Visual Novel Cafe

[kzel]

I've been playing some of Frontwing's latest Island the last few days. I'm not done with the game yet, and am currently at the beginning of midsummer, but I'm not sure I'll find in me the strength to give the MC a second chance. It's not a rare occurrence for me to hate some of the main protagonists in visual novels, but Setsuna, this particular novel's MC, probably is going to figure in my top list of characters who don't deserve a happy end.

He's the usual Frontwing dumbass character that misunderstands everything and tries to solve problems with either jokes or hasty judgements. This time he's not too openly arrogant, which is why I didn't quit the game earlier. Instead, he tends to drown in self-loathing and self-pity a lot, while spouting philosophical nonsense he barely understands. That wouldn't be so bad if only he showed any sign of growth over the multiple chances he's had so far, but nope, still the same old cold heartless fool he was ~30 hours ago. I give up, this man just destroys anything he touches so I'm going to settle for the common route bad end "新たなる世界、本当の自分" in which the MC suicides, it's to me the one thing fitting him the most after playing so far.

Story-wise, the "ぬか喜び" plot device is used a lot, constantly, the whole game is basically a succession of it. After the hundredth times I just stopped hoping things would turn right since... they never do. The common, Karen and Sara routes are saved by a few choices here and there that can lead to some bad ends, but for Rinne's route and here onward it's a one way path watching the MC make a mess of everything while betraying everyone who trusted him. Maybe fun for some, but not for me. I don't mind reading about people making mistakes, but only if they manage to learn from them and grow as a character in the process. I've seen none of that in Island and even if it starts now, it's too late for me.

EDIT : well the last chapter was shorter than expected, so I managed to bear through it. The "true" end is the only one that makes some sort of sense even though the coincidences really pile up a little too much to my liking (especially given the last reveal). I prefer the other ending even though it's a fake one, at least the MC stops running away and bringing unhappiness wherever he goes.

Spoiler: About the last set of choices...

I still don't understand why answering 切那 (and not セツナ) during the last chapter's quizz is the right answer to make the MC think, even though it's wrong, that 凛音 is リンネ. Even though 切那 is technically the right answer since 凛音 hadn't met セツナ at the time, it doesn't make sense since that would mean the MC already knows the true identity of Kuon. Thus he wouldn't make the mistake of thinking 凛音 and リンネ are the same person when he proposes...

Oh well, maybe I'm just too tired, both physically and of the story itself, to make enough sense of it. Overall the game wasn't too bad but I didn't really feel much out of it. The only emotion I really got was anger towards the MC, that's something I guess. Nothing much else, it's hard to root for a character you wish would die just so the mayhem would stop. At the very least if the Rinne route and beyond offered a few bad ending branches for me to vent my frustration and get him killed rather than miraculously survive all the disaster he causes, I think the game wouldn't have felt such a chore to play in the later parts. As a SF story I guess it works, though it's a pretty typical ending conclusion.

 

[Mahou]

I haven't tried much of frontwings serious VNs, but prefer overall the MCs of their light-hearted titles. Like ゆきこいめると. An average but decent MC, especially as there's a heroine who's denser (and more indecesive relationship-wise) than he, yet he had the "ultimate" patience up to the point his surrounding cheered him up or teased him :D.

Anway, I also finished Del Segno a week ago. I agree that it was somewhat disappointing that the mystery element around the super hi-tech system* of the island was not expanded on Ame's route, but I liked her route itself quite a lot and thought the farewell scene was really touching. Ame was great and adorable with the improvised forehead snipping *lol*.
Del Segno route was short but IIRC Da Capo route in Da Capo was of similar length. So yeah, it was a fair enough conclusion.
*Like how the MC could see the happiness value without his glasses. Sure it served its purpose here and there during some routes but you would think that Circus could have done more with it.

