Visual Novel Cafe

[Cubky]

Managed to get about halfway through Sayoko's route when I encountered another one night stand scene (6th one including those in the common route) which, while not technically being cheating (no confession scene or anything like that before the event), it certainly felt that way as the heroine has been living with the MC for some time. This made me finally gave up reading and just skip through the rest.
Storywise, nothing interesting was going on. Sayoko was hiding at MC's house (because her agent was looking for her) while having sex with him without any real romance before the events. No idea if something interesting happened in the latter half I skipped through.
Not sure if the other heroines' routes are any different but to me the game really felt like a straight up nukige, which to me is quite unfortunate. What would I give for more VNs with adult heroines and proper romance...

 

[kzel]

I see, from the comments so far it doesn't seem like that's a game I'll enjoy. Thanks for suffering through it in my stead :)

While we're on the topic of disappointments, I briefly tried out 恋のハニトー ～えっちで甘いハニートラップ～. With a title like that I honestly wasn't expecting much, but the single hour of gameplay I poured into it is enough to tell me it's not for me : it was more a less a collection of intentional (from the heroines) lucky sukebe. The first scene of the game is one heroine showing up at the MC's house and getting basically naked in front of him... Then follows variations of the same hyper aggressive approaches for the rest of the cast. The MC is your generic everyday "closet pervert but gentle" teenager, and it doesn't look like he has anything that warrants the kind of affection the 5 or 6 heroines have towards him. Might go back to it at some point but I'm not in the mood for pointless ecchi just for the sake of ecchi.

Apart from 凍京NECRO this month seems to be pretty catastrophic for me. I guess I'll try なないろリンカネーション instead.

 

[Mahou]

@Gears of Dragoon 2: On what stats in the various equipment types do you focus, apart of the obvious elements? The VN isn't my priority, hence why I'm still in Chapter 1 and did the free quest *lol*. Same with skills. I didn't focus too much on the stats and put a few points in MC's element sword techniques and pumped Byakuen's single target skill that adds the bleed dot.
Oh yeah, I've resisted the urge to play on Easy for the instant-win button and use Normal!

 

[pumasrevenge]

Hello guys, hope you're all doing well :) My last post here was long ago and this is most likely the time where I played my last visual novel. A nukige doesn't count, hehe, otherwise I would have played at least two since my last post -_-

Today a friend of mine got a message from a student of the university of Vienna who's working on his master thesis (culture transfer through video games using the example of japanese visual novels).
Part of this thesis is a survey regarding visual novels, you can find it here.

I don't know him, but I would be thankful if you could participate in his survey to help him :) And to make visual novels in the german speaking countries more known too, hehe.

 

[ogopogo]

@Gears of Dragoon 2: On what stats in the various equipment types do you focus, apart of the obvious elements? The VN isn't my priority, hence why I'm still in Chapter 1 and did the free quest *lol*. Same with skills. I didn't focus too much on the stats and put a few points in MC's element sword techniques and pumped Byakuen's single target skill that adds the bleed dot.
Oh yeah, I've resisted the urge to play on Easy for the instant-win button and use Normal!

Depends on characters, with Byakuen just go all out POW and TEC and stacks physical damage gem in weapons and damage cap gem in everything else. For the MC, I've been using him mostly for elemental sword debuff so I went for a pretty balanced POW/MND/TEC build for him, also since I don't actually use him for damage, I put him on exp/gold bonus gem stacking duty. The only character you really need to stack defense and resist on is the tank; with the cover skills, you can pretty much make him/her take all the hits as long as he/she doesn't get disabled. Personally, I really like using Sheila during boss battle and Safina for trash since Safina has a passive that increase gem quality. For skills, you really don't need to raise their levels outside of meeting prerequisites, it's better to put points in raw stats since they increase your damage without increasing the mana cost. Also, with the Assault Chain bonus only going up to 100% this time and the fact single hit damage counts toward battle result, it's good to have a heavy hitter (Byakuen & Ekidona both work pretty well) on your team on top of the usual elemental sword -> multi-hit spam we used to abuse in GoD1. As for trash mobs, racial slayer skills on Byakuen and Group/All spells on spell casters are your friends.

For the record, I've been playing Normal Berserk Lv. 1 on 1.01 until chapter 4, then went 1.02 and started doing Normal Berserk Lv. 2 for the rest of the playthrough, I'll see if I can go straight up to Very Hard or not on my 2nd playthrough.

 

[Mahou]

Depends on characters, with Byakuen just go all out POW and TEC and stacks physical damage gem in weapons and damage cap gem in everything else. For the MC, I've been using him mostly for elemental sword debuff so I went for a pretty balanced POW/MND/TEC build for him, also since I don't actually use him for damage, I put him on exp/gold bonus gem stacking duty. The only character you really need to stack defense and resist on is the tank; with the cover skills, you can pretty much make him/her take all the hits as long as he/she doesn't get disabled. Personally, I really like using Sheila during boss battle and Safina for trash since Safina has a passive that increase gem quality. For skills, you really don't need to raise their levels outside of meeting prerequisites, it's better to put points in raw stats since they increase your damage without increasing the mana cost. Also, with the Assault Chain bonus only going up to 100% this time and the fact single hit damage counts toward battle result, it's good to have a heavy hitter (Byakuen & Ekidona both work pretty well) on your team on top of the usual elemental sword -> multi-hit spam we used to abuse in GoD1. As for trash mobs, racial slayer skills on Byakuen and Group/All spells on spell casters are your friends.

