Visual Novels

[ShitLurker]

Emi and Lilly character arcs

You already did first and second best girls

But yes,was one of my first VN as well and enjoyed it for the most part very much. If you are willing to hunt for it there is an android version that works perfectly well

As for Gnosia. I'm learning the very important lesson that I suck ass, in loop 11 and only won like twice and I'm convinced one of those was a freebie. I am liking it though.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Finished part 3 of The Shell. Overall I'm kinda meh on the series, would probably have been more impressed if I played it a decade ago but nowadays a lot of its twists and elements are overplayed.

It's very basic thriller plot. You can predict some of the twists, but it usually comes down to an impossible to predict character relation reveal. Part 1 is more like a slasher, part 2 is a conspiracy, and part 3 is low scale mysteries.

I overall enjoyed the characters, even though I feel like the conclusions they got could have been more satisfying conclusion by the third game.

The first game is the best for emotional impact. The second wastes too much on flashbacks and school scenes. The third is more on point, but by the end it feels like padding to get to the expected runtime before a massive amount of ending scenes to cap off the trilogy.

I really dislike the true ending methods in these games. To summarise, it's like watching a thriller and when you get to the last 30 minute mark a person next to you stops the film and puts on the extended edition. Even if you get more context you still just want to get to the ending rather than be blueballed. 3 is especially bad as the second play through has an entire new subplot that could have been nice before seeing the conclusion.

I also really disliked a villain throughout the series which is ridiculously lucky/everything according to plan, to the point he is just annoying.

 

[ShitLurker]

Update on Gnosia, was doing my little loops till in a random event, ended up in a situation where valley girl and main character see peacock faggot in the shower (clearly a fucking man) and then proceeded to sperg on both characters about how he's non binary. Fucking refunded. I have my tolerance to faggotry, but the moment there is a "character looks at camera" moment, they can all fuck off and die. I'll just read a wiki or whatever to get a plot summary, was starting to get repetitive anyway.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

White Album has the longest fucking introduction ever. It's taking forever to get through. I did finish Sharin no Kuni a couple weeks ago, and it didn’t disappoint. My only issue with it is that the route structure is a bit weird, but other than that, the story and premise are excellent. Lots of nice, little philosophical references. Houzuki is a fantastic villain. The fan disk is a prequel that explores the events leading up to the main story. I haven’t touched it yet. I’m pretty slow at reading visual novels, so my backlog is massive. Right now, I’m partway through Muramasa, AIR, and still on the common route of Rewrite.

 

[Billy the Adult]

Update on Gnosia, was doing my little loops till in a random event, ended up in a situation where valley girl and main character see peacock faggot in the shower (clearly a fucking man) and then proceeded to sperg on both characters about how he's non binary. Fucking refunded. I have my tolerance to faggotry, but the moment there is a "character looks at camera" moment, they can all fuck off and die. I'll just read a wiki or whatever to get a plot summary, was starting to get repetitive anyway.

Well that's unfortunate, it is an interesting premise but I can understand you'd tap out.

I finished Urban Myth Dissolution Center, and I thought it was pretty good. Gameplay was kinda meh though, like a point and click with 4 options max. Though I still have some questions and some complaints.

Spoiler

The major questions are with the cases. What was Mr Beauty afflicted by? Was there poison on the box? That would explain Nishitani since I doubt he kept drinking the tea and supposedly just stopping works fine.
Was there actually a doppelganger? Clearly Kurosawa saw them. The disappearance and such could be explained by the 4 Zimmers, but I don't get how Kurosawa still saw a version of himself if it was BS. Was it supposed to be Ayumu?
Why the hell did Kurosawa keep the HDD? Hell, if it was because he was proud of what he did (there was a trophy), is it really that hard to delete the incriminating evidence? Seems super contrived. I guess it could sorta be blackmail, but I don't think you could use blackmail that also incriminates yourself very well. Besides, Kurosawa was likely tampering with the Police server, he doesn't seem like someone who could not erase something like the video.

My problems deal with the conclusion of course. When I first got the twist, I really enjoyed it since I didn't see it coming at all. But that's probably because its so contrived. How was the director calls orchestrated? Others could clearly hear. There's other parts that could probably poke holes too.
There is also the issue of Ayumi's intelligence being so high that it's basically less believable than the supernatural. She essentially has Batman detective vision permanently, can write a program that leaks literally everything, and can form another personality that doesn't hold her memories. I do wonder if things would have been more solid if the twist stopped at "Ayumu is the admin", considering everything lined up. Could even explain the "omniscience" with the glasses, or hacking cameras or whatever.