 

[kzel]

ゆきこいめると... I remember trying it out and giving up partway through the common route, I believe when the bears start copulating? Right in the middle of the festival of lucky sukebe in the mountain dormitory... I don't remember exactly why I quit it at that point, I probably had other more interesting titles to play at the time? Or maybe I was getting frustrated by the length of the common route without a single choice? Might be worth a revisit if you say it's decent, though I should probably just admit that Frontwing's style isn't for me and skip their games from now on.

 

[Kri]

ゆきこいめると... I remember trying it out and giving up partway through the common route, I believe when the bears start copulating? Right in the middle of the festival of lucky sukebe in the mountain dormitory... I don't remember exactly why I quit it at that point, I probably had other more interesting titles to play at the time? Or maybe I was getting frustrated by the length of the common route without a single choice? Might be worth a revisit if you say it's decent, though I should probably just admit that Frontwing's style isn't for me and skip their games from now on.

Well if you didnt enjoy the common route I dont think you'll enjoy any routes, since after the first fuck its pretty much just sex. It was kind of average game imo (maybe slightly above because of yuki), Yuki and Taruhi's personalities were somewhat unique so I enjoyed their routes while other two were so cliche that I couldnt even finish them.

 

[FL-God]

ゆきこいめると? Good/Decent game, decent character (no stupid chara like Saru), decent story, personally like this kind of story as "breather" after work-time since you don't need to think just let the story flow

love Yuki, Kannon and Usagi (and all was my fav voice actress), the rest was template chara lol.

 

[kzel]

Thanks for the comments on ゆきこいめると. As I said I don't remember why I quit, that means I probably didn't find anything awful in it but on the other hand it didn't leave me with much of an impression either.

I've been giving a few hours of testing to ナツイロココロログ, but upon reaching the opening I think that's about as far as I'm willing to go with this one. The premise was from the start a little dodgy, with the MC having the privilege of peeking into the hearts of the heroines without their knowledge via the VR dating sim. That seemed pretty unfair when I read the synopsis and playing the game a little, it is 100% unfair towards the girls and I can't see how this can lead to a good start of relationship. Besides that, none of the heroines gave me a good enough impression that I'm willing to go through this hypocrisy. I had slight hopes for Kotone but her alternate self in the VR world... 幻滅.

 

[kzel]

I've been spending most of my reading time lately on サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ, and just recently finished it. This was my first Moonstone title and I didn't have any particular expectations, but the game managed to catch my interest enough that I postponed playing some other titles I had been waiting for. The first part in particular was really well done, enough that I was willing to forgive the shortcomings of some the heroines' routes and 100% complete it.

The game can be grossly divided in two large parts. The first part focuses on the story of Shinji, the game's MC, a poor young boy who really wasn't favored by fate. As if losing his parents in a plane crash wasn't enough, his girlfriend Madoka gets murdered the day he confesses to her... The story structure follows a rather classical formulae, with the MC meeting a group of friends and beginning his days as a monster-fighter while always keeping his ultimate goal in mind. At some point I thought the game would turn into some sort of battle manga but not at all, it remains rather low-key on the special powers of the heroes and most of the situations are not simply solved by beating up the bad guy of the week. The antagonists all are pretty particular and their mindset always grounded in a rather dark reality that makes for a rather heavy atmosphere. Things take a turn for the supernatural once entering chapter 7, which was not my favorite plot twist but it wasn't blown too out of proportion to trigger my chuuni allergy, and the following chapter more than makes up for it with a beautiful conclusion to Madoka's story. Some part of me wishes more could have been done between the MC and her but in the end the conclusion is fitting with the rest of the game.