For the record, I've been playing Normal Berserk Lv. 1 on 1.01 until chapter 4, then went 1.02 and started doing Normal Berserk Lv. 2 for the rest of the playthrough, I'll see if I can go straight up to Very Hard or not on my 2nd playthrough.

Thanks for the information. I only knew from GoD1 that some skills received additional effects at a higher level so I assumed it may be similar. But in this case I'll focus the skill points more on the raw stats. I'll probably use Berserk Lv. 1 for the free quests. With GoD1 I had some horrible luck with finding good multi-slot equip, and I didn't really want to grind ad nauseum. Back then I didn't have any prior experience with Ninetails' VNs, so it was no surprise that the late-game bosses were at times frustrating for me.

 

[Animaksiat]

maybe we should make the discussion thread for GoD 2... it would make the VN cafe a little bit more peaceful for those who didn't play GoD 2.

 

[Cubky]

Apart from 凍京NECRO this month seems to be pretty catastrophic for me. I guess I'll try なないろリンカネーション instead.

Unfortunately have to agree with you, this month was pretty bad with new releases. Mine was especially since even 凍京NECRO does not seem like something I would enjoy. Apart from the girl in bear kigurumi.Next month is looking a bit better though.
Hope you'll like ななリン. :)

I'm a few hours into 天気雨. So far so good, pretty cute and relaxing as expected. Altough I would really like for the Grandparents to have some basic sprites at least, given how often they interact with other characters. But I can imagine creating sprites for E-Mote is not a walk in the park.

 

[Kri]

I'm a few hours into 天気雨. So far so good, pretty cute and relaxing as expected. Altough I would really like for the Grandparents to have some basic sprites at least, given how often they interact with other characters. But I can imagine creating sprites for E-Mote is not a walk in the park.

If I'm remembering correctly it was a mid-priced game, not full so I guess they didn't want to increase cost with making e-motes for sup characters. Most likely they could make some basic images for them without e-mote, but then again that would feel kind of cheap so I'm okay with it.


Last month's releases were definitely not my thing, I only played Hanikami clover and even that sucked pretty hard as I mentioned before. February seems pretty good though; First of all we have ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート. Harukaze's first game was pretty good; It had a really great common route and an awesome humor which doesn't fall even at the end of the game so I'm expecting at least the same level of comedy from this game as well. Only downside about the らぶおぶ恋愛皇帝 of love was the quality difference between routes, While some (Erika & hikari) were really good, some were so bad that I actually thought there were multiple writers or something. If he learnt from those mistakes, I'm sure it'll be an enjoyable game for me.


We also have World Election, 10th anniversary game for Whirlpool. To be honest it feels as a classic whirlpool game than something special for 10th anniversary, but it has a very nice cast of VAs so I'll check this as well. For some reason I'm always checking their games anyway.

Other than those There is 面影レイルバック which is an another 10th anniversary, AXL's old popular Koisuru Otome's sequel, 甘えかたは彼女なりに and Cube's new all sister type game 間宮くんちの五つ子事情 so I'll definitely have some games for playing at this month. Hell I didnt even mention Nekopara & Minori's new game yet, though most likely I wont play the latter one.

 

[Mahou]

I have also made it a habit to check Whirpools' games, even though I prefer their earlier VNs so far. G.I.B., Lunaris Filia and Usotsuki Ouji to Nayameru Ohime-sama weren't really my cup of tea in one way or another. But yeah, 甘えかたは彼女なりに seems to be just my thing and I loved Nekopara, even though part 1 seemed to be rushed towards the end.
Uhm... Minori... No, thanks. If out of three routes, one is bordering to be just creepy in some way, one about average, and only the "true" route worth it, I'll rather pass this time.

 

[kzel]

Today a friend of mine got a message from a student of the university of Vienna who's working on his master thesis (culture transfer through video games using the example of japanese visual novels).
Part of this thesis is a survey regarding visual novels, you can find it here.

Done.

Hope you'll like ななリン. :)

I'm liking it, it's a rather funny and light-hearted take on the Oni thing. I really like the whole family feeling. I'm not too keen on the mandatory sex with each demon but oh well, scenes are short so I'll endure. Looks like with Iris the group is complete so hopefully that's done with. Kotori's cute and so is Iris, looking forward to see more of them both.

Is it just me or isn't it just awful to name someone Fuyou?　I know it's also the name of a flower but I immediately thought 不要... And her duties are also kinda dull, do the housework yourself you lazy bum!

