Visual Novel Cafe

[Frankincense]

Finally finished Making * Lovers. It’s hard to write a review because it’s very character-driven. Just recommend for people who like vanilla with minimal drama.

My favorite heroines have to be Karen and Mashiro. I think Karen is supposed to be tsundere but the common route is so short I don’t get to see her tsuntsun side much and she ends up being a deredere and tsukkomi heroine instead. Feel a little unsatisfied because while the main theme is marriage the epilogue just skips all the proposal and wedding scene, but her route is still the most heartwarming for me. Mashiro doesn’t leave any impact at first, but she just hit my soft spot in a strange but positive way. One of the very few eccentric heroines that I actually fall for. I think her route is the most consistent in terms of quality. The (relatively) rich cast of supporting characters also makes it funny and interesting.

Now what should I play next? Nothing interesting for me this month so maybe I’ll go clear that backlog.

 

[Mahou]

This month and February both don't have much interesting VNs for my narrow preference. I'll probably try out 縁りて此の葉は紅に by Lump of Sugar, but there's no real reason for it. Otherwise, I'll probably replay some VNs and finish Mary Sketer on the PS Vita.

 

[kzel]

Same here, nothing much in the coming month that really caught my interest.

I ended up finishing Natural Vacation after all. There's not much in terms of story, especially in Haruka's route in which most of the scenes involve the protagonist eating her food. Yuzuki's is a little more eventful but I wouldn't expect too much either. Both routes sport a sudden bit of drama right at the very end, but it's very cliche and solved in a matter of minutes. The one thing the VN has going for it is the further use of e-mote, included in the ecchi scenes as well this time around. It's the third game with e-mote ecchi scenes I've played so far (the other two being Maitetsu and ひまわり!! -あなただけを見つめてる-), and it's the easily the best one of the three. It's still a little jerky especially when the characters try to do wide motions, but overall it works much better that in the previously mentioned games.

 

[Flamingoat]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask for visual novel recommendations. I finished playing Discipline the Record of a Crusade (vndb page), and I'm looking forward for something similar. I'm not speaking of the hentai style of the game, but something similar in the storyline.

I'd like a visual novel with a good story containing a good relationship where the main male protagonist gets motivated thanks to the main heroine/female character. For example, in Discipline, the protagonist is lazy and not good in school as well as life stuff, but thanks to the female character, whose very strict and hardcore student, he manages to study and to gets result in life (e.g. the baseball game). I'd really like something similar to this story. A visual novel with a strong motivating female character and slice of life. There must be a relationship between the two main characters.

I'm just starting out, and I'm quite new on the visual novel scene. I hope I don't want too much, I sincerely appreciate any kind of suggestion you guys can provide.

 

[kzel]

I can think of a few games that would fit your description, but not quite as dark/perverted as the title you've mentioned. Unfortunately Slice of Life and Good Story rarely go well together, it's usually one or the other. The games I'm thinking of are however mostly in Japanese and I don't know if you can either read it or are willing to bother with a text hooker for them.

You may want to try 家族計画. It has an English version, feature a relatively broken protagonist at the start that, by interacting with various characters and rather reluctantly, grows into a more responsible adult. It doesn't really have a dominatrix heroine though, if that's what you're looking for.

 

[pingtoryan]

So Caramel-Box re-released the first two Otoboku games in one bundle as a prelude for the third game this late March...the first game gets 1.2 version, apparently to improve compatibility with later OS. The second game is exact same as the original release (though the patch comes along with the new version), that if you have the old release installed, the autorun will go straight to play rather than install. The first game's install is separate from the old release for some reason...the 1.2 version probably can't be applied via patching...save data is not interchangable.

Too worn out to read novels lately though...

