he was just saying that this is the choice that he made at the end of the day.
Yeah that's a good point. It wasn't like an absolute value judgement was being made at the end. We were just being shown someone accepting what choices they made.
 
I'm normally not a fan of the japanese/anime clichés or anything even slightly weeb-y, but Rewrite was such a treat to read that I could ignore all of it due to how enjoyable the rest of it was. The main character is such a likeable little douchebag, and the stories/routes go completely off the rails in the right kind of way. The music+atmosphere is fantastic, and the little exploration segments are quite entertaining. Some of the routes were kinda eh at certain parts, but the 4 routes I enjoyed, I really enjoyed. The last two routes are what cemented it as my favorite VN that I've read so far. I would highly recommend you read the routes in the order most people recommend online, as that's by far the easiest way to understand the underlying mystery.

I don't know if there are any other VNs similar to it, but I'd love some recommendations if there are. It doesn't seem easy to find VNs that aren't full of porn, but I'm entirely new to this medium so I don't even know where to look for stuff other than VNDB.
 
I don't know if there are any other VNs similar to it, but I'd love some recommendations if there are. It doesn't seem easy to find VNs that aren't full of porn, but I'm entirely new to this medium so I don't even know where to look for stuff other than VNDB.
Type Moon.
What you want is Type Moon. The Tsukihime Remake is a solid starting point, you can find it on the Switch and PS4 online stores (as well as for any emulators either of those consoles may or may not have), but it isn't natively on PC. Witch on the Holy Night is good too, it's on PC, and it's shorter. The former is darker and has a more moody tone, the latter has better action and is a lot goofier. There's also Fate/Stay Night, which is excellent as a stand alone work, but is also the entrance to a DEEP! rabbit hole that will leave you an unrecognizable husk if you go too deep. All of these are available through official channels without adult content, and are broadly better off without it.

The other Key Visual Novels are probably up your alley too. If you could stomach the few character oddities in Rewrite and still come out appreciating it, then you'd probably end up liking stuff like Clannad or Little Busters even more because they're better. Planetarian is also great as a short introduction to what Key stories are like. But, the draw from this company is definitely the two games I mentioned earlier. They're the ones everybody talks about, and it's like that for a reason. It's worth noting though, you have to be able and willing to take these games on their own terms.

80% of the run time in games by Key is spent watching a bunch of goofballs hang out with each other, and immersing yourself in that experience. It lets you pick up on small details about each character, and when they come back up under a different context, it makes the journey so much more meaningful. Each route has a spectacular "coming full circle" moment that feels satisfying because when it all connects, it makes sense how you got from point A to point B. But, if you're miserable during that time because you're just waiting for the game to "get to the good part", then when it finally gets there, it's not going to mean anything to you.
 
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Fate/Stay Night
I finished this one few weeks ago, and it was really good, but I've heard mixed things about the sequel (or the million sequels/spinoffs/gacha games?????) Rin and Archer were really interesting characters, and Saber's story was also pretty neat and definitely more than I expected from a story having King Arthur as an anime girl what the fuck.. I'll have to check out Type Moon's stuff.

Clannad and Little Busters I played right after Rewrite since they were made by the same studio. I'd say Little Busters was more enjoyable than Clannad, but that's probably because Little Busters had more of a mystery going on than Clannad. I was a bit disappointed that they were mostly focused on romance with not much mystery going on since that doesn't really appeal to me, but they were enjoyable nonetheless.

I also finished Steins;Gate recently, and I've heard there's a sequel to it and also more stuff in the same universe/setting, but unsure which ones are considered good there.
 
Is anyone else playing The 100 Line: Last Defense Academy? I just got past the first 100 days and it's actually starting to feel like a Danganronpa/Zero Escape game after basically being nothing but wholesome chungus for the most part. It might be hard to talk about because it's brand new and easy to spoil especially with so many branching paths but I just want a head count and first impressions since I have friends who love Danganronpa and Zero Escape but had absolutely no idea this thing existed.
 
Clannad and Little Busters I played right after Rewrite since they were made by the same studio. I'd say Little Busters was more enjoyable than Clannad, but that's probably because Little Busters had more of a mystery going on than Clannad.
We had a good discussion about Clannad a few months ago that's probably worth reading through. Clannad is surprisingly obtuse, but when you peel back the layers, there's something spectacular to see.
Let me outline the full story of how I interpret Clannad's ending.

