That story though... The protagonist is a student council president and manages to abolish the rule forbidding romance in the school, and suddenly every female in this school and the next wants to become his girlfriend, including but not limited to : the neighboring school's student council president, a repeat winner of a miss contest, his old childhood friend that just transferred back to his school, and the student council vice president who opposed the abolition and wants to demonstrate why romance can be bad. This guy already has his harem before the game has even begun!
Knowing it's Hooksoft I hope it will manage to stay relatively innocent, but that concept of "enjoying being the hero of the school and being loved by EVERYONE from start to finish" just seriously puts me off. I'd expect about as much romantic development, if not less, than a nukige...
All quiet after two months, and I'm starting MakingLovers. Looks like some kind of full region lock is beginning to be a thing for this group (on a related note, it's also the case with Amenity's Life FD). Emulating locale still works for some reason. I'd think that the entire OS must be in Japanese language for it to believe that it is a Japanese system...
This one seems to thrust you straight into the action...
I think the problem isn't the company, but the game engine. All games with the new version of BGI, Tayutama 2 for example, have this region lock problem. Hooksoft just happened to use BGI to develop their games.
BTW, hello people. It's been years since I last dropped by. What's everyone playing nowadays?
I think the problem isn't the company, but the game engine. All games with the new version of BGI, Tayutama 2 for example, have this region lock problem. Hooksoft just happened to use BGI to develop their games.
BTW, hello people. It's been years since I last dropped by. What's everyone playing nowadays?
Ah, BGI is those engine that don't want to run on some computers anyway? I remember that demo of Making Lovers doesn't run on my PC... Full version is okay, oh my gosh, thank you.
Ah, BGI is those engine that don't want to run on some computers anyway? I remember that demo of Making Lovers doesn't run on my PC... Full version is okay, oh my gosh, thank you.
I think the problem isn't the company, but the game engine. All games with the new version of BGI, Tayutama 2 for example, have this region lock problem. Hooksoft just happened to use BGI to develop their games.
BTW, hello people. It's been years since I last dropped by. What's everyone playing nowadays?
It's been a while since I posted here as well. I've been playing some VNs here and there but barely more than a route per, not enough to write much about. In case anyone wants some more comments, these were :
癒しの女神の実験台 : sucks
ヤミと祝祭のサンクチュアリ : started good, but the ending is rushed
ツギハギめいくぴーす！: boring
ウブな処女のエッチなお願い : template ensemble nukige
ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート２: typical Hato writing, with a back and forth between high tension jokes and questionable poetic prose. Also, poor CVs shouting 99% of the time. Route quality/quantity vary a lot depending on whether Hato cares or not (he doesn't about Eurasia, or the after of the first game's characters). Nobuchina's route is good but the romance is crap, and only has one decent H scene.
MakingLovers : things move very quickly and abruptly, but it's funny and it's nice to be away from the school setting for once.
Finally have time to take care of the backlog. A little late but just finished 春音アリス＊グラム.
I'm pretty fond of the art, maybe because I already missed Nanao Naru and Mitha. The music is great; I love the main theme and its various variations, especially the title theme.
The game's plot revolves around school mysteries and how several chosen students use their magical "arcane cards" to solve them. They range from personal problems, mischief pranks, to paranormal activities. The common route does a pretty good job on keeping the players engaged and interested in how the events will unfold.
The problem though is each individual route. Once you reach that point, that school mysteries stuff is mostly thrown into the dustbin. All the tension you feel in the common route is gone. Of course the individual routes have to be about developing relationship with the heroines, but I feel they discarded the whole plot device too easily. What I get is a quite boring everyday life, some spending time with the heroine now and then, and one final obstacle to add to the climactic drama. Not that it's bad because who doesn't love ichaicha moments, but the change is too drastic to go unnoticed.
Regarding the story, even with 100% completion, there are still some questions left unanswered or poorly answered. (Combined with the lack of subheroine routes, I guess they're already planning for a fandisk, huh?)
1. Yuuri: Yuuri is a friendly and selfless girl who is the current student council president. Her route explores previous student council members' unjust action, their dispute with other students, and how Yuuri tries to conciliate in it; it isn't even about dealing with her own problem, but about helping others. She always puts other people before herself and stays that way through the entire game. I'd love to have a kind girl like her as my girlfriend, but her character in the story is too flat to my liking. As a side note, I think Nanawind is trying to present Yuuri as the main heroine, but actually her route is the most unrelated to the game's main plot. It has absolutely nothing to do with the magical theme and made me wonder if it really should be in this game in the first place.
