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
Finished Cho Dengeki Stryker. Action scenes weren't as great as Tokyo Necro but it was still a good action/adventure VN. Took me about 20 hours to get through, but the last route before the true end was a bit of a slog and kinda felt like it didn't need to be there. Regardless, it was a fun story with a good ending. Just a good old-fashioned good vs evil superhero story.

Sooner or later I'll get to Fate/Stay Night...Witch on the Holy Night was great and I read an LP of the translation for FSN on the old lparchive a long time ago so it's not like I'm totally going in blind but I know it's a monster to get through and I kinda want to play something with story AND gameplay for a bit.
 
Played through the new Paranormasight game that was released this week. The original had pretty good writing, a really tight pace and absolutely dogshit true ending (though the regular endings were good). The sequel is good, but not as much (though at least it doesn't do the stupidity of the true ending in the first game). I think the main issue in the game is the pacing. Rather than the first game which had a death game setup and a pretty frantic pace, the game is more Higurashi style "friends in a remote location getting into supernatural horror" which needs a few hours of setup to get you invested, but the game instead goes full throttle from the start which makes it meander a lot, with too much loredumps and reveals that don't have any time for the reader to even think about and the massacres not having any effect since nearly everyone in the town is unlikable. It doesn't help that the friend group is the least interesting part and the two pairs of psychics are far more entertaining (especially the one who reminds me a lot of Joseph Joestar).

The overall story is good though and uses the history of the area, as well as the events of the previous games, for great effects. It's not really as scary as the previous game, and works better as a mystery that flows really well once you understand how every part works.

Funnily enough the game ignores the true ending of the first game. Overall I'd recommend it if you want a more hands on VN.
Poop A Loop said:
Sooner or later I'll get to Fate/Stay Night...Witch on the Holy Night was great and I read an LP of the translation for FSN on the old lparchive a long time ago so it's not like I'm totally going in blind but I know it's a monster to get through and I kinda want to play something with story AND gameplay for a bit.
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For story and gameplay I'd suggest either Utawarerumono or Baldr Sky. The latter takes some time to get to but by the end you feel like a god of the battlefield.
 
Poop A Loop said:
Finished Cho Dengeki Stryker. Action scenes weren't as great as Tokyo Necro but it was still a good action/adventure VN. Took me about 20 hours to get through, but the last route before the true end was a bit of a slog and kinda felt like it didn't need to be there. Regardless, it was a fun story with a good ending. Just a good old-fashioned good vs evil superhero story.
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How was Tokyo Necro anyway? I'd figure I'd either read that or Totono after Sumaga since they're written by the same person.

Also finished the first route of Sumaga. It's great. The best way to describe it would be Madoka mixed with Re:Zero (if it wasn't dogshit) along with a lot of surrealist humor. There's probably a good case to be had that Gen Urobuchi saw what this VN was doing and got inspired to make Sumaga, the similarities are very striking. Unkoman (yes that is his real name) is a fantastic protagonist by the way. I don't know if he's as good as Kageaki but maybe by the true end I'll have my mind changed.
 
HexFag said:
How was Tokyo Necro anyway? I'd figure I'd either read that or Totono after Sumaga since they're written by the same person.
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It was great. It wasn't afraid to embrace the edge and pulled the style off perfectly. The characters are still well written and the various routes are well put together. The standout feature is that a number of action scenes are rendered in 3d so the final battle was hype, too.

wtfNeedSignUp said:
For story and gameplay I'd suggest either Utawarerumono or Baldr Sky. The latter takes some time to get to but by the end you feel like a god of the battlefield.
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Appreciate the recommendation but I've played both and they were 10/10's. I actually want to play through Uta again sometime once I hear how the sequel to Monochrome Mobius turns out. I haven't played it, but I guess the ending of Mobius implies that there could be some time travel/changing shenanigans in the sequel so I'm holding out hope that the studio's comments about them being done with the Uta franchise after this means Kuon and Haku get a happy ending as a way to tie everything up in a nice little bow. Until then, I'm kind of headcanoning that the cover of the soundtrack implies Kuon found a reincarnated Haku at the same ruins she found him in because goddamn was Mask of Truth bittersweet.
 