February seems pretty good though

Reviewing February's releases already? I haven't had time to look at them yet, but I already noticed 1分の2恋ゴコロ that I found last October (?) and that got delayed. Looked interesting : hard working MC + double imoutos.

 

[Cubky]

I'm liking it, it's a rather funny and light-hearted take on the Oni thing. I really like the whole family feeling. I'm not too keen on the mandatory sex with each demon but oh well, scenes are short so I'll endure. Looks like with Iris the group is complete so hopefully that's done with. Kotori's cute and so is Iris, looking forward to see more of them both.

I myself quite liked Aoi's scenes, as I'm a sucker for kemonomimis and a cat person. Really laughed out loud in the beginning of her H-scene. If you're at the Iris introduction part then there's one or two mandatory oni scenes for each route left, most of them featuring Iris obviously. Her scenes are also pretty good though.

Is it just me or isn't it just awful to name someone Fuyou?

I know right? Was surprised no one, not even Iyo, pointed it out (or did I miss it?). Fuyou is the only character I didn't really like. Mostly because, as you said, her being pretty dull all in all.


As for releases in February, I have a few titles on my watchlist. World Election seems like my jam, altough I haven't played anything from Whirlpool yet so I don't know what to expect. Will probably be also trying out ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート. From the description it seemed to be focusing on a comedic approach so I'm hoping for a good laugh at least. While not being really into sister heroines, Cube's 間宮くんちの五つ子事情 is looking pretty good so far. Also liked their previous game so I might give it a shot. Last and least, 甘えかたは彼女なりに which got delayed from January.
Other than that there's Nekopara 2, which I probably wont play this month as I still have to complete the first, and Minori's 罪ノ光ランデヴー which I know nothing of basically other than that I like the art. :) Haven't played any recent games from them, but I remember liking their older titles.

 

[kzel]

I myself quite liked Aoi's scenes, as I'm a sucker for kemonomimis and a cat person. Really laughed out loud in the beginning of her H-scene. If you're at the Iris introduction part then there's one or two mandatory oni scenes for each route left, most of them featuring Iris obviously. Her scenes are also pretty good though.

I'm not too much of a beastgirl aficionado myself, but Aoi's certainly funny in her extreme bluntness and lack of tact.

I know right? Was surprised no one, not even Iyo, pointed it out (or did I miss it?). Fuyou is the only character I didn't really like. Mostly because, as you said, her being pretty dull all in all.

I don't think anyone pointed out anything about her name, other than Fuyou herself saying that even if the MC named her "あああ" she would be overjoyed with it anyway. I can't say I liked her much either, she's too much of a carbon-copy of a certain other someone. More than anything, she's constantly pushing the MC into treating the onis as nothing more than sex slaves, which is something I really didn't appreciate (more on that later).

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I finished なないろリンカネーション, it was pretty good but there are a certain number of things that prevent me from giving the game a really good review. The common route was for the most part fine, if not for the mandatory sex scenes with each demon. As long as these scenes served a "purpose", I was willing to put up with it but once entering character specific routes, the only motivation is to appease or give a reward to the onis..? Iris's first time is a 4P in two out of 4 routes, in another she's used as not much more than a ona-hole...

It's a rather recurring theme in eroge to have this kinda harem situation where the MC is not romantically involved with some girls but still gets to fuck them because it's his 'duty'. I can't help but see it as nothing more than a lame excuse that allows the MC to cheat on his romantic interest, whether or not they're in a relationship already. The MC may hide behind reticence or duty but he does it all the way anyway, and obviously enjoys it. Which brings us to Yumi's route, in which for once the actual girlfriend is shocked and has a hard time accepting that. If it would have led the MC to change his attitude, then it would have been great, but... it's HER that had to apologize : "I'm sorry it must be so hard to satisfy all these horny young ladies and me on top of that, poor you". Give me a break...

Spoiler: Yumi's end

And her ending just made it worse by introducing an actual love interest into this group...

Anyway, back to the common route, it was still pretty funny thanks to some nice characters, even if the story itself is rather short. The big reveal that is shared among all routes is a nice idea, but I think the writer gave way too many hints before the shock scene. I know it's difficult to give just enough clues that a twist doesn't seem like it comes out of nowhere, but also not too many so as not to spoil it beforehand. In this case, I had the "secret" mostly figured out rather early, and what could have been a moving scene was demoted to a mere confirmation. Which is not to say I didn't feel anything playing the game, but I felt that was more due to Akino Hana's (fake) tears than anything else.

I did Kotori's route (extended) first and don't regret it, I still think it's the best. I especially like the merry-go-round scene when the MC finally lets out his real feelings. Seeing the alternative, the latter just felt like imposing needless suffering on the MC if things end up as this ending says anyway. I also kinda liked Iyo's route, even though it's the shortest of the four. Azusa's route was fine, and I can't say I enjoyed Yumi's route much. I was expecting individual onis to have routes for themselves but nope. Overall, a fine game, too bad it contained some elements that just tick me off. I should have stopped playing after finishing Kotori's and Iyo's stories.