 

[Mahou]

So... I have tried out 縁りて此の葉は紅に, but it's not really my cup of tea. It has in the early common route more sexual jokes and innuendos than with other pervy-MC VNs. In addition, most female heroines are useless one way or another. It has its funny parts and I may as well finish Kazuha's route as she seems okay-ish.
GIGA's Soikano is also rather unimpressive. Don't get me wrong, the summay of the VN makes it clear that nothing thrilling will be going on with the main theme about sleeping, but that could also be nice from time to time. But yeah, fairly unspectular overall. The confession just happens somewhat and I was like "M'Kay?"

Otherwise, I'm replaying Lovesick Puppies, and jeeze it seems I'm growing sentimental in my early 30 as the rain scene with Orie and Koutarou always manages to tear me up (a bit) *lol*.

 

[kzel]

Otherwise, I'm replaying Lovesick Puppies, and jeeze it seems I'm growing sentimental in my early 30 as the rain scene with Orie and Koutarou always manages to tear me up (a bit) *lol*.

Since I'm also currently replaying some older titles at a leisurely pace, I know the feeling. I think it must have to do with nostalgia a bit. Reminding me of how I felt when I played these games years ago as I read through them again still make still teary eyed, even though I still remember clearly what happened in them. At the same time, the same scene with little to no variation in a more recent title will usually fail to move me even a little bit. Not that things were better or that much different before, but at least they were fresher in the eyes of a less experienced reader.

As for the games I recently completed, I tried and finished AkabeiSoft3's 少女と年の差、ふたまわり。. I went in with very little expectation considering it's AkabeiSoft and low price, but it was actually pretty good. For a low price game that looked like a typical lolicon nukige, there was a unexpected amount of effort in the prologue, and in the rather depressing setting surrounding all the characters. The two main characters grow slowly closer to each other, and it was relatively easy to relate to the loneliness of the middle-aged salaryman who puts on a happy face at work to avoid people prying to deep. Anyway, things were actually pretty fine, but unfortunately all the story budget went into the prologue and once the confession happens, things suddenly go back to nukige mode. The protagonist doesn't hesitate a minute before going all the way, something that was odd considering his prior behavior. The following scenes are basically a series of situations leading to sex rather than actual bonding or depicting the problem with a relationship between characters with such an age-gap. The significant age-gap itself is barely an issue in the game. In some way, it reminded me of Sachi's route in こいのす☆イチャコライズ, another game that featured complex character bonding before turning full nukige. There's one last surge of story right at the very end with a bit of a confrontation, but it still left me with the feeling that the game could have been something more if the writer was left to focus on the story rather than his quota of sex scenes to fulfill.

I've also been replaying some Lovely x Cation 2 and Toono Soyogi's Hinata still makes my heart melt. I've finally completed Wakoto's route and it was fine, but I had forgotten how disturbing the protagonist could be with his picture-taking at the most awkward times. I also remembered the game to be harder, but without looking anything up I managed to unlocked all the extra scenes in a single run.

 

[kzel]

After finding out that Ametoyuki was one of the artists behind Giga's latest 添いカノ～ぎゅっと抱きしめて～, I decided to give the game a try. After all, キミの瞳にヒットミー wasn't irredeemable so a Giga miracle could have occured again and made something interesting. Unfortunately, not this time, as I struggled to get through the common route before dropping the game for good. There's nothing inherently wrong with the game, but it's just so generic, boring and predictable that skipping two line out of three is more than enough to still follow the paper-thin plot. The heroines don't stray from their stereotypes, they may get more development later but after the common route none of them interested me and I couldn't care less about the protagonist's dreams.

I considered playing through Aika's route, as she is the one drawn by Ametoyuki, the reason why I started up the game in the first place. However, she's voiced by Fujisaki Usa, and after listening to quite a few radio shows featuring her I just can't associate her voice with an innocent character anymore. Guess I'll add her to the list of CVs I can't enjoy anymore, along with Tachibana Mao. Take it from me, if you can avoid it don't listen to CV radio shows, after listening to them talk dirty it's very difficult to accept their voice for characters that are supposed to be still pure and innocent.

