Visual Novels

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Do you play visual Novels?

  • No, because that’s fucking gay

    Votes: 84 15.8%

  • Yes, because I read them for the plot

    Votes: 196 36.8%

  • No, because they’re not really video games

    Votes: 34 6.4%

  • Yes, because anime girls are better than real women

    Votes: 116 21.8%

  • No, but I think about playing them

    Votes: 68 12.8%

  • Yes, but I do it ironically

    Votes: 34 6.4%
  • Total voters
    532
So I just finished Yu-No and it's not very good. There are couple of problems with the game:
1. The plot takes place over the course of two days, meaning you have no time for actual character development, making all the characters feel flat. The events also repeat alot, making you feel like you are retreading the same conversations.
2. The game has an in universe justification for traveling between routes but the rules for it seems arbitrary - sometimes the hero remembers events, sometimes not.
3. The hero is a extremely abrasive towards others, so he is very hard to like. Plus makes you wonder about the sanity of the women that still talk to him (on the other hand maybe constantly remarking on a women's boobs and ass is the way to become a chad).
4. The game has metric fuckton of filler dialogue, it makes reading through it a pain, and by the end I just held down the skip key and stopped at the actual important lines.
5. There is a HUGE disconnect between the main portion of the game and the true route. To the point of feeling like completely different games. The true route also only partially explains the main portion.
6. The game as disturbing sexual themes. And I don't mean the kind of creepy things sjws complain about, but the creepy things sjws support, ie "true love" (meaning incest).
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
So I just finished Yu-No and it's not very good. There are couple of problems with the game:
1. The plot takes place over the course of two days, meaning you have no time for actual character development, making all the characters feel flat. The events also repeat alot, making you feel like you are retreading the same conversations.
2. The game has an in universe justification for traveling between routes but the rules for it seems arbitrary - sometimes the hero remembers events, sometimes not.
3. The hero is a extremely abrasive towards others, so he is very hard to like. Plus makes you wonder about the sanity of the women that still talk to him (on the other hand maybe constantly remarking on a women's boobs and ass is the way to become a chad).
4. The game has metric fuckton of filler dialogue, it makes reading through it a pain, and by the end I just held down the skip key and stopped at the actual important lines.
5. There is a HUGE disconnect between the main portion of the game and the true route. To the point of feeling like completely different games. The true route also only partially explains the main portion.
6. The game as disturbing sexual themes. And I don't mean the kind of creepy things sjws complain about, but the creepy things sjws support, ie "true love" (meaning incest).
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I played a good portion of it before my PC died. And it's very easy to get turned around or accidenally place a crystal somewhere stupid then find you are now out of crystals and have to backtrack a ton. Which means speeding through more dialogue. Lots of times I forgot to pick something up or made a mistake and then realised I couldn't complete a scene. The game requires a lot of notes. Or a really good memory.

Takuya is an ass. You want to smack him. A lot. His daddy issues start getting on your nerves after awhile.

I don't hate the game. But it is frustrating. And Takuya is just is too unlikable.
 
Dysnomia said:
I played a good portion of it before my PC died. And it's very easy to get turned around or accidenally place a crystal somewhere stupid then find you are now out of crystals and have to backtrack a ton. Which means speeding through more dialogue. Lots of times I forgot to pick something up or made a mistake and then realised I couldn't complete a scene. The game requires a lot of notes. Or a really good memory.

Takuya is an ass. You want to smack him. A lot. His daddy issues start getting on your nerves after awhile.

I don't hate the game. But it is frustrating. And Takuya is just is too unlikable.
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Was it the new version or the old one? The new version is pretty easy to understand and navigate, but you can get stuck if you are too greedy with the jewels. The problem is that some event triggers (not for route splitting, just to advance) are not obvious and can get you to spend a lot of time clicking everything.
 