 

[ShitLurker]

Well that's unfortunate, it is an interesting premise but I can understand you'd tap out.

Yeah, pretty much. Like I said, I have a certain tolerance, but the moment I feel I'm being lectured to, that's a big red line.

During the sale I did get Slay the Princess and Little Busters.

Slay the princess I definitely can see the fart huffing from here, but I do find the whole "lets see where this goes" dynamic of it very enjoyable.

My first playthrough I did what the title of the game says, no ifs questions or buts, went in, stabbed the princess, was content and was rewarded by a lovely drawing in crayons. Was very tempted to refund the game then and there and write in the reason "I slayed the princess".

After that I started engaging with the game proper and have met the innocent princess and the giant mistress princess. So I think I already have a grasp of the actual gameplay loop of collecting all the princesses like pokemon and then I guess the entity will become "whole" and things will happen.

Little Busters haven't started yet, I do want to go through P4 ultimax's story mode before I go into another text heavy VN, but I don't discount starting today and just going by little bits. If it's anything like Clannad in tempo, this well be a looooong one and should probably take it in small chunks.

 

[Boiled Pizza]

If it's anything like Clannad in tempo

I found the tempo much better in LB. The antics basically begin as soon as you start the game so you quickly know what you're getting into. Clannad was something of a snooze fest compared to LB.

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

Clannad was something of a snooze fest compared to LB.

Clannad has a mini game where you call in your friends like Marvel VS Capcom assists to beat up Sunohara. I will not tolerate these libelous words.

 

[ShitLurker]

I found the tempo much better in LB. The antics basically begin as soon as you start the game so you quickly know what you're getting into. Clannad was something of a snooze fest compared to LB.

Good to know and will definitely be appreciated, I don't mind a story taking it's time, but Clannad stretched the limit of my patience, once it hit it's stride it was a page turner mind you.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Finished a game, technically an Ace Attorney clone but that thread is dead so I'll put it here.

Murders on the Yangtze River
The game takes part late 19th century China. You are a detective investigating a personal case while stumbling across murders. It's classic investigative stage, Ace Attorney court room stage and minigames that aren't that fun but at least aren't too annoying.

The setting is probably the best thing about the game, China of that time is an interesting mix of the old culture and the innovations from the west, that pretty much buck broke the country completely. It's interesting how western culture and products became popular in China. It's a slice of history that both sides would rather not talk about, for equally retarded reasons. The in-game glossary really adds to the depth, and is the kind of game that makes you learn a lot of things.

The individual crimes are where I am more mixed. They are written alright, classic case of a clue turning around what looks to be a straightforward affair. In some cases it even goes a step beyond with adding unique interactions for wrong choices that can help push the player along, rather than a standard "I don't know why I did it" followed by a penalty. I think the big issue is that it doesn't have the insanity of Ace Attorney, which had ridiculous crimes and memorable characters, making it just not very memorable. It's just too mundane and while I had fun solving the crimes, I'll probably forget most soon enough. The game also throws a lot of variants of the usual Ace Attorney court styles, it's not that big of a change since it all boils down to choosing the correct answers, but it is a nice bit of extra effort.

I was wondering how it will fair in regards to foreign characters, but the game is surprisingly good in portraying them as normal people rather than be evil or incompetent.

The visuals are alright, character portraits look good enough, the 2D view and models is serviceable. The voice work and translation are surprisingly good, including having multiple languages spoken according to the location, with native English speakers and Chinese who speak English do really solid job in both languages. The music also fall on the servicable but not very memorable, which again is a big mistake since Ace Attorney's music elevated scenes.

tl;dr: It's a nice game if you are nostalgic for Ace Attorney, and a great starting point if they'll continue on the adventures. It does everything well, but really needs to embrace the silliness and drama to shine.

Also holy shit I never heard of the Sassoon family, they absolutely fucked over China, middle east Jewish were bowling with the Opium trade.

 

[Namekian George Floyd]

I just got all the science adventure games on the except Steins;Gate and 0 cause I've already played them. I heard there's a fan patch for all of them that improve the translation but then I took a look at their site and saw their staff had pronoun bios on the translation team so I don't really trust it. Does anyone here have an opinion on what I should go with? I'd prefer a flawed but more literal translation to a localized one that incorporates the translators headcanon and personal interpretations.

 

[HexFag]

I just got all the science adventure games on the except Steins;Gate and 0 cause I've already played them. I heard there's a fan patch for all of them that improve the translation but then I took a look at their site and saw their staff had pronoun bios on the translation team so I don't really trust it. Does anyone here have an opinion on what I should go with? I'd prefer a flawed but more literal translation to a localized one that incorporates the translators headcanon and personal interpretations.