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I have no specific title to play next, but that's good as I plan to spend some time on X-COM2. I may play some of はにかみCLOVER, or go a bit further with 恋のハニトー, we'll see.

 

[Mahou]

With my currently very slow and fluctuating gaming times, I've reached Chapter 3 in Gears of Dragoon2 (in the following GoD2). I actually bothered to level to 30 in chapter 2 in order to win the normally unwinnable battle there. Battle-wise: It's nice to see that while status ailments can still screw you up, I haven't really been reliant on using slotted equipment. Stacking Pashie's, Rufei (and Ashley's for "overkill") regeneration skills is cheap but sooo effective *lol*. It's nice to see the dragon song magic return, even though it seems to be inferior to how useful Maya's from Enbou no Felshis had been. My standard party has been mostly Roster, Pashie, Byakuen, Safina/Oife, Kei and Rufie. They can make most enemies cry.

Characterswise: I liked the personal story of Safina and how she warmed up to the MC. I like him better than the fail from GoD1. Ashley's tsun-tsun character is fun and her onii-chan is cool. Yeah, haven't really much to say about it. The characters which you should probably hate (Mauser, Vanessa), are indeed unpleasant beings and annoying. As for Mr. Ace Adventurer? Well, he hasn't had sooo much screentime, so I'm rather inopinionated about him.
I'll be doing the Magic route first but no special reason behind it.

 

[ogopogo]

With my currently very slow and fluctuating gaming times, I've reached Chapter 3 in Gears of Dragoon2 (in the following GoD2). I actually bothered to level to 30 in chapter 2 in order to win the normally unwinnable battle there. Battle-wise: It's nice to see that while status ailments can still screw you up, I haven't really been reliant on using slotted equipment. Stacking Pashie's, Rufei (and Ashley's for "overkill") regeneration skills is cheap but sooo effective *lol*. It's nice to see the dragon song magic return, even though it seems to be inferior to how useful Maya's from Enbou no Felshis had been. My standard party has been mostly Roster, Pashie, Byakuen, Safina/Oife, Kei and Rufie. They can make most enemies cry.

Characterswise: I liked the personal story of Safina and how she warmed up to the MC. I like him better than the fail from GoD1. Ashley's tsun-tsun character is fun and her onii-chan is cool. Yeah, haven't really much to say about it. The characters which you should probably hate (Mauser, Vanessa), are indeed unpleasant beings and annoying. As for Mr. Ace Adventurer? Well, he hasn't had sooo much screentime, so I'm rather inopinionated about him.
I'll be doing the Magic route first but no special reason behind it.

Nice, I just finished my 3rd playthrough the other day on Crazy Berserk 9. The game's quite balanced except for enemies Elemental Sword damage which can often one shot your tank if you use Rampart. I had to run a two tanks party on Crazy as a result. Anyway, like you said, stacking regeneration is very powerful and viable even on higher difficulties, but since you cannot stack status effects with the same icons you only really need 1 Healing Zone effect and 1 Regeneration effect. As for Ashley, she just seem too much like Aoba Ringo's usual tsundere characters. Maya from Felshis was waaaay more kawaii. My fav. characters this time are Rufie, Yozakura and Sheila. Funny enough, Mauser and Venessa kinda grew on me especially Mauser on Machina route, they're both very much comic relief characters on top of being villains. I also did the Magic route first, and was pretty happy with the decision since it's easier to farm the Magic Route dungeons. If you're planning to farm on Crazy, which you can only do on your 3rd playthrough, it's a good idea to go Magic -> Machina -> Magic.

 

[kzel]

As stated before, most of my gaming time has been spent on XCOM-2 (great game by the way), but that's not to say I stopped reading VNs completely.

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I've kept going with 恋のハニトー, and played all the way through Kanon's route. Given the way the game started (first scene : hadaka apron) I was afraid the heroine's attacks would escalate as time went on during the common route and before you're allowed to make the MC make his final choice. As it turns out it was mostly pretty tame choosing Kanon at every opportunity, apart from that one scene with Hinami-sensei. The game says it's all a dream but it reeked strongly of drug rape to me...

Kanon's route proper was okay, I like the character and the MC stops fooling around and focuses on supporting her. Although I'm still not entirely clear on what exactly he does during the whole game, apart from bringing up the festival idea. He's supposed to go around and help out if needed but it seemed he was for the most tagging along Kanon and watching her do everything. He did have his small moment of glory in one scene near the end though, and given Kanon's character, just having someone near her may be exactly what she wants anyway.

Pacing-wise, events fly by quickly, and the whole route maybe took me 2 to 3 hours to play through. In a game with 6 heroines (or actually 5+1 as I saw no choice related to Hinami sensei) I suspected each route to suffer in quantity but still. They still managed to put 5 ecchi scenes but apart from the first one, they were really really short. Not sure I'll play any other route but given how short it is, it could be a nice filler so I'm keeping it around. If I do play another route it's probably going to be Sakura's.