I also don't like the relationship progression in her route. Yuuri had met Soutarou in the past and already had feelings for him, but this isn't mentioned until a minute right before the confession. The sudden revelation is too out of the blue and ruins the pace and the mood. I think there should at least be some build up, or scrap the past altogether and just have their feelings gradually developed through present actions.
2. Yuki: Yuki is a quiet kouhai who loves gaming and always does things at her own pace. I first saw her as the stereotypical antisocial type but in fact she isn't, as she doesn't mind company and comes to hang out with Soutarou's group a lot. She maintains her straight face most of the time, but it's pretty funny to see her reactions to various situations.
I actually like Yuki's character a lot. Sadly she's given a pretty poor route. Yuuki's route is about her obsession with a mysterious place called "place of eternity". There's really nothing much to say about it except that the conflict is solved so fast that it ended before I knew it and made me think, "What, really?" It's good that in the end everyone lives happily ever after, but the conclusion is so puzzling that it leaves a lot to be desired.
3. Yaya: An eccentric genius who loves brain teasers and puzzle games. She's usually the first person to solve the mysteries given to Soutarou's group. She likes to play pranks on people but has a naive side as well, like a child who tries to act like an adult. She'll try to hide her embarrassment when caught doing embarrassing things, and try to hide her fear when someone talks about a ghost story.
Yaya is in my opinion the most complex heroine in the game and has the most development. Her route is about her resentment toward her family. She went from a good girl to a problem child, causing a ruckus and almost getting expelled before her case being intervened by Yuuri's student council. Her issue certainly had potential to expand into something big and interesting, but in the end it shrunk into a trivial matter, like a mere misunderstanding that can be solved with a small talk, a huge let down considering how her story is the main climax of the common route.
4. Kazuha: The childhood friend. She used to be on good term with Soutarou but a certain incident made them grow distant. Afterward she became the leader of the discipline committee who's stern, strict and serious about her duty.
Kazuha at first couldn't bear to see what Soutarou has become, but eventually came to accept him, which led to their confession. It's sweet and all but the issue with the writing in her route is, her problem is ultimately resolved here. Everything after that no longer revolves around Kazuha, but actually around Soutarou's past. I figure the reason his story is in Kazuha's route is because the writer really wanted to expand on his backstory but don't know where to put it, and, seeing how she's his childhood friend thus being the only person who knows about his past circumstances, decided to put this in her route.
And in this route we have to fight some secret evil organization who possess the same kind of superpower as well. While we almost never see arcane cards in other routes, this one sees heavy use of them. Made me wonder if the whole concept of arcane cards is made solely for this route. Also, we now get an all-out action-packed magical fight to the death. There isn't even any sort of battle of wits. I really have no idea how this should fit into a mystery game.
5. Erisa: The mysterious transfer student. She's actually a royal princess of a certain European country. She's an innocent girl with insatiable curiosity who's always eager to learn new things. She's friendly, bright, positive and isn't afraid to speak her mind.
Yep, Erisa is my favorite girl. It's just impossible to hate her and to imagine someone hating her.
Erisa's route is about solving the mystery behind the school's clock tower. While there's still little use of arcane cards, her story is by far the most relevant to the game's main theme, solving school mysteries. It retains the same feel as the common route. All the events in the common route lead up to the conclusion in her route. And this is the only route Soutarou gets to confront the main antagonist. I think story-wise Erisa is the main heroine and other routes are just fillers. While her story is quite predictable and still can't compare to the common route, it's still far better than other routes.
Erisa, like Yuuri, had known Soutarou since they were still little kids. Their past is gradually revealed in a series of dreams, which makes Soutarou finally realize that she's the girl from his childhood. It feels a little forced as it isn't explained why Soutarou saw these dreams, but at least it's less unnatural than the confession in Yuuri's route.
Well, the story's a little disappointing but not as bad as it sound. I just can't stop when I start ranting, and there's no need to go on rambling about the good parts.
In conclusion, it's not really a bad game. Common route is good. Individual routes are quite average. The art is good and the music is great. Did I say the music is great? This is one of the very few games whose music I kept in my player library. I think I'll rate this game about 7.5/10.
Thanks for the review Frankincense, I haven't read all of it (the spoilered parts) as the game is still in my backlog and I may got back to it someday. I for one love to read (and write...) long rants about what doesn't work in a game, so feel free to do so as well.
I read a bit more of Making * Lovers, finishing Karen's route and about halfway through Ako's. The game certainly transitions too fast, especially in Karen's route the change from roommates to lovers is rather abrupt and difficult to accept so easily for Karen's side. The route also has things that will tick anyone who has done some webdesign, like a newbie getting the contract for a big site and finishing it in three days (before he quit the company...) or promising a shop to multiply their sales by 20 (sure...). The art is a step-up from Kanojo*Step but is still a little off with the characters of the event CGs. But the most important thing, SMEE's special brand of humor, baka-couple and icha-icha is still there and it's a light, heartwarming read that doesn't try to include too much drama and is perfect for a relaxing time.