 

[pingtoryan]

MakingLovers indeed has Valentine's Day message...

...I'm such a snail...

 

[kzel]

MakingLovers indeed has Valentine's Day message...

...I'm such a snail...

Where do you hear it? I can't find it.

Still not done with Saki's route. I try, but the level of plot convenience is through the roof in this one.

 

[pingtoryan]

Where do you hear it? I can't find it.

Still not done with Saki's route. I try, but the level of plot convenience is through the roof in this one.

Right on the menu screen after clicking past SMEE. Listen carefully. It replaces the usual "MakingLovers" call.

Spoiler

Karen's version can be easily misintepreted...

 

[kzel]

Right on the menu screen after clicking past SMEE. Listen carefully. It replaces the usual "MakingLovers" call.

Does it? I've tried several times and it's the usual "Making Lovers" title call all the time, for all the characters. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

 

[Frankincense]

Otherwise, I'm replaying Lovesick Puppies, and jeeze it seems I'm growing sentimental in my early 30 as the rain scene with Orie and Koutarou always manages to tear me up (a bit) *lol*.

Oh Lovesick Puppies. How many years has it been? I still haven’t finished it, only two routes left. Not that it was a bad game or I dropped it. But new releases I wanted to play came after another and then yeah.
I definitely will go back to finish this but I kinda already forgot the story up to the point I reached.

Does it? I've tried several times and it's the usual "Making Lovers" title call all the time, for all the characters. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I think either your system date isn’t 2/14, or you game for some technical reason fails to detect that your system date is 2/14.

 

[kzel]

I think either your system date isn’t 2/14, or you game for some technical reason fails to detect that your system date is 2/14.

It's still the 14th for a couple hours, but no luck on my end. Even though other games (Amakano, etc...) trigger their special Valentine scenes fine.
Could a kind soul please transcript what Karen says, now that Pingtoryan has piqued my curiosity?

 

[pingtoryan]

It's still the 14th for a couple hours, but no luck on my end. Even though other games (Amakano, etc...) trigger their special Valentine scenes fine.
Could a kind soul please transcript what Karen says, now that Pingtoryan has piqued my curiosity?

Spoiler

あ。。。あのさ。　今日は、その。。。あれの日じゃん? だから、まあ。。。チョコ、あげる。

There's no text; I'm guessing all the punctuations there.

It doesn't work if you cycle the main menu by loading and returning to title though. You need to exit and run the game again.

 

[Frankincense]

Getchu Bishoujo Game Awards 2017 results are out:
1. 金色ラブリッチェ (SAGA PLANETS)
2. ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート2 (HARUKAZE)
3. Making＊Lovers (SMEE)
4. 景の海のアペイリア (シルキーズプラス DOLCE)
5. アオイトリ (パープルソフトウェア)
6. 幕末 尽忠報国烈士伝 MIBURO (インレ)
7. ChronoBox -クロノボックス- (NO BRAND)
8. 水葬銀貨のイストリア (ウグイスカグラ)
9. お家に帰るまでがましまろです (ま～まれぇど)
10. 天結いキャッスルマイスター (エウシュリー)
11. しごカレ ～エッチな女子大生とドキ×2ラブレッスン!! (アトリエかぐや BARE＆BUNNY)
12. トリノライン (minori)
13. はるるみなもに！ (クロシェット)
14. 桜花裁き (IRODORI)
15. 超昂神騎エクシール (ALICESOFT)
16. 新妻LOVELY×CATION (hibiki works)
17. シルヴァリオ トリニティ (light)
18. 絆きらめく恋いろは (CRYSTALiA)
19. こいのす☆イチャコライズ (eRONDO)
20. ことのはアムリラート (SukeraSparo)

Haven't played most of these because my library is still somewhere between late 2016 and early 2017.
Can anyone tell me about kinkoi? I thought noratoto2 was gonna win but kinkoi ended up being overall #1, and dominating most other departments too. My impression of Saga Planets is that their games are sad and deep which isn't my cup of tea, so I haven't tried any of them yet.