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I've also delved pretty deeply in はにかみ CLOVER, completing both Makina and Sumire's route. My first impressions were pretty bad, with the game starting up with peeping on masturbation, then fellatio and paizuri following soon after, but it's limited to Saeki and thankfully once that's past it goes back to school slice-of-life and stays on this track all the way to character routes. The common part felt very much focused on Saeki, to the detriment of the other heroines in my opinion. I wouldn't have minded more screen time for Makina, but once entering character routes the others more or less fade out and are relegated to side characters.

I did Makina's route first and I really enjoyed it. It's the second game I've played in which Kusuhara Yui voices a character and I must say she's growing on me. The whole chuuni character usually puts me off but this time around it worked, and I found her really funny and cute. Maybe that's because she herself admits it's just an act, and as she gets closer to the MC she lets her real persona out more and more. Despite the high number of ecchi scenes (8 in her case), the game wasn't just a succession of them. The relationship took time to build up and had a fair share of comedic and touching moments. I especially liked her main issue and its resolution, props to both Makina and the MC for coming up with this plan.

Sumire's route was fairly surprising in that the MC's attitude and perhaps whole personality seems to be completely different. While in Makina's route he stays more or less the same as in the common route, in Sumire's he turns into a complete hetare rather quickly, complete with self-loathing on top. It was probably to give so many opportunities for Sumire to cheer him up and drive him forward, and he does eventually snap out of it (by the end...), but it was really unexpected. That aside, Sumire is a really great character, a combination of the perfect imouto, with a touch of koakuma and being a miko on top, I really liked her. It took time for the relationship to start and then the story focuses more or less on the MC rather than Sumire herself, but it was pretty nice.

I'll probably play the two other routes, even though I don't hold too much interest in the succubus duo.

 

[Kri]

I'll probably play the two other routes, even though I don't hold too much interest in the succubus duo.

And I have finished two succubus so I guess we complete each other. As you said I also think the game wasnt so bad, even a little better than average maybe, but the biggest problem about it is the deciving the customers with the trial so I still feel negative about itself. I actually downloaded and played trial just for seeing why are people mad about it, and they are completely right in my opinion.

The trial dont have any scene where they mention the "succubus" thing, or having this much h-scenes, or anything like that. It just have the character introduction, then skips into christmas night, you see 2-3 scenes with the heroines which choosen very carefully, then it just skips into a Sumire's h-scene > end. So people has thought this as a moege / charage, bought it, then got 40 h-scenes with main succubus theme. I think its okay to count this as "deciving" but I'm not really sure why the hell they did something like that. It would still sell with those hot h-scenes and art, just as ponkotsu akuma.

Well I didnt buy it so I actually enjoyed what is there. I'm not really sure about Sumire since everyone is saying its worst part of the game, but I'll definitely play Makina until the february releases.

 

[kzel]

I never play trials but I kinda understand what you mean. I didn't buy it either so I don't feel deceived at all, just a little disappointed that it's not exactly what I expected it would be from the Getchu description alone. Still, I don't think it's as close to a nukige as Ponkotsu Akuma was. Ponkotsu Akuma is sitting on the border between moege and nukige in my opinion, but what really pushed it towards the nukige genre was the common route unavoidable ecchi scene with each heroine, including the opening scene 6P. This kind of "trial" version of each heroine's ecchi speaks volume to me. In Hanikami Clover's case, this early ecchi is limited to Saeki and while I would have preferred it not to be there at all, it serves the story somewhat. I would not put it in the same category as Ponkotsu Akuma, at least playing Makina's and Sumire's route it felt like a ecchi-heavy charage (moege in Makina's case) more than a nukige. I'll have to see if my opinion remains the same after I play more into one of the two succubus' story.

Sumire's route is as a said a little off, due to the MC's sudden change of personality. Much of the route is spent self-loathing, thinking he's an empty shell with no studying skill, no hobby and no special talent, and worrying about his future and how he could repay his debt to his foster parents. If you don't mind that too much, Sumire really shines as she keeps comforting him, and makes him ever more dependent on her support in the process. I guess your enjoyment of the route depends on how much you can't stand the MC's attitude, and if you like Sumire's character enough to look beyond it.

 

[ogopogo]

Thanks for the feedback on Gears of Dragoon 2, seems like I might give it a try after all.


Oh man indeed... I had high hopes for both of these but I guess I'll skip them for now.

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I just finished the true end of 凍京NECRO, it was certainly an interesting ride. More than anything, the game had a good number of surprises and plot twists I didn't manage to read beforehand, that's one of the main reason I like Japanese productions and Nitroplus especially. What I thought to be Kiriri's route ended up being Kon-Su's (sort of), but they both share a lof of elements and a large portion of their story before diverging. Iria and Mitsumi's routes shared some elements as well, but I felt there was more variation between these two.

Kon-Su's route was quite interesting overall, but the technical explanations of the inner workings of Necromancy in it felt really off. It did feel strange that a simple "medicine" injection could all of sudden make 90% of organs unneeded, but the reasoning behind it, honestly, would have been better not explained at all. Just like the characters themselves, I have much doubts any of it's possible. Still, it was nice to see Souun and Echika get used to their new fighting style, it makes for quite some humorous action sequences.