Two weeks...TWO weeks...if I didn't miss anything...then again, they are old enough to get drunk so why not try something different? Besides, that route's start is some trauma-inducing stuff.
Was it really two weeks? It felt shorter but there were a lot of skipped days. I guess by eroge standard it wasn't that fast then, as it's not too uncommon to see whole games only spanning a couple days. There were also a few opportunities for Karen to reassess her opinion of the MC and he's certainly shown graduating from "annoying lucky troublemaker" to "not so bad". It's the "not so bad" to "I love him!" transition that I felt was missing. They also both seemed to hold so high standards for romance that it felt weird for them to throw all of that away.
As for the beginning stuff, I was scared that it would actually come back as a final ordeal to overcome in the end of her route, but nope, all is forgotten and it's happy times.
Powered through Otoboku 3 Demo...looks promising...Release date is right before March 2018. Demo goes up to somewhere in Chapter 2 (but there are three prologues!)
It is as if the whole series is a process...It's gotta be the same soundtracks built upon one another...Emerald no Kaze (Takako's theme) taking the honor of the very first BGM to be played (and I totally LOVE that piece to pieces [pun intended]). First vocal song is Kimi no Mama de (instrumental though. On a somewhat related note, I got to listen to Traveling August 2016 album, and Yui Sakakibara sounds so exhausted there after all the years, maybe it's about time for a change of guards when it comes to insert songs).
Quite a bit of recycling in the heroine department is happening unlike the second title where things were quite fresh in that regard.
The flow is familiar...but having three versions of prologue (which actually appears in the main story) to sit through will wear you down quickly.
I can totally see a Vita version with exclusive routes...they did it with the second title...
...I look forward to how pool-evasion is going to play out...will history repeat itself for the third time?
Hmm... sounds interesting.
Only one route left in 千恋＊万花 for me. Will finish it in a few days and write about my impression, and will devote all my time to Making*Lovers after that.
otoboku is having yet another sequel? I have heard many good things about the first one but I was never into trap protag stuff so I didn't try it.
Not really "yet another"...it's been something like 7-8 years after the second one, came as a total surprise while I was browsing for walkthrough and saw a banner.
The first one is a good mix of funny and emotional. Coming to it after watching the anime makes that world seem MUCH richer, one of many proof that anime is crap when it is based on VN about 90-99% of the time.
...and the soundtrack's got to be synonymous with the Otoboku series of VN (the whole thing came back in the second and a good chunk of it in third demo). It's pretty good, especially for the two insert songs (both of which sung by Yui Sakakibara in her prime)...
After recent misadventures with 月に寄りそう乙女の作法, I'm staying away from trap VNs for good, whatever their critical acclaim or quality may be.
Anyway, I finished Ako's route in Making * Lovers and it was a little disappointing.
Compared to Karen's route, it lacks a "getting friendlier" part and there is no major obstacle or thing to surmount, almost no character growth, just pure icha-icha from beginning to end.
Next is probably going to be Mahiro, or maybe I'll go back to Noratoto 2 and play the loud one Iris's route.
About MakingLovers...it's prolly the alpha patch, but closing the message window while only heroine's stand is on the screen and click on her will prompt reaction. It changes between the two phases of story too.
...and Mashiro's voice is taxing on my ear for some reason...
About MakingLovers...it's prolly the alpha patch, but closing the message window while only heroine's stand is on the screen and click on her will prompt reaction. It changes between the two phases of story too.
Hello, guys! Maybe, the strange question, but just because that thread is too rare for posting...
Did anyone ever buy an eroge from Japan? Just interesting, how much it will cost for you and why you bought that. Thank you for the answer!
And one else! Do you know the channels or videos on YouTube and other video services, where can I find the video of unboxing eroge etc.? Just Googling in English doesn't help (on Japanese I don't know the right theme).
Or at least video of new eroge on shelves in shops, etc... Yeah, maybe, you can say that I have strange fetishes, but... Who doesn't? I like to see the physical things - packages, bonuses, etc... It makes me feel them "real". The real things is nice. But I'm scared to imagine how much printing that may cost... 8800 yen for usual eroge is awful price, to be honest :(
Finished 千恋＊万花. This game has been in my backlog for a big while. This is actually my first Yuzusoft game.
I love the comedy, and the whole build-up of the main plot about battling and removing the curse is quite interesting (even though Masaomi does almost all the work while the girls are kinda there for the sake of being there).