So from what I can tell the first Utawarerumono did get a remake already on vita but the two games on steam are remakes of the second and third game while the first game's remake is going to be added later? Maybe I'm missing something here but that seems like a strange choice.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
Was it the new version or the old one? The new version is pretty easy to understand and navigate, but you can get stuck if you are too greedy with the jewels. The problem is that some event triggers (not for route splitting, just to advance) are not obvious and can get you to spend a lot of time clicking everything.
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It was a fan translation of the older Windows version. And believe me, I know all about getting massively stuck for hours because I didn't click this or go down that path. :'(
 
Vapewizard said:
So from what I can tell the first Utawarerumono did get a remake already on vita but the two games on steam are remakes of the second and third game while the first game's remake is going to be added later? Maybe I'm missing something here but that seems like a strange choice.
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There is a remake on the PS4 that just came out. Though after playing it, I think the anime comes off as a decent compromise (the action is better in the anime but some characters don't get as much screen time, which can cause some misunderstandings). The second and third games came to the west first (and probably sold enough to warrant remaking the game) and are really fucking good.
 
I read Kindred Spirits on the Roof because some kiwi said it was good. It isn't.

1. The mandatory "totally not incest, we swear". There's only one route and it stinks. No one's fooled by "they have different parents, honest injun" any more than by the "they're 18 or older, honest injun". Hina doesn't stop calling Yuna "older sister" when they become a couple. There's never a consideration for them living in different households, Yuna never goes to visit Hina or communicates with her parents. Growing up, my classmates' parents were always a presence, even though I was (still am) an autistic loner. Sure I'm older than them and grew up before cell phones, but they're so uwu kawaii close they each of them effectively has two sets of parents. Parents should be more of a presence in their lives, not less.

2. The rapey shit. We've got statutory rape, sexual harassment and molestation of a minor, and sexual extortion and abuse of a minor. All of it is portrayed as uwu kawaii.

3. Unlike a typical vn with routes, here several stories happen at the same time, and all romances are backloaded. Action never risess or falls, it simply plods toward the inevitable pussgrabbing epidemic.

4. Repeated content. Some scenes are repeated from another character's perspective, but little to no effort is spent paring down repeated dialogue to keep the content fresh. None of these juxtapositions reveal any interesting conflicts, misunderstandings, hidden motives, or dramatic irony.

5. The choices are boring and have no lasting effects within the story; even worse, trying every single one of these inconsequential choices is required to unlock the b-side (about 1/3) of the game. This is worse for characterization than even pure linearity.

6. The biggest thematic problem is the incongruent mix of ecchi fetishism and uwu purity fetishism. Lesbian sexual attraction is sexual attraction. It's an adult game that wants to show tits and such; fine. But then, not only all pairs match (lesbians aren't all attracted to each other, you know), not only everyone is a lesbian, but the attraction has this cutesy uwu pure sexless quality until the sudden but inevitable pussy-grabbing. "Oh ok, you're nice and I don't want to be rude, I guess I'll date you."

7. No one's experiencing or even anticipating any realistic trouble. What if the other girl isn't a lesbian. What if she tells the teachers. What if she's not into you. What if she already has a crush or a girlfriend. No conflict, no drama, no meaningful interactions between members of different pairs, no surprising romantic outcomes. These are the pairs: now wait for them to fuck.

8. The lead character is supposed to transform from a loner to a popular girl, but because of no interactions between pairs she starts out with no fewer friends than anyone else in the game. She goes from a normal, well-adjusted person with two close friends to a self-effacing attachment deficit sufferer.

9. No school. They aren't shy about characters being children, despite the disclaimer, but the fun of child characters comes from the convoluted, artificial environment of the school and academic curriculum. You're fucking, or fighting crime, or travelling to other dimensions, but you still have to get good grades and come home by dinnertime. Growing up is seeing meaning behind the structure. Here, all of school is just filler.

9a. No parents.