Entering heroines' route, things starts to diverge a little bit. I recommend playing Kureha's story first as it ties it and solves some of the points still left open in the previous chapters, at the cost of depicting a rather sudden and common love story between Shinji and her. While the confession was pretty brutal, the dates and daily events were rather relaxing to read in a game that can be a bit stressful sometimes (chapter 5 in particular). It's my favorite because the other routes leave some things unexplained, and it also make for a perfect occasion to show how Shinji has grown due to the previous events. Next up on my favorite's list is Hatsune's story. Once again the romance is pretty low key, though more detailed that Kureha's story, but the plot also ties in issues about family and coping with the death of siblings that I found touching, emotionally speaking this is the route that resonated the most with me. Mifuyu's story tries to branch off back in the horror/ghost direction but it didn't really work with me. Finally, Mahoro's story looked like it would deal with ghosts too but didn't, and was a rather straight romance story with some touches of realism attached to it. Not bad but after reading some of 星織ユメミライ last week, it felt really rushed and shallow in comparison. I realize the goal of the game was probably just to show Shinji moving forward with his new romance and the game is already quite long as is, but I would have liked a little more of the suspense and tension that was present in the first part of the game.

I'd recommend the game if horror and a little gore isn't an instant turn-off. There are a few disturbing CGs but most of the damage in my opinion is done in the text descriptions and situations, and then again there wasn't anything that shocked me enough to put down the game at any point.

 

[pingtoryan]

That's the usual mainline Moonstone stuff...just from skipping and even merely sifting through EVCGs can give you the creeps. Been this way since, like, forever, save for that one game that is totally out of character of the brand...

 

[FL-God]

Busy playing Kazoku Keikaku again, while the characters not really stand out and the story was pretty normal this title stuck on my mind when i saw my collection again + Kotoko

P.S not the remake one

 

[kzel]

Busy playing Kazoku Keikaku again, while the characters not really stand out and the story was pretty normal this title stuck on my mind when i saw my collection again + Kotoko

P.S not the remake one

You really think the characters don't stand out? A Chinese prostitute who can barely speak Japanese, a middle-aged woman victim of a marriage fraud, a high-born young adult trying to make ends meet as a failed painter, a drug dealer that can only eat some form of food supplement, a young girl living on the street while still attending school, etc... I don't think I've seen any of these anywhere else. The stories were pretty good too in my opinion, at least I can distinctly remember each of them which is more than I can say for most of the games I've played so far.

What do you have against the remake? Is it because of the change in art style? If I'm not mistaken the original is only partially voice acted and the remake adds a route for Kei that I found pretty nice as Tsukasa tries to form a new family project despite being all too reluctant about it.

---

I've played a couple routes of 僕と恋するポンコツアクマ。 すっごいえっち！ so far. Each of them is pretty short, especially for the three subs, but I still found them funny. Gotta love Tama-chan's bursts of anger, or Riria arguing with her mother. Emi's route was a little off with Ren suddenly feeling down, and Reika's route I just don't know what to make of. However, the ecchi scenes are both too numerous and too over-the-top. The original game had its share of hentai play and questionable situations, and this time the writers went even further. I skipped all but a few for Emi's, and then again they weren't as good as the original. I can only imagine what they did for Miyabi who already had quite a few SM scenes in the original game... and kinda don't want to find out. Same goes for the harem route in which Ren apparently become a sex god and ejaculates about 50 times (if Ogura Yui and Tachibana Mao's comments are accurate)...I wish they toned down on the number of ecchi scenes and made more of the comedy but it is a nukige fandisk so I guess it can't be helped. The CVs comments in the extra menu is as in the previous game a very welcome addition, I wish more games did that and not limited to CVs but writer and illustrators as well.

---

I played a little bit of Tarareba but I'm not liking too much so far. The premise looked interesting, as a 25ish years-old adult goes back to his high school days, but I didn't really feel the adult viewpoint come in play at any point, apart from remembering things from the past (like exams he had 8 years ago, quite the memory the MC has). The heroines are the fairly standard childhood friend, perfect senpai and tsundere ojousama. Tia the mysterious ghost time traveler seems interesting but alas her route is locked until the others are completed, and I don't feel like going through them right now or at any point at all really.