Kiriri's route is probably the one I liked the least, if solely because one of the characters that normally (that is, in the other routes) is pretty decent suddenly turns into a complete jerk. And the character I hated the most, Rourushaha, the number 1 rape/torture vector, suddenly gets cooperative (sort of)? Given it shares a lot of plot elements with Kon-Su's route, the damage at the end is pretty extensive, but contrary to Kon-Su's route I find things settle down too fast : at most a couple lines in the epilogue for what should have been a massive problem.

The true end itself was short compared to the other route, and it kinda overlaps with Iria's route, but it was very nice to see some events from a different perspective and get some background on sub-characters that otherwise have few opportunities to talk. Still, as usual with games that offer a true end, it tends to lower the impact of the other endings. Personally, I really liked Mitsumi's route and ending, and to see it more or less denied felt like a small betrayal by the author. I find the common strategy of true ends to make everyone happy just doesn't resound well with the rest of the game, the central theme is more or less about accepting loss and going forward. Nevertheless, there was some really moving parts in it, and it confirmed the growing suspicions I had witnessing the title screen evolve as routes got cleared.

The 3D animated fighting really helped action sequences spring into life, though I wish I had a better laptop to play them in all their shader enhanced glory. I suppose I could have played the game on my gaming computer but I wouldn't have been able to sink so much time into it, nearly 40 hours in a week. Overall while the fighting is nice, my main interest in the game remained the plot and the character interactions. On that front, I wasn't disappointed : apart from very few personality changes between routes it's very interesting to learn more about each character. What was especially interesting was that each character's motivation is explained in different routes, and it sheds light on their behavior during the others.

Apart from a few exceptions, I found the ecchi in the game to be at best unneeded and at worst unwanted. The first times with Iria and Mitsumi were the only scenes I found decent, that's 2 out of 12. I'll admit I don't find any interest in yuri, and can't stand sexual torture scenes (that includes hard SM play) but depending on your preferences, your appreciation may vary. I would have been 100% fine playing the game without any of them. It might even have earned a 15+ rating as the violence is not really that bad, and that's playing with the gore filter off.

Music wise, it was more or less spot on, with a few of the action themes really sticking out. I'm not too much a fan of Substance-Concept hashed up voice but it was fine still. I don't usually listen to techno but I really liked 愚連隊 and Survival Strategy, and just listened to the beats for a few minutes each time they were used. Too bad the game didn't include an OST.

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I have a week's sleep to catch up on, but once that's done I'm probably going to start 恋のハニトー. Even though the super motemote MC genre is not my favorite thing by far...

Finally got around to finishing 凍京NECRO myself and I have to agree with you on most points. The true end really does feel like it cheapens the other routes by basically saying that they never actually happened. Not to mention it's the type of huge Dues Machina that Vio Shimokura's been waaaay too fond of using. Also, I have essentially the same problem you had with Kiriri's route but for slightly different reason, I feel both the character you mentioned and the main villain's motivations to be inconsistent and lack credibility and this just happen to become especially clear on Kiriri's route. Again, you were pretty spot on about the ero-scenes feeling tacked on as well; while I don't have the same aversion to rape/SM scenes that you have, most of them just don't feel like they add much to the plot or the characters in any way. Compared to the infamous first rape scene in Muramasa that they actually have to censor from the demo to the retail version, at least that one served a purpose in the plot and had a much stronger emotional impact than the ones in this game. However, there's one thing that I really enjoyed despite my reservation about it coming into the game and that is the real time 3D action sequences. Originally I thought they'd distract too much from the text during the action sequences but much to my surprised, Vio's minimalistic approach to writing action complimented with what's going on on screen very well. Now that I think about it, writing action scenes has never really been his strong point, Vio's greatest strength has always been with building characters and writing great dialogues. In the developer post-script he mentioned that he had to re-write a lot to make them work with the real time action and I believe him, this presentation method basically made what I'd consider one of his writing's weakness into something that made the overall presentation and pacing of the game much better. So while Tokyo Necro certainly have great pacing and is quite stress free to read, it felt a tad bit shallow for me especially after that True End. I really wish they had kept Iriya's ending as it is because I actually appreciated it a lot more than the true end. Anyway, with SMT4 Final out and too many games on the horizon, I probably won't get back into VN until まいてつ in March for my Kiritani Hana fix. Oh, btw, whoever did the CG for the food in Tokyo Necro, bravo, that curry CG actually made me cook curry for dinner...

 

[kzel]

Not to mention it's the type of huge Dues Machina that Vio Shimokura's been waaaay too fond of using.

I haven't played that many games written by Shimokura Vio, but that true end did feel akin to Steins;Gate's true end, with a massive plot device to make everything alright coming all of a sudden. Still, he did also write 君と彼女と彼女の恋。 which I really liked a lot and had the courage to impose a clear choice and have the player stick with it. Not that it's impossible to go around it, but I still haven't betrayed Miyuki (not in this game anyway, ahaha...).