 

[kzel]

Getchu Bishoujo Game Awards 2017 results are out:

It's difficult to find value in these awards as it's always the same companies that end up winning. Saga Planets, Yuzusoft, Clochette, etc... In this case it's more a contest of popularity rather than intrinsic quality. Considering the price of these games it's understandable that people will flock to known brands.

Still, happy to see SMEE made it in the top three. By the way, it looks like it did good commercially too since a mini-fandisk has been announced for next April.

I've played a good number of these (Making＊Lovers, お家に帰るまでがましまろです, 天結いキャッスルマイスター, 桜花裁き, 新妻LOVELY×CATION, こいのす☆イチャコライズ), and if I had to choose one I'd get 桜花裁き simply because while it's an Ace Attorney clone in many ways, it's well done and the most entertaining. I also dropped a good number of these "winners" partway through for a variety of reasons : ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート2 (new characters are not that great), 景の海のアペイリア (too much stupid humor for me), はるるみなもに！(just terrible).

Can anyone tell me about kinkoi? I thought noratoto2 was gonna win but kinkoi ended up being overall #1, and dominating most other departments too. My impression of Saga Planets is that their games are sad and deep which isn't my cup of tea, so I haven't tried any of them yet.

I haven't played it, because my past experiences with Saga Planets have been mixed at best. They're not making necessarily sad and/or deep games, they can also make pure charages. I've played a little bit of Hatsuyuki Sakura, but stopped after one route because I couldn't stand the protagonist's "little brat" attitude. I've played a little bit of Floral Flowlove but stopped because I couldn't stand the protagonist's chuuni attitude. I've played and finished Hanasaki Work Spring!, it was the closest to a pure charage with cute heroines and it was pretty entertaining, despite the protagonist being a baby at times, especially in the true route. I think you may get the pattern. I place a great importance in having a likable or at least relatable protagonist to keep my interest in a story and so far their games haven't been doing their jobs so well. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Mahou]

Sagaplanet's "tearjerker" games are/were Hatsuyuki Sakura and Natsyume Nagisa. I didn't play the latter, but Hastuyuki's true end left me sad for a couple of days ;) (a case of where it ended well on the greater scale, but not that much on a "personal" level).
Kinkoi's rather average-ish in that regard. The Golden Time route might be different here, but I can't say much about it. As the title implies all main heroines have blond/golden hair (according to wikipedia to go along with the theme of "Golden Time").The MC is average. He's not dense and sensitive aobut the atmosphere of his surrounding (like Shingo of Mashiro-iro), but he has the terribly annoying "useless at school" trait. To be fair a good deal of the fairly long common route, he's traited quite horribly by the mob npcs due to the setting he's been thrown into. The heroines are fine-ish. I'm fond of Eru and Slyvie's alright. But yeah, overall I'd consider it average-ish.

@list: If I had to pick, I'd go with MakingxLovers, even though I enjoyed other smee titles somehwat more, and 天結いキャッスルマイスター because I thought the playable cast was quite charming.

 

[Frankincense]

You mean one of those punching bag protagonists? Can’t say I like them either. =\

Finally the next wave is coming tomorrow. The market these days is full of single-heroine games huh. =\
Not sure what I’ll play apart from IxSHE Tell. (At first I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it seems it’s a stylization of aishiteru.) Not really interested in Otoboku. And Rance? No thanks.
Well Hooksoft has always been my top favorite company. I’ve played every one of their games since Honeycoming, but haven’t seen Matsushita Makako for some time already. Hope she isn’t retiring or something because I love her works. =\

 

[kzel]

If you end up playing IxSHE Tell do give us some comments about it. At first glance I wouldn't touch this game with a ten foot pole, given the premise of "super popular protagonist loved by absolutely everyone from the start", but maybe it'll have some redeeming value.