 

[Kri]

I played a little bit of Tarareba but I'm not liking too much so far. The premise looked interesting, as a 25ish years-old adult goes back to his high school days, but I didn't really feel the adult viewpoint come in play at any point, apart from remembering things from the past (like exams he had 8 years ago, quite the memory the MC has). The heroines are the fairly standard childhood friend, perfect senpai and tsundere ojousama. Tia the mysterious ghost time traveler seems interesting but alas her route is locked until the others are completed, and I don't feel like going through them right now or at any point at all really.

Speaking of Aries games, I really would like to know how the hell did they manage to stay alive in this industry for 7-8 years. I have tried at least 3-4 games from them (they have 6 at total anyway) and couldnt even find a single "okayish" one so far, all of them are pretty suck and none of their games were able to reach even 70 at the EGS. Its not like they have great / very unique art or perfect VAs etc either, Its a quite mystery.

 

[FL-God]

You really think the characters don't stand out? A Chinese prostitute who can barely speak Japanese, a middle-aged woman victim of a marriage fraud, a high-born young adult trying to make ends meet as a failed painter, a drug dealer that can only eat some form of food supplement, a young girl living on the street while still attending school, etc... I don't think I've seen any of these anywhere else. The stories were pretty good too in my opinion, at least I can distinctly remember each of them which is more than I can say for most of the games I've played so far.

What do you have against the remake? Is it because of the change in art style? If I'm not mistaken the original is only partially voice acted and the remake adds a route for Kei that I found pretty nice as Tsukasa tries to form a new family project despite being all too reluctant about it.

maybe because it's rather common story in my place (Prostitute? Common, Human Trafficking? Common, Marriage-fraud? Common, Gangster? Common etc) so my brain not really categorize the story as stand-out and i knew someone that have bad past as much or maybe worse than the characters in the story. When you live around with that kind of story everyday you tend to take it as common ;)

the remake.... it's just the art that turn me off, sure it was ok, but i'd rather have old art than the new one. The most interesting character details i found from first time i read and still found it interesting was Jun eating disorder, human behaviour tells a lot about someone.

 

[kzel]

Speaking of Aries games, I really would like to know how the hell did they manage to stay alive in this industry for 7-8 years. I have tried at least 3-4 games from them (they have 6 at total anyway) and couldnt even find a single "okayish" one so far, all of them are pretty suck and none of their games were able to reach even 70 at the EGS. Its not like they have great / very unique art or perfect VAs etc either, Its a quite mystery.

Maybe they're just good at choosing appropriate release dates? May wasn't very rich in pure school romance games. Could be why they delayed it back in April as that month was heavily loaded, and June would be harsh competition with the newest Tone Work's incoming.

maybe because it's rather common story in my place (Prostitute? Common, Human Trafficking? Common, Marriage-fraud? Common, Gangster? Common etc) so my brain not really categorize the story as stand-out and i knew someone that have bad past as much or maybe worse than the characters in the story. When you live around with that kind of story everyday you tend to take it as common ;)

I was meaning in terms of game stories and not real life situations, but still, you live in a harsh place. Not that we don't have prostitutes or drugs around where I live (though less since I left the capital), but to go as far as to call these stories common...

the remake.... it's just the art that turn me off, sure it was ok, but i'd rather have old art than the new one. The most interesting character details i found from first time i read and still found it interesting was Jun eating disorder, human behaviour tells a lot about someone.

If you find these interesting, the MC of 僕はキミだけを見つめる has a similar problem, in that he can't eat in front of people. The game is pretty good too.

---

I gave 見上げてごらん、夜空の星を FINE DAYS a few hours today and I must say, it's probably the best fandisk I've had the opportunity to play. The after stories are pretty detailed and not just "and they lived happily ever after"+ecchi, there's actually character growth and a tiny bit of drama present in there as well (for Korona at least, haven't played the others yet). Miharu-sensei's route was very well done, the first half in particular was touching. It's a shame the neet side of her had to be cured (not perfectly though, thankfully as that's part of her charm) but oh well, that planetarium scene brought a few tears to my eyes. The second part, in which the MC and she enter a relationship, wasn't too bad either. It really does justice to the original game, I like it so far.