I finished this one few weeks ago, and it was really good, but I've heard mixed things about the sequel (or the million sequels/spinoffs/gacha games?????)
I think it's better to spread out to the other parts of Type Moon first before going deeper into Fate. There's a lot of other cool stuff that adds much more to the setting than just "It's a holy grail war, but somewhere else, with different people." Kara no Kyoukai will teach you about the setting's underlying mythology and origins. Witch on the Holy Night can teach you a lot more about Mage culture and the significance behind two of the biggest recurring characters. Tsukihime paints a picture of super natural society beyond Mages. Stuff like the Church, Extrasensories, and Vampire society.

That being said, I can give you a big run down of the big Fate spinoffs just so you have an idea of what you're getting in to.

Hollow Ataraxia is half "Watch the characters you like eat pudding and play tennis together" and half "backstory for a few very cool but obscure characters that occasionally come up elsewhere for the sole purpose of confusing casual fans."

The Extra duology is neat. An alternate take on the same ideas with different characters in a more bizarre and creative setting. The combat sucks though and it's super grindy. If you play it, play it on emulator and have the speedup button essentially taped down.
The Extella duology is kinda cringe. The best thing I can say about it is that Scathach gets a teacher's outfit in the second game. Which was put there, by god, to appeal to me, specifically.

Grand Order is... hard to describe. The most consumer hostile game mechanics imaginable, as well as several hundreds of hours of dull content and boring storytelling are what separates the average casual Type Moon fan from a few of the most well written and inspiring stories Nasu has ever told. Lostbelt 6 is actual art. It is also the second most recent story chapter in a game that has ran in America for over a decade.

Verdict? Get a story summary from youtube, and ignore everything else. No matter how cool you think Muramasa looks, or how fat Musashi's milkers are. Ignore those, they can only make your life worse.
 
Is anyone else playing The 100 Line: Last Defense Academy? I just got past the first 100 days and it's actually starting to feel like a Danganronpa/Zero Escape game after basically being nothing but wholesome chungus for the most part. It might be hard to talk about because it's brand new and easy to spoil especially with so many branching paths but I just want a head count and first impressions since I have friends who love Danganronpa and Zero Escape but had absolutely no idea this thing existed.
Going through it at the moment, on Day 45-46 on a first playthrough if that means anything and I'm surprised at the "game" part of this visual novel, it's not awful! I'm still waiting a bit for the characters to grow on me but I'm sure that the second half of the first 100 days will pick up the pace. It seems like a slow burn which I was not expecting from the Danganronpa guy of all people.

Hollow Ataraxia is half "Watch the characters you like eat pudding and play tennis together" and half "backstory for a few very cool but obscure characters that occasionally come up elsewhere for the sole purpose of confusing casual fans."
Sounds pretty great. For this and FSN would it be worth playing the remasters with the new translation or playing the Ultimate edition with the mirror moon translation or the FBates translation? I know there's also the Tsukihimates patch for TsukiRE and I have no clue if that's better or worse than the official ones.
 
Sounds pretty great. For this and FSN would it be worth playing the remasters with the new translation or playing the Ultimate edition with the mirror moon translation or the FBates translation? I know there's also the Tsukihimates patch for TsukiRE and I have no clue if that's better or worse than the official ones.

Any way is fine I think. There aren't really any egregious examples of censorship or "localization-isms" I can think of from the official releases. The worst it gets is that they change every instance of a character using honorifics to them just calling the character by name. They do spell Soujuurou's name phonetically in Mahoyo for some god forsaken reason though.

The only reason why you'd read F/SN with the old patches is if you wanted the adult content. Which is, in my opinion, unappetizing and awkwardly written. I'm here for the lengthy internal monologues and moody atmosphere, not for "Tohsaka's defenseless anus" or for Sakura "moving like an educated prostitute" as if Shirou would even know what that feels like.
 
Any way is fine I think. There aren't really any egregious examples of censorship or "localization-isms" I can think of from the official releases. The worst it gets is that they change every instance of a character using honorifics to them just calling the character by name. They do spell Soujuurou's name phonetically in Mahoyo for some god forsaken reason though.

The only reason why you'd read F/SN with the old patches is if you wanted the adult content. Which is, in my opinion, unappetizing and awkwardly written. I'm here for the lengthy internal monologues and moody atmosphere, not for "Tohsaka's defenseless anus" or for Sakura "moving like an educated prostitute" as if Shirou would even know what that feels like.
Alright then great to hear. One more thing to ask, I know the remaster is 16:9 while the OG is 4;3. Are the CGs cropped like in Muv-Luv or are they actually good? Muv-Luv's rerelease was still extremely quality, but the cropped CGs kind of sucked.

On the topic of remastered/remade VNs, does anyone have any experience with Kikougai and Demonbane and if anybody does, are the remakes better than the originals? Kikougai's remake has voice acting but I'd say the art looks way worse in general and Demonbane's remake (ironically enough) won't work on my PC. I'll try to see if I can get it to work if it's really THAT much better but the most important thing (the voice acting) can be ported back to the OG.
 