So while Tokyo Necro certainly have great pacing and is quite stress free to read, it felt a tad bit shallow for me especially after that True End. I really wish they had kept Iriya's ending as it is because I actually appreciated it a lot more than the true end.

100% agreed, I liked Iria and Mitsumi's endings more than the true end version, just because it felt they resonated more with the overall tone of the game. I especially liked the resolution in Mitsumi's route, for both Souun and Ethica.

Oh, btw, whoever did the CG for the food in Tokyo Necro, bravo, that curry CG actually made me cook curry for dinner...

You too? Those food CGs all look so delicious, too bad they're more or less hidden in the encyclopedia under exotic names so it's rather inconvenient to find them back.

---

I did Saeki Rio's route in はにかみ CLOVER and hmm, I didn't enjoy it that much. Most of the problems and happenings have to do with sex which for a succubus is to be expected but it's not really my cup of tea. There were a few funny icha-icha scenes that were pleasant to read but as I said previously, I didn't really have much interest in Saeki in the first place and that wasn't enough to spark some. Also, the endings are really starting to feel similar, all the routes I've played so far end up in a identical state, just with a different partner for the MC. Not sure I'll play Suou's story, might as well while waiting for next month's releases.

---

Speaking of next month's releases, I finally took a quick look at what's coming up.

Let's start off with two delays : 1分の2恋ゴコロ is pushed back to next month, after having already been delayed for a few months, I'm starting to worry. 面影レイルバック mentionned by Kri is pushed back all the way up to May.

Kadenz Fermata//Akkord:Fortissimo seems interesting, even though I haven't played the prequel but I have played some other 5pb. games.

ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート, which seems to be expected by a few people here. I haven't played the previous Harukaze title but it does look like it'll make for a nice comedy game.

Happening Love!! looks decent, fairly standard setting and story but I love bukiyou heroines and it's this title's selling point. Not sure what they mean by love happenings, hopefully it's not just a collection of lucky sukebe.

ワールド・エレクション I'll probably try just because Akino Hana's in it, even though I've had mixed experiences with Whirlpool in the past. G.I.B. Girls in Black was okayish and I didn't like Kujiragami no Tearstilla enough to go very far into it, I don't think I finished a single route.

甘えかたは彼女なりに is somewhat the same thing : from the description alone it looks good but I have some pretty bad memories from Giga titles. Harvest Overlay was pretty good but the following titles, Passage!, Haru Kiss and Ren'ai Phase I found were pretty bad for a variety of reasons, I'll just hope the trend will stop there.

間宮くんちの五つ子事情 for an all sisters game looks pretty decent, I'm just a little cautious given the unusually high number of 3P+ preview CGs at the bottom of getchu's page...

And finally, 罪ノ光ランデヴー looks like it'll have a nice depressing story given the introduction of the MC and the main (?) heroine. I haven't played a Minori title yet so I might give this one a shot.

Phew, busy month ahead...

 

[Mahou]

The only Minori title I'd ever recommend is Ef - a fairytale for the two. Somber story, different MCs for each chapter-ish story and some sad but Mahou-approved drama in it (and officially in english as a nice-to-have).

@Kujiragami no Tearstilla: Yeah, I kinda agree. It was okay-ish. Suzukaze no Melt was still one of whirlpool's best VNs with a true route structure. I personally liked JustyxNasty as well for its rather fun atmosphere but I've read elsewhere that some found it pretty boring.

I'll skip 間宮くんちの五つ子事情 as I couldn't like 倉野くんちのふたご事情's main character. That guy was sooo dense in a bad way...X_X that you wouldn't believe the same VN created at first with Natsu no Ame such a formidable game.

I'll play Neko Para Vol. II once I have a bit more time. It's actually nothing to write home about but it hits my strike zone with the feel-good atmosphere *lol*.

 

[Cubky]

Haven't had much time to play this past week due to work piling up.

Managed to complete Kon's route in 天気雨, which was pretty relaxing. Not much of a story going on. As for the common route - the MC is a university student that comes to the countryside to help out his old grandfather with taking care of the surrounding lands. He meets two foxes that got somehow turned into humanoid form and taken in by his grandparents who think they're messengers from the gods and enjoys the rest of the summer with them. Kon's route is basically lovey dovey with the MC, dealing with the issue that he has to go back to the city once the summer is over. I would say Shiro's route will be similar, but I won't be playing it as I don't like the character (innocent loli type). As for the sex scenes, they were pretty alright, starting out vanilla and getting a bit weired near the end (tail job, ear job anyone?). All in all an alright experience.