 

[Mahou]

@Aries: The summary/concept of their games sound most of the time quite good, but yeah, upon playing the game I just think "Meh, that's it?" And well, I don't exactly have high expectations about what I play as some may know already

 

[kzel]

Just noticed that 銀色、遥か got pushed back two months from June 24th to August 26th. The press release says they're extending development time to improve quality. Given the scale of the game I'm not too surprised but I was kinda expecting the title later this month and can't hide a little bit of disappointment. Hopefully they'll make good use of the extra time, and that gives me more time to finish Marika and Misa's routes in 星織ユメミライ.

 

[ogopogo]

I've been spending most of my reading time lately on サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ, and just recently finished it. This was my first Moonstone title and I didn't have any particular expectations, but the game managed to catch my interest enough that I postponed playing some other titles I had been waiting for. The first part in particular was really well done, enough that I was willing to forgive the shortcomings of some the heroines' routes and 100% complete it.

The game can be grossly divided in two large parts. The first part focuses on the story of Shinji, the game's MC, a poor young boy who really wasn't favored by fate. As if losing his parents in a plane crash wasn't enough, his girlfriend Madoka gets murdered the day he confesses to her... The story structure follows a rather classical formulae, with the MC meeting a group of friends and beginning his days as a monster-fighter while always keeping his ultimate goal in mind. At some point I thought the game would turn into some sort of battle manga but not at all, it remains rather low-key on the special powers of the heroes and most of the situations are not simply solved by beating up the bad guy of the week. The antagonists all are pretty particular and their mindset always grounded in a rather dark reality that makes for a rather heavy atmosphere. Things take a turn for the supernatural once entering chapter 7, which was not my favorite plot twist but it wasn't blown too out of proportion to trigger my chuuni allergy, and the following chapter more than makes up for it with a beautiful conclusion to Madoka's story. Some part of me wishes more could have been done between the MC and her but in the end the conclusion is fitting with the rest of the game.

Entering heroines' route, things starts to diverge a little bit. I recommend playing Kureha's story first as it ties it and solves some of the points still left open in the previous chapters, at the cost of depicting a rather sudden and common love story between Shinji and her. While the confession was pretty brutal, the dates and daily events were rather relaxing to read in a game that can be a bit stressful sometimes (chapter 5 in particular). It's my favorite because the other routes leave some things unexplained, and it also make for a perfect occasion to show how Shinji has grown due to the previous events. Next up on my favorite's list is Hatsune's story. Once again the romance is pretty low key, though more detailed that Kureha's story, but the plot also ties in issues about family and coping with the death of siblings that I found touching, emotionally speaking this is the route that resonated the most with me. Mifuyu's story tries to branch off back in the horror/ghost direction but it didn't really work with me. Finally, Mahoro's story looked like it would deal with ghosts too but didn't, and was a rather straight romance story with some touches of realism attached to it. Not bad but after reading some of 星織ユメミライ last week, it felt really rushed and shallow in comparison. I realize the goal of the game was probably just to show Shinji moving forward with his new romance and the game is already quite long as is, but I would have liked a little more of the suspense and tension that was present in the first part of the game.

I'd recommend the game if horror and a little gore isn't an instant turn-off. There are a few disturbing CGs but most of the damage in my opinion is done in the text descriptions and situations, and then again there wasn't anything that shocked me enough to put down the game at any point.