10. Girls can't math. There's only one math club member, and she just wants to fuck the advisor (who's a literature teacher, because girls can't math). Why aren't there any characters with gender-nonconforming interests in a lesbian game?

11. The highlight of the story is a character who's an escapee from a different story. She's brash, she's loud, she's got no tolerance for uwu drool, she's here to kick ass, take names, and grab her lady love by the pussy. She's awesome, but she makes it even more obvious that eveyone else's character and sexuality may as well be a protracted how is babby formed reference.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
There is a remake on the PS4 that just came out. Though after playing it, I think the anime comes off as a decent compromise (the action is better in the anime but some characters don't get as much screen time, which can cause some misunderstandings). The second and third games came to the west first (and probably sold enough to warrant remaking the game) and are really fucking good.
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It did say on the store page you can start with 2 but I found that kind of peculiar considering logically speaking the first game in a series would have important info for the rest. I'd been considering for a while whether to wait for prelude to the fallen for pc cause I don't have a ps4 or vita or to just get the old pc version but I hadn't considered the anime yet.
 
I finished YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story after someone recommended it to me as "a better Doki Doki Literature Club" and I have to disagree.
Both games are a deconstruction of the Romcom Visual Novel, but while Doki Doki blows its load pretty fast, YOU takes a long time for the surprise to happen. This isn't bad by itself, but YOU has a lot smaller cast of characters, the setup itself is extremely minor and when the shits finally starts hitting the fan it feels pretty underwhelming and gets old pretty fast.
 
9-nine episode 3 just got an english released. It's going to be pretty hard to beat best girl sora but what I like best about this series is that it doesn't pretend it's not a romantic comedy at heart and try to be super serious with the supernatural setting.
Edit: I take that back. The ending of the game went full meta and shit to set up the next route since this one wrapped up quite nicely and the ending was more self contained than the previous entries.

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Finished Baldr Sky, while it doesn't dethrone Rewrite as my favourite VN, it gets pretty close. The memory loss setting is pretty ingenious way of letting the player replay routes with more info each time, though it comes with the price of having the game being very sequential. The whole sci fi setting is pretty well done though I feel like the AI being always morally good is too easy and it makes the various factions in the game slide too neatly into a "good" and "evil" sides.

The combat can be amazingly fun but the lock on and attack range make the more hectic fights, especially against fast moving enemies, a huge pain. Also some of the bosses and enemies either have ridiculous heat cool down rate or extreme amount of armor that just grinds combat to a halt, forcing you to bait out specific attacks where you can counter. The game has a large set of mech attacks, but I doubt most will continue exploring it after settling down into a combo framework that works well in the midgame. I think having a basic type of attacks with variants on them would have worked better than having a lot of attacks that are too situational to work well without some huge amount of autism to optimize combos.
Another problem I had with the combat (though it might be something that I missed) is that you cannot change loadouts mid mission, which can be frustrating when the game throws something like airborne enemies or mobs.

Visually the game looks pretty good but I think the devs could have added more difference between the past and present characters. It's especially ridiculous with Rain who looks 25+ in her highschool days.

Finally the story and characters, I'll seperate it per route:
Rain: An excellent introduction to the setting and a really cool final twist you only realize a route later. Rain herself is pretty great companion.

Nanoha: A route that really complements the first route, though the good ending to it is a bit too perfect, kinda ruins a lot of the drama when you succeed in saving the world 1/3 of the game in. Nanoha herself is okay, a bit too much suffering for the sake of suffering and making the player feel obligated to be with her.

Chinatsu: Best girl, also the route who succeeds most in fucking everything up, appropriate for a (technically) lolicon ending. Chinatsu does the "suffering girl" far better than Nanoha and jesus christ her life goes bad before and during the game.

Aki: My least liked route and girl. It doesn't really reveals a lot more about the world besides the reason for assembler going rogue, some foreshadowing for the next routes and the incoming incest. Aki herself is kinda boring and doesn't have a lot of chemistry with Kou.