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Alright then great to hear. One more thing to ask, I know the remaster is 16:9 while the OG is 4;3. Are the CGs cropped like in Muv-Luv or are they actually good? Muv-Luv's rerelease was still extremely quality, but the cropped CGs kind of sucked.
It isn't cropped, but it isn't a full asset overhaul either. If you played Mashiro Symphony HD, that's essentially what they did here.
 
Tbf thats most sex scenes I've come (heh) across in VNs, which is why its weird when people want to keep them in.
For me personally, its just about knowing there's nothing missing, especially with some games being pretty lazy and just putting a skip without any effort to abridge. But yes, I read a few lines and its always a mistake.

Is there any games similar to Spirit Hunter? I really enjoyed all 3 and have been looking for a similar fix. As thread tax, here's some VNs I read that I don't think have a ton of discussion.

Pretty fun, not bad mysteries. Bit hampered by things being multiple choice, but a fun mystery story. The art is a bit strange, but it was fine to me personally. Will look out for the sequel, but currently the creators are making a prequel, which I'm not sure how interesting it could be with what you know from this game. Probably best to start with the free game so you know what you are getting into.

Will say that all of the romantic relationships mentioned were gay (as far as I'm aware), but the game doesn't put much emphasis on that. Maybe I'm too on guard, considering there's only 3 relationships (I think) and one was a post-game vignette. It did make me wonder, especially since the 3 I'm thinking of were all lesbians.
A case of a great premise, okay execution. Premise is you get stuck in a town in the ritual to elect a new archdemon. There are 5 girls, each corresponding to a different monster, but one is actually human. At the end, you pick a girl, and either you escape with the real girl or that demon wins and you die. Thing is, the real girl is randomized, so any of the five can be the real human. So there's technically replay value, since the "culprit" is different each time, which is nice for a mystery.

Problem is, to accomplish such a thing probably takes a ton of work, and I don't think it was pulled off super well. Whether the girl is human or demon doesn't matter until the ending, where you either get the girl's ending or the monster kills you. Only thing that matters is comparing the summoning sites with notes you find and using process of elimination. The game does have a DLC, but that didn't get translated. Will say its interesting that the English and Korean versions of the game have different listings on Steam, and have even had different discounts. I enjoyed playing it, but I can't really recommend it.
Pretty good mystery. Using 360 screens was pretty neat. Has some fun 4th wall breaking puzzles.

Probably my favorite 4th wall breaks since the player is still supposed to be a character (Spirit of the creator of the ritual). Does help, since when other games start talking about me, it makes the boundaries of the game very apparent + I get rebellious and then I just alt+F4 because there's nothing they can do. I can see why the ending is disappointing considering it sorta nullifies all you went through, but I still found it satisfying enough.
Pretty standard VN that gives you what you a bit of a tailored experience based on route. The one thing I'll always remember about with the game though is that the girls without a route felt better than the ones who did. Truly a routelet game.
My favorite VN series so far. NG is probably the best, but I prefer the Death Mark stories. Death Mark 2 is probably the weakest since the 2D section re-uses alot (the unused school building is a mirror of the used one), but the spirits were fun and probably had the best overarching villain IMO. The prices are definitely a bit high considering none of them took longer than 20 hours though.
It is fun that singling out the Departed feels more like an appeal to emotion than about the mystery, since its not hard to figure out.
Maybe I like them since they are sorta dark, weeb versions of Scooby Doo but maybe thats too reductive. Hope they keep making them if they can.
 
Pretty standard VN that gives you what you a bit of a tailored experience based on route. The one thing I'll always remember about with the game though is that the girls without a route felt better than the ones who did. Truly a routelet game.
Shoutouts to my nigga Izumi Tsubasu.
To everyone else. Some kind of platonic ideal of dumb anime looking bullshit. To me. I can think of maybe 3 or 4 other artists capable of putting so much detail into the stuff they draw.

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Could someone please give me a tldr on baldr sky? It seems like part of it isn't translated yet, but other parts are? Is the relation between the untranslated part a muv luv unlimited / alternative type situation, or an "another universe in same story" type situation? Forgive me for my retardation.
 
Could someone please give me a tldr on baldr sky? It seems like part of it isn't translated yet, but other parts are? Is the relation between the untranslated part a muv luv unlimited / alternative type situation, or an "another universe in same story" type situation? Forgive me for my retardation.
The one on steam is self contained. The other games in the series aren't but from my understanding aren't as good.
 
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