Sounds like you enjoy the game more than I did. I found the Chef's case to be the high point of the story and everything just goes downhill from there; the fact that it's part of the game's trial version doesn't help either because it made playing the full game feel like a complete waste of time as a result. Personally, I think the story's biggest mistake is to have Madoka stick around as ghost after the prologue, I can't help but feel that the heroines got so overshadowed by Madoka to the point where I can barely even remember some of their names. And don't even get me started on chapter 7 where they pretty much just throw the dream world out of the window. Madoka's farewell scene is probably the only redeeming part of the game for me beyond the parts I already read in the trial. I agree with you about the romance being shallow and rushed but since I only really read Kureha's route so I can't really speak for the other routes. Anyway, a bit of nitpicking, but I really wish they didn't put that silly blurry filter effect on all the horror CGs, it just ruins any mood those scenes might otherwise have had, honestly, it feels as if they simply didn't go far enough with either the horror elements or the romance elements and the game just comes off as being very halfhearted on both ends.

 

[kzel]

Sorry you didn't like the game as much as I did. I agree with all the points you mentions, the game certainly wasn't perfect but I still enjoyed it more than you seemed to, at least I wouldn't call the time I spent on it a complete waste. I think the game is divided in two big parts, the first one being more or less the story of Madoka and of Shinji learning to let go of her. That she overshadows all the other heroines then makes sense since the common route is basically her route. Her goodbye scene was very well done for me, but I can easily understand that this mandatory resolution can be hard to swallow, especially for people interested in Madoka as a heroine. The second part, the heroine's routes, is short and shallow in comparison which probably makes it stand out even more, maybe a better balance between the two could have made things better.

After the Chef's story, the dream world expeditions start having less and less importance, and ultimately seem to not matter at all, but I appreciated seeing problem resolutions having to take place in the "real" world rather than in a fantasy battle ground. If the trial ended right after the Chef's story though, one could easily hope for the story to continue to develop the expected way, as in "Shinji finds ghost, reads memories of death, punishes criminal in dream world", and since things went a completely different direction I can imagine the disappointment. Same goes for the horror side of the game, the first chapters are probably the most creepy with said memories of death from ghosts, but this ability finds absolutely no use later on which I admit surprised me too. Chapter 7 onward with the fight with Joker was also my least favorite part, especially given Joker's particular body that really seemed to come out of nowhere and defy the principles the game had established so far : before it's ghosts and spirits existing among humans but unseen from the normal eyes, but then it's straight up monsters appearing in the open all of a sudden...

The other three heroines' routes romance side is as I said before not much more developed than Kureha, but Hatsune's story is in my opinion worth reading through, if only for the little scenes with her and her friend talking about relationships, and for the development of Miyako's character. If you're starving for more horror Mifuyu's part is not too bad but it's not great either. In any case, neither the romance nor the horror elements resonate too strongly throughout the game, but I found the balance to be enjoyable all the way through anyway. Not a masterpiece but above most games released lately.

 

[kzel]

A few comments about the VN I've been reading lately :

僕と恋するポンコツアクマ。 すっごいえっち！
Aruru route : Funny especially when Aruru goes in her daydreams. Ecchi was awful and was skipped.
Rin route : very short even among the sub heroines. Basically just ecchi scenes. Too much golden shower. The few non-ecchi scenes were funny though.

見上げてごらん、夜空の星を FINE DAYS
Orihime : Nice but felt empty compared to Korona and Miharu. Didn't remember her to be such a nympho.
Yoshioka : Meh, I wonder why she got her own route to be honest. She shows a timid and cute side that I don't think was shown at all in the main game.
Can't wait for Hinami's route to be released, I hope it'll get uploaded.

そして初恋が妹になる
Stopped playing partway through Yuuka's route. The game started well with some good dialogues and interesting characters but broke down when the plot decided things had to get moving and bring on the drama. For a imouto game (it's in the title after all), neither of the "sisters" felt like sisters to me. One's a childhood friend at best, the other a complete stranger that the MC takes under his wing out of pure pity. I know the MC's family was pretty fucked up but he still has a pretty weird conception of family bonds, not convinced. Also, supposedly he fell in love at first sight with Tsubasa, how old was he at the time, 8-? Sounds far fetched, and the situation itself was dubious (a starving 8 y.o. getting beat up to death by a gang of adults outside in broad daylight for stealing bread, in Japan...?). Yuuka's route was alright until the MC decided to go all gangster and threaten everyone. Of course he succeeds, then he confesses and fucks the girl who was still in shock for having been offered a role in exchange for sex... Sure. Pass.