Makoto: It could have worked very well as the final route by itself. It's pretty great and it does a good job of showing Makoto teetering on the edge of insanity. Makoto herself is a great character (and a hard as nails boss) and it feels pretty natural for her and Kou to end together.

Sora: The true route, though it doesn't fall into the trap of invalidating all the other routes.... until the end at least. The idea of an "opposite world" where Sora doesn't die is not really explained well considering Kou would have no reason to be around Assembler when it's unleashed. We get a boss rush, fission mailed and a final grand charge with everyone fighting. The final boss is utter bullshit and I have a feeling I only beat it by luck after easily beating everything else in the chapter. The final scene of getting a perfect ending in every other route felt like it invalidated my actions previously. Sometimes it's alright to keep the bittersweet rather than deus ex machina the perfect solution.
About Sora, as a character, I didn't really feel she was that good and the game pushes her too much as the perfect girl to Kou. Especially when you actually see the past and realize both her and Kou gets mind raped into loving each other and being in a relationship for less than two weeks. If anything Kuu has more chemistry and build up to a relationship with Kou as Agent.
I'm being though a bit too harsh and the final route is a great way to wrap up the game, barring the game constantly crashing there and the final boss being bullshit.
 
Imagine being able to beat makoto and sora's simulacrum but think neunzehn is hard.
Though I do agree I like Sora better when she's spending most of the time dead and only appears in kou's memories.
 
Namesarehardtocomeupwith said:
Imagine being able to beat makoto and sora's simulacrum but think neunzehn is hard.
Though I do agree I like Sora better when she's spending most of the time dead and only appears in kou's memories.
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Makoto is more annoying than hard, you only need to catch her a few times while shaving her health from afar. Sora felt pretty easy, since her damage output is pretty low and she gives you a lot more opportunities to strike. neunzehn however has fuckloads of health and armor in his attacks, meaning that you need to be really accurate in your timing to stunlock him into a combo and can't shave his health from afar. Also his instant death and wrapping you in a ball attacks are pute undiluted bullshit. Finally he can teleport and reduce heat extremely fast.

Though it might be because of loadouts since I played most of the game with the Uzis as a long range weapon, Ocelot as a way to deal good chunk of damage in a point blank shot and a combo of an uppercut and air juggle. Also I found it possible to use the gatling bit to create infinite combos (basically use it as a final air attack and time your attacks to launch the opponent again after it breaks), but it kinda removes the fun from a lot of battles.
 
Finished Root Letter. It's a 10 hours VN that might as well be a kinetic novel. The plot is about a guy who had a penpal 15 years ago, going back to the penpal's hometown to find where she disappeared to after he finds a letter he doesn't remember reading. Every chapter you discover one of her friends and piece together her disappearance.

It's kinda disappointing to be honest. Once again there is the problem of a female heroine being too perfect to be likable, which is contrasted too hard by her friends being regular dumb fucks. The plot builds up a lot of suspense only to not deliever a good reason for why everyone being so evasive. Not to mention it doesn't make any sense once you know the truth of the matter.

It also commit the VN sin of having the different routes be completely unrelated - character relations and personality is entirely different so there is no point in seeing any route besides the true end (not helping that the original ending I got was incredibly underwhelming).
 
Whats the opinion on here regarding the VNs that the company Genius Studio Japan Inc. keep shitting out constantly (I.E. all of these)? Are they worth anyone's time, or are they hampered by paywall bullshit?
 
SSF2T Old User said:
Whats the opinion on here regarding the VNs that the company Genius Studio Japan Inc. keep shitting out constantly (I.E. all of these)? Are they worth anyone's time, or are they hampered by paywall bullshit?
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I tried two of their games (Robot and Rental girlfriend-themed) and they hit you with paywall after paywall to see the more interesting choices for the girls. You could spend $20 worth of tokens and not get midway through one game. All of them have minimal writing and constant cliffhangers. Not worth it.
 
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