I'd still bother getting them as the Sci ADV VN ports are pretty shoddy and the patches fix a lot of the issues and bugs that these ports brought over. The translations are also not fucked by whatever headcanons the modders had. The CoZ mods are considered the definitive way to play these VNs and if there was some autistic tranny shit somebody would've made an alternative patch for it by now. Chaos Head more or less needs this patch to uncensor all of the content in order to bring it to the original release, with one 500 line scene being removed in its entirety without the patch.

 

[Sebben Crudele II]

I played Corpse Party on the PSP with headphones on. The long cutscene where occult-fanatic girl relives the memories of the children being tortured, brutalized and killed nearly made me shid meself. That game's sound design was impeccable.

 

[SteinserGate]

Jumping between Rewrite+ and Fruits of Grasaia. I've done Akane, Kotori, Chi routes. Still working on FoG's common route.
I've put Majikoi! on hold after doing my routes I wanted, but will eventually come back to it. I've done Momoyo and Yuki routes.

I feel bad, but I have a type of character I tend to enjoy much more than others.
I often don't complete some other characters routes or even the true routes.
I feel like I'm being an idiot, so my idea to fix that is by jumping between VNs to give myself a break.
Does anyone else feel like this?

 

[A-Stump]

It's been a long while since I read Raging Loop but I just randomly remembered it and came here to bitch.

I don't think I've seen a 'twist' so retarded and out of left field in my life. It was actually pretty gripping until the end and then just completely shit it's pants. It's like the writer got told to hurry the fuck up and then all the spaghetti fell out of his pocket. It would have pissed me off less if the thing had just ended randomly.

Also the music was pretty good.

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

Jumping between Rewrite+ and Fruits of Grasaia. I've done Akane, Kotori, Chi routes. Still working on FoG's common route.
I've put Majikoi! on hold after doing my routes I wanted, but will eventually come back to it. I've done Momoyo and Yuki routes.

I feel bad, but I have a type of character I tend to enjoy much more than others.
I often don't complete some other characters routes or even the true routes.
I feel like I'm being an idiot, so my idea to fix that is by jumping between VNs to give myself a break.
Does anyone else feel like this?

I almost always skip routes for characters I'm not interested in. I've read Maya's route in hatsukoi like 5 times, but I've never touched Runa's route, and I don't think I need to explain why.

 

[Rectum Ravager]

Does anyone else feel like this?

I can hop between different types of games but I can't really play more than one VN at a time. These days if I have the time to spend on a VN, I play it until completion. I definitely understand the appeal of just engaging in the content and routes that you actually want to read though.

 

[Billy the Adult]

Jumping between Rewrite+ and Fruits of Grasaia. I've done Akane, Kotori, Chi routes. Still working on FoG's common route.
I've put Majikoi! on hold after doing my routes I wanted, but will eventually come back to it. I've done Momoyo and Yuki routes.

I feel bad, but I have a type of character I tend to enjoy much more than others.
I often don't complete some other characters routes or even the true routes.
I feel like I'm being an idiot, so my idea to fix that is by jumping between VNs to give myself a break.
Does anyone else feel like this?

I'd imagine the number of people who complete VNs to be smaller than the number who just play the routes they enjoy. A lot of time to waste for the potential the game redeems a character you didn't care for. Plus, there's VNs that get confused if you don't go for the main heroine, to the point you wonder why they even put in other routes. I sometimes take a break with VNs if I feel burnt out, though I normally switch off of VNs in that case.

Read through Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk... , I know there's other easter eggs and such but I just played through the base game. Neat enough that I'll try the sequel, but it was only 15 minutes so I don't have too strong of feelings toward it.

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

there's VNs that get confused if you don't go for the main heroine, to the point you wonder why they even put in other routes.

Shoutouts to Majikoi's little sister Tsujidou. Guilt tripping you for several hours if you have the gall to pursue 2 of the three, kind of four, heroines that the developers put into the game, presumably by accident.

 

[Billy the Adult]

Shoutouts to Majikoi's little sister Tsujidou. Guilt tripping you for several hours if you have the gall to pursue 2 of the three, kind of four, heroines that the developers put into the game, presumably by accident.

That's a great example. If I remember right, Renna's route is known as surprisingly good in spite of the favoritism with Maki's route suffering more from the "why didn't you pick Tsujidou?" Especially funny if you consider the top VNDB review, which says Tsujidou's route is the worst. Would love to hear if there are other big examples though.