Don't like Rance? I can understand why, but these games tend to have some rather decent gameplay elements. The rapist protagonist is certainly a turn-off, but in a way it's more honest than so many of these other games in which the protagonist hides behind his innocence, but does exactly the same thing anyway : fuck all the girls (looking at you Eushully...). I like that at least in the most recent Rance (IX) there were a few heroines capable of fighting back, in one ending Rance even ended up as the servant of one.

Lately I've come to accept the slow switch to single heroine games from many studios, if only because it often allows to skip past the common route and the motemote/harem atmosphere they tend to have.

 

[Veshurik]

Guys, anyone played Koi Flag Trial by Mirage Soft? Kimi to Tsunagaru Koi Flag.
It seems like the staff from Studio Ryokucha, which... ehm... went to bankrupcy? Unofficially? I just can't find any info, they also never released DLC for Natsuiro Koi Uta. And never released full version of OP song for Hanikami Clover. Ehm, how nice...

So, the CG keeps staying "square" and "vertical", besides 16:9, but the dialogue window tradition (when only phrases of heroines) went away. So sad...
I really don't understand what happened... Is it okay to just leave one company and create/move to other and forget anything before? Wagh... Eroge industry is so strange nowadays.

And how was the demo version, of course? To be honest, I'm waiting that now only because opening song. Ehehe... Ugh... Yeah, usually I'm more attracted to music...

 

[Frankincense]

I couldn't find any info either, only rumors. It's sad because Studio Ryokucha is one of my more favored companies. I still vividly remember them in an event as recent as last summer. =\
I think it can't be helped if they can't really release their append disc, but it's quite strange that they can't even release the full version of their OP.
(Don't like the sparkling coloring of their later games though, including Mirage Soft's Koiflag. I prefer just plain coloring like Koisora's style.)

Got my IxSHE Tell package, but I'll try it tomorrow cuz too tired now. But if you dislike that kinda games I'm quite certain you'll also dislike this one because as far as I remember all Hooksoft games are like that.

 

[kzel]

Is it okay to just leave one company and create/move to other and forget anything before? Wagh... Eroge industry is so strange nowadays.

Actually it's fairly common for eroge studios to just close their doors if their first game doesn't sell too much. The people who were working there usually don't quit the industry though, and they just move on to other studios of the parent brand or something. In case of Ryokucha, it's a little more complicated since the studio has been around for a while and thus has earned a very sought after brand name and fanbase. No idea what went one in with them since last summer, even long standing studios can and will go out of business (ChuableSoft last year), but it's also not that uncommon to have them go in the dark and reappear a few years later with a brand new game. Until an official statement is made all bets are off.

Got my IxSHE Tell package, but I'll try it tomorrow cuz too tired now. But if you dislike that kinda games I'm quite certain you'll also dislike this one because as far as I remember all Hooksoft games are like that.

Amenity's Life didn't have such a blatantly popular protagonist as far as I remember, and it was pretty good, quite similar to what SMEE puts out. I haven't played any other HookSoft game so maybe that was the exception.

 

[pingtoryan]

But if you dislike that kinda games I'm quite certain you'll also dislike this one because as far as I remember all Hooksoft games are like that.

Amenity's Life didn't have such a blatantly popular protagonist as far as I remember, and it was pretty good, quite similar to what SMEE puts out. I haven't played any other HookSoft game so maybe that was the exception.

Sounds more like IxSheTELL cranks it up to 11 if you ask me. Then again, Hooksoft games tend to not waste characters and stories are focused on a circle of characters with stands and less with mobs.

BTW, I must've misread Otoboku 3's release date...played the demo so I can just NOS over the prologues...which save for a few funny moments is very tedious to read through due to it being played out from three perspectives, meaning, you are reading the same thing thrice.