初恋１／１
I decided to give it a try since Giniro, Haruka got delayed. I shouldn't have. The game went from interesting (up to the opening movie), to boring (the recruiting of the committee members, too long, was two hours and four in game-days needed to ask Runa to join while she kept appealing for it? Who cares about Maya?), to irritating (Runa route, just awful. Stopped playing when she confesses then retracts and she and the MC get in a "trial" relationship, especially since the MC seemed to have Yukino as main target in mind. Love triangle incoming, I'll just go away). The MC is a pure donkan idiot from what I've read, he somehow reminds me of the MC of Lovely x Cation which is NOT a good thing. I'll stop playing now before my opinion of tonework's sinks even further. Hard to imagine the same guy wrote YumeMirai.

 

[Mahou]

A few comments about the VN I've been reading lately :

初恋１／１
I decided to give it a try since Giniro, Haruka got delayed. I shouldn't have. The game went from interesting (up to the opening movie), to boring (the recruiting of the committee members, too long, was two hours and four in game-days needed to ask Runa to join while she kept appealing for it? Who cares about Maya?), to irritating (Runa route, just awful. Stopped playing when she confesses then retracts and she and the MC get in a "trial" relationship, especially since the MC seemed to have Yukino as main target in mind. Love triangle incoming, I'll just go away). The MC is a pure donkan idiot from what I've read, he somehow reminds me of the MC of Lovely x Cation which is NOT a good thing. I'll stop playing now before my opinion of tonework's sinks even further. Hard to imagine the same guy wrote YumeMirai.

Ouch! I agree, playing Hatsukoi 1/1 after YumeMirai was a horrible decision :P. And poor Runa's route was indeed the worst route of the game as in you wonder why the designated writer for her hated her so much *lol*. For all it was worth, Maya and Kyou's route were the "best" ones. The MC is better during their routes (hence not consistet throughout the VN).

 

[kzel]

Yeah, I kept 初恋１／１ around a bit unsure whether to continue or not, and in the end I don't think I will. Instead I finished Marika's route in YumeMirai, and I'll do my best to try and forget this first game of tonework's ever existed. Other than that, I also played Saya's route in 見上げてごらん、夜空の星を FINE DAYS. I wrote earlier that the fandisk did the game justice, and it remains true for better or worse. I was not a fan of either Hikari or Saya in the original game because of the obnoxious love triangle drama, and because Saya could be a real drama queen. She's calmed down a bit in the after story, but that's still there and it's as annoying as before. In this route, Akito doesn't help either. The scenario is centered around valentine with equal part past-drama and current-drama. Someone who liked her route in the original would probably not be disappointed with it, since I didn't it's not surprise the append didn't fare too well with me. I also briefly tried Hikari but nah, she starts the route dissing Korona and that's just wrong, and it looks like it's again going to be the same story as Saya except Hikari does everything better in every way, just like the original game.

---

I haven't started any other VN and instead finally finished Dark Souls 3. June releases are not too far off and there are a few titles of note but nothing that I feel I really want to play. It's probably a good thing since a lot of my gaming time in July will probably be spent on Star Ocean 5 with the English release around the corner. Still, here's what I noticed :

LAMUNATION！ : first game from WhitePowder, the premise doesn't look too interesting but if it's happy comedy with Kusuhara Yui then that should be enough for me. Hopefully the lucky sukebe and donkan shujinkou are kept to a minimum.

恋する気持ちのかさねかた ～かさねた想いをずっと～ : the original game wasn't too bad, and hopefully Ichika's route is a little more developed this time.

恋と魔法と管理人 ～運命の歯車編～ : I played the first game which focused on the two other heroines, might as well see what's in store for the other two. The previous installment wasn't a great game by any means though, so expectations are pretty low.