After that I tried 僕と恋するポンコツアクマ after I dropped it when I saw the group scene in the beginning when it came out.
After playing through Mel's route, I still don't know why they put it there considering it's even repeated in the common route. Second thing I didn't like were those mandatory scenes with each heroine in the common route. I thought they were there to show the reader at least some of the main fetishes of the heroines, however, at least for Mel, that doesn't really hold true. In my opinion, they should have made those scene go all the way through or even better just leave them for the heroines' routes. After reading through one route I didn't quite get the supernatural setting (witches, succubuses etc.) as I didn't really see it affect much of the story or H scenes. For those that read it, do the heroine's powers have any influence in other routes?
Other than this, it was a pretty good game. Was quite surprised that there was any romance at all! The H scenes (together with the great art style) were awesome, which is to be expected from a nukige I guess, but the game did also get me to laugh out loud a few times during the read.
Mel's route was (surpirisngly) just my jam. I don't really like senpai characters, however Mel didn't really feel like one after a while. She turned out to be a masochist which is the second thing I didn't expect but I didn't really mind that as those scenes with her were pretty great, a bit far-fetched sometimes, but its a nukige so who cares.
To sum up, no real story, didn't like the characters. Liked the art, H scenes and the occasional humor. Might read a few more routes inbetween other games.

Now onto my backlog again with either フラテルニテ, as I havent played a Clock Up game for a while, or できない私が、くり返す

ワールド・エレクション I'll probably try just because Akino Hana's in it

An instant jump in my priorities for this month's releases. Thanks for pointing it out. :)

 

[Kri]

Whirlpool games are always hit or miss, Sometimes they are making great games which makes you play them in one go, and sometimes they bore you so much that you cant even bother with finishing a route. I really liked Magus Tale, Justy Nasty, Suzukaze no Melt, Ryuuyoku no Melodia and their FDs from them, but then again their recent games like GIB, Magicalic Sky, Usotsuki Ouji were really boring.

That happens because of not having a steady writer though. They are hiring a different writer for each game, their last 5 games have all different writers. I'm not really sure how the hell are they still managing to make same atmosphere at every game with all those different writers, but the quality of the game changes for sure. This time its the guy who has wrote Primal x Hearts so I think we can expect something not terrible at least. With that VAs cast all he has to do is writing something a little better than average anyway.


I was looking forward for the 面影レイルバック though, its really a shame. I dont think I'll care about it at may, since Sengoku koihime X getting released at april and most likely I will be still hyped about it at that time. Finally we are almost there after all those waiting.

 

[kzel]

I'll play Neko Para Vol. II once I have a bit more time. It's actually nothing to write home about but it hits my strike zone with the feel-good atmosphere *lol*.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts about it. This game and its prequel seem to be valued highly, but I'm still a little concerned by the preview CGs more often than not showing 3P play or more. Oh well, if the writing and the mood is that good I can always play the all-ages version.

After reading through one route I didn't quite get the supernatural setting (witches, succubuses etc.) as I didn't really see it affect much of the story or H scenes. For those that read it, do the heroine's powers have any influence in other routes?

Not really, no, but keep in mind that these girls are ponkotsu, and they suck at whatever power their race or uprising should bestow to them. There is something in Emiri's route but I'll not say any further, I wouldn't want to spoil what I found to be the best route and heroine of the game by far. The most influence I remember in H scenes is the occasional wings or tail sprouting out, which can lead to unexpected happenings, especially in Riria's route if I remember right *shivers*. Also, if you've cleared the game once you'll get access to the sub cast including the ever funny Tama-chan, she's great even though her H-scene is hmm, well, a little too wet for my tastes?

Whirlpool games are always hit or miss, Sometimes they are making great games which makes you play them in one go, and sometimes they bore you so much that you cant even bother with finishing a route. I really liked Magus Tale, Justy Nasty, Suzukaze no Melt, Ryuuyoku no Melodia and their FDs from them, but then again their recent games like GIB, Magicalic Sky, Usotsuki Ouji were really boring.

Suzukaze no Melt and JustyxNasty, I'll make a note of them, thanks.

---

After trying and failing to find interest in Suou's route in はにかみ CLOVER and Sakura's route in 恋のハニトー, I ended up starting 働くオトナの恋愛事情 that I had downloaded way back. Thanks to Cubky's warning I knew what to expect and had my control key ready to skip the obligatory one-night stand at the end of each chapter. I'm not sure that many encounters were needed, one or two would have been enough to accentuate the MC's changes. Also, the MC for being an adult is certainly carefree having sex without protection with such bitches (the hitchhiker and runner girl probably have different partners every day...), at this rate he'd have caught every STD there is in less than a month if the plot didn't move in a different direction.

I'm currently on Tomoe's route and it's pretty alright, even though I'm somehow constantly worried the MC will drink himself stupid and cheat on her. He did have an encounter after doing it for the first time with her, but they weren't officially together yet so I guess that's fine (no it's not but gotta have that ecchi scene per chapter!). It came real close to actual cheating in chapter 11 but, thank the writer, you can refuse this time around, which makes me optimistic for the following. Other than that, I'm pretty happy to hear more of Yahiro Mami (Azusa from PxC2), especially in ecchi scenes I find her voice really hot.

 

[Terumi]

Regalias gameplay trial is out if anyone else is interested.