HexFag said:
Also finished the first route of Sumaga. It's great. The best way to describe it would be Madoka mixed with Re:Zero (if it wasn't dogshit) along with a lot of surrealist humor. There's probably a good case to be had that Gen Urobuchi saw what this VN was doing and got inspired to make Sumaga, the similarities are very striking. Unkoman (yes that is his real name) is a fantastic protagonist by the way. I don't know if he's as good as Kageaki but maybe by the true end I'll have my mind changed.
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Is there a full english patch? I saw there is a partial patch because JAST licensed it, but looks like they didn't release it, at least not under the same name.

Also Tokyo Necro is great, absolutely fantastic world building and one of my favourite plot branching points.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
Is there a full english patch? I saw there is a partial patch because JAST licensed it, but looks like they didn't release it, at least not under the same name.

Also Tokyo Necro is great, absolutely fantastic world building and one of my favourite plot branching points.
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Nah it's not fully in English yet. I'm reading in JP. For some reason JAST has the translation complete for the most part, but I guess due to whatever busted ass engine Nitro+ uses, they still haven't finished it after 15 years.

As of 2025, they're still claiming that it'll come out in English EVENTUALLY so maybe one day.
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I have finished Danganronpa. Some thoughts:

1) I was suspicious of Junko from the beginning. Her 'death' was so out of place compared to everyone else's that I started to wonder if it was put there to distract me from other discrepancies. Up until chapter 5 I wasn't sure, but the nails on the body in ch 5 immediately put everything together for me so I almost felt like pacing in place during the last two chapters of the game lol

2) The ending was... ehhh... I get not showing the outside world builds suspense and also lets them set up the sequel, but the entire explanation for The Tragedy felt super handwavey and I was feeling the animu-logic fatigue at the end with all the talk of 'contagious despair.'

3) God I absolutely fucking hate the 'absorb' statement shit. Especially in how many of them aren't really 'contradictions' but just adventure game rub everything on everything else nonsense.

Pretty solid game. I was gonna play Paranomasight next (it's still on my near immediate "to play list", no need to sell me on it), but I think I will unironically have to move on to the second Dangit Grandpa game just because I'm intrigued.
 
Fcret said:
I have finished Danganronpa. Some thoughts:

1) I was suspicious of Junko from the beginning. Her 'death' was so out of place compared to everyone else's that I started to wonder if it was put there to distract me from other discrepancies. Up until chapter 5 I wasn't sure, but the nails on the body in ch 5 immediately put everything together for me so I almost felt like pacing in place during the last two chapters of the game lol

2) The ending was... ehhh... I get not showing the outside world builds suspense and also lets them set up the sequel, but the entire explanation for The Tragedy felt super handwavey and I was feeling the animu-logic fatigue at the end with all the talk of 'contagious despair.'

3) God I absolutely fucking hate the 'absorb' statement shit. Especially in how many of them aren't really 'contradictions' but just adventure game rub everything on everything else nonsense.

Pretty solid game. I was gonna play Paranomasight next (it's still on my near immediate "to play list", no need to sell me on it), but I think I will unironically have to move on to the second Dangit Grandpa game just because I'm intrigued.
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The spinoff Ultra Despair Girls follows the future foundation stuff with Touko and Togami. It is more shooter though then what the mainline series is and has some pretty unsettling shit in it. Used a save to skip a mini game that was just not right.
 
SpellforceFan said:
Grisaia seems like something right up my alley.
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Done with Grisaia, at least the 3 "main" games. It's exactly what I hoped for, at least the 1st game, with the protagonist being proactive and intelligent. I feel like 2nd and 3rd game simplified side characters and added unnecessary sci-fi elements to the plot, but easily the worst part was how they butchered blonde girl's character - she went from a complex, well meaning character that played the clown part to easier fit in with others, to a genuine retard with a split personality tard autowrangler.
 