恋と恋するユートピア : another debut game, this time from LoveMatic. Again not sure what to expect if anything, but might be worth a try.

And that's it. If I missed something feel free to point it out.

 

[Kri]

I know its pretty late, but finally I managed to finish Sengoku Koihime X -thanks to my job-, If anyone is still waiting for some kind of review, here I go; (There might be some minor spoilers here and there)

First of all, I have to say that I'm pretty satisfied with this. There were a couple annoyance which I'll mention later, but overall they really handled it very well and made something worth of playing even for those people who have read the original game. I specially liked how they actually thought about the new events and decided to give them for those ones who have less instead of giving randomly to everyone here and there. Thanks to it there is almost nothing new in first 14-15 chapters, but after that its full of new stuff. Oda arc was pretty complete and didnt have any space for new events anyway so I'm pretty greatful for that.

Also I really liked how they handled the Matsudaira problem as well, instead of making one event and solving the problem they gave some events to Aoi in every arc, which made her thoughts about Kensuke slowly change. It definitely felt more natural and better, and of course she also have a big event which'll seal the deal. I'd like to see more ichaicha scenes with her but well gotta deal with that much.

Other than those, The new villain & New Takeda / Nagao / Hojo / Asai Arcs etc were pretty on the point, but at the character events of Nagao people they kinda fucked up. For example Sadako has only one character event which includes her h-scene without any kind of built up, then she never appears at all, not even at the main story. To be honest it felt like they've made her just for the sake of adding one more h-scene to the game. Akiko is also like that, only one character event for sex. She appears at the later parts of the story but they never mention about their sex or getting married with each other, completely ignoring that which is kinda sad. When you add Matsuba to this list as well, things get a little too sloppy. Dunno who wrote that part of the story, but he / she made the biggest negative point of the game for sure. I mean there are only 6-7 people at the Nagao anyway, if you fuck up with at least half of them of course its not going to leave a good taste. They can cover it with a FD or something like that though since the main story / arc of the Nagao was pretty good, we'll see.


I got kind of annoyed at the Endings too to be honest. Seriously why would you use the EXACTLY same ending with the same dialogs from the original game? Where the hell is Aoi, Kuu, Kaoru, Yuugiri, Makoto, Ichi who become Kensuke's wife in the X version? They definitely should have redraw the CG and add those characters at least, specially Aoi should be in it since she is a legal wife / Matsudaira's head. I'm not really sure why did they have to be stingy at the very end after spending so much money in the entire game, One more cg shouldn't cost that much anyway. I guess they wanted to have same ending as the original game because its an "extended" version, not a remake but even that doesn't make any sense.

Hojo's ending was pretty absurd as well, Sakuya needed more time for getting married with Kensuke for sure and even that marriage came out of nowhere, suddenly game threw it like "here they got married its over bye". No built up for it or even any kind of marriage talk before, suddenly they are getting married at the next scene and its over.


Personally those were the biggest (or more like all I could find) problems in the game. They are certainly not that big and pretty overlookable problems though, 3 characters in a game which has more than 50-60 are a sacrifice I'm willing to give, its an inevitable thing imo. Shin koihime Musou was like that as well and they gave enough space for those characters in its FD -Moeshouden- so I'm expecting/hoping same thing from this one too. It sold pretty well and game left a room for sequel as well so I'm pretty sure we will see at least one more Sengoku Koihime game after the shin koihime musou's enormous remake, already looking forward for that.

 

[kzel]

Thanks for the review Kri, I guess I should stop wasting time with sub-par games and actually start playing Sengoku Koihime.

As for me, I just finished up 見上げてごらん、夜空の星を FINE DAYS with the DLC route for Hinami. It was kinda short but cute and smooth. It's a shame that no other heroines show up during it but it's probably since it was made after the main cast contracts' were already finished. I would have liked at least some appearance from Hinami