But what can I say? This is another VN that has a strong common route but very weak individual routes. By the end of the common route, the main conflict of the game is pretty much 70 or 80% solved, and the rest is pretty shallow. The conclusion is pretty bland which wastes the potential of the heroines. The characters themselves are lovely but most of their roles don't really fit into the main plot and, as a result, their dramas feel more like a side story than the real climax of the game.
The romance is adorable, I'd say. There's a lot of love and affection going on. But the transition from close friends to lovers is unsatisfactory. The stimuli and the defining moments are very weak, and the bond kinda exists out of nowhere.
Yoshino: Yoshino is the shrine maiden princess Masaomi has to marry to take responsibility for breaking Murasamemaru. I don't really understand the logic behind the arranged marriage (it is quickly forgotten like about halfway of the common route and is no longer significant in later part, even in Yoshino's route). Well I do but I believe there must be a better reason the writer can use to make him stay in the village. Her route is awkwardly presented too, as the climax is short and comes very early. The majority is just the spending some quality time with her. It's pretty uneventful and quite boring.
But in the end Yoshino really has a sweet character. I always have a thing for refined girls who dote all over their lovers once the relationship is formed, so all is forgiven.
Koharu/Roka: Subheroines which became available once you finish at least one route. In their routes the curse is lifted and the main conflict is completely out of the way. Whether you like their routes is up to whether you like their characters or not. I personally like Roka, and find that Koharu is dull. Apart from being introduced as Masaomi's younger cousin, she lacks any special trait that defines her own character.
Mako: Ah, a ninja heroine. This is mostly gimmicky though as she doesn't have any significant role in the fighting scenes and her ninjutsu is shown only a few times throughout the whole game. The romance though is much more natural than any other routes, as the main focus of her route is really on the development of the romance and how she copes with her own feelings about it. This route is actually good if you ignore all the supernatural elements. I think the writer only intended to use them as a plot device (an excuse) to bring Mako and Masaomi closer and not much else, thus making the conclusion feel a bit half-baked and underwhelming.
I feel the backstory of her bloodline had more potential for the drama, but it wasn't explored fully and unfortunately was quickly discarded.
Murasame: Arguably the best route in the game. Murasame holds a unique position, and her relationship with Masaomi is special compared to other characters. (This relationship also makes for some interesting interaction.) I mean, this is the only heroine who I feel Masaomi shares a strong bond with. It's like they're a destined couple. Her story of whether to return to humanity or not is the most romantic and the most touching for me. Although the economic slump matter is kinda unnecessary and the writer could have solely focused on her inner conflict, that's not really a big issue.
Just one small thing that bothered me though. They haven't switched to calling each other's name until the very end.
Rena: Rena is a random European girl who should have nothing to do with the main plot, were it not for the fact that she possesses a piece of stone which is the key to undoing the village curse. The said piece of stone is conveniently handed down to her as a family heirloom by her ancestor, who conveniently had visited the village before.
Honestly Rena should have existed as a subheroine because she knew nothing about the curse and had almost no involvement to the main plot. However, Her route is somehow used to explain the full history behind the main plot. Rena and this grand revelation are just a complete mismatch. I cannot hope to understand this move but maybe the developer really wanted a foreigner heroine and had to squeeze her in between some points of the story, thus putting this in her route to give her the qualification of being a main heroine.
Rena's story feels lazily written and the only reason I suggested you to play it later is because it reveals almost everything you want to know about the story. (You can play Murasame last though because save the best for the last.) Rena herself has a sweet and lovable character, but her route simply does her no justice.
Final verdict: 7/10. Not bad but pretty disappointing for getchu's game of the year 2016.
Hello, guys! Maybe, the strange question, but just because that thread is too rare for posting...
Did anyone ever buy an eroge from Japan? Just interesting, how much it will cost for you and why you bought that. Thank you for the answer!
And one else! Do you know the channels or videos on YouTube and other video services, where can I find the video of unboxing eroge etc.? Just Googling in English doesn't help (on Japanese I don't know the right theme).
Or at least video of new eroge on shelves in shops, etc... Yeah, maybe, you can say that I have strange fetishes, but... Who doesn't? I like to see the physical things - packages, bonuses, etc... It makes me feel them "real". The real things is nice. But I'm scared to imagine how much printing that may cost... 8800 yen for usual eroge is awful price, to be honest :(
Hmm... Don't know about proxy service cost though because I've never bought eroge through a proxy service before. I usually buy dmm's digital version or go directly to a store to buy them.
An AAA game is usually around 7k-8k yen I think? The cost of a second hand game in good condition can range from maybe 2k-6k yen. Some very old game can be as cheap as 1k yen, or cheaper.
And don't know about that youtube channel before, sorry. But I've heard about it.
Mmm the price can be steep yes, but everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it.
Shine