HexFag said:
I have no clue if this counts, but George Henry Shaft's translation of Cross Channel is considered to be so inaccurate and terrible that it comes off as closer to schizobabble than an actual story written by somebody. He even wrote an entire manifesto talking about the VN as well as some others too and it's about as incomprehensible as it sounds. Some image highlights here.
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Is there a good translation of Cross Channel? I played the Amaterasu version and I heard it's pretty inaccurate. Is that the same as the Steam translation? Or are they both terrible?
 
Dysnomia said:
Is there a good translation of Cross Channel? I played the Amaterasu version and I heard it's pretty inaccurate. Is that the same as the Steam translation? Or are they both terrible?
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There is no good translation of Cross Channel. The Amaterasu one is the closest, and as you said, it's inaccurate. The Steam version is MTL. The George Henry Shaft version is written by a schizo. It's one of those stories where you're kind of there for Romeo Tanaka's writing and as long as it's going to be there you either have to pray that somebody is so locked in to Tanaka's writing style that they perfectly bring it over to English (impossible), or you just have to read it in Japanese. It sucks, but it is what it is.
SpellforceFan said:
Done with Grisaia, at least the 3 "main" games. It's exactly what I hoped for, at least the 1st game, with the protagonist being proactive and intelligent. I feel like 2nd and 3rd game simplified side characters and added unnecessary sci-fi elements to the plot, but easily the worst part was how they butchered blonde girl's character - she went from a complex, well meaning character that played the clown part to easier fit in with others, to a genuine retard with a split personality tard autowrangler.
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I never got to the sequels but Michiru flanderization makes me kind of sad. She was my favorite in the OG with my favorite route but something like that was bound to happen. Apparently the main writer never did the sequels outside of the relatively serious stuff so when I run out of VNs to read maybe I'll get around to it.
 
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I'm playing the Tsukihime remake and something is really bothering me, how the fuck do you pronounce Arcueid in English? They literally say, "Ak-u-ay-do", and if you just sound it out then you'd think the proper pronunciation is just, " Ark-oo-aid" but I feel like pronouncing the u in Arcueid just makes the name sound super off and Engrish. To me it'd make more sense if it was just pronounced like, "arcade" in English but maybe there's something I'm not getting. It just bugs me every time I read it because it's like a sentence-stopper, it flows off the tongue so badly.
 
Dysnomia said:
Is there a good translation of Cross Channel? I played the Amaterasu version and I heard it's pretty inaccurate. Is that the same as the Steam translation? Or are they both terrible?
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There is a guy working on a proper translation according to VNDB, but he's doing it as a personal project so there is no telling when (if) it will release. It's a shame because the CC OST is fantastic and I really enjoyed Romeo's parts in Rewrite.
 
GenociderSyo said:
The spinoff Ultra Despair Girls follows the future foundation stuff with Touko and Togami. It is more shooter though then what the mainline series is and has some pretty unsettling shit in it. Used a save to skip a mini game that was just not right.
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Oh yeah it is absolutely fucked up to the point it's surprising they actually greenlit it. Not that they show anything, but they don't use subtext for child abuse, just straight up text.
Fcret said:
I was suspicious of Junko from the beginning. Her 'death' was so out of place compared to everyone else's that I started to wonder if it was put there to distract me from other discrepancies. Up until chapter 5 I wasn't sure, but the nails on the body in ch 5 immediately put everything together for me so I almost felt like pacing in place during the last two chapters of the game lol
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I don't know if you can have the twist with how well known Junko is nowadays.
 
HexFag said:
I never got to the sequels but Michiru flanderization makes me kind of sad. She was my favorite in the OG with my favorite route but something like that was bound to happen. Apparently the main writer never did the sequels outside of the relatively serious stuff so when I run out of VNs to read maybe I'll get around to it.
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Weirdly, it reminded me how Piranha Bytes destroyed Patty's character in Risen 2 - turned her from a cheeky maybe romantic interest from 1, grateful for the help and saving her life, into an utter, nasty, indifferent, ungrateful, rude cunt in 2.
 
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Looking forward QCC that's been advertised as Albert Camus and Don Quixote trapped inside a time loop, with blue-collar gallows humor like Red Dwarf and taking inspiration from a bunch of other philosophical scifi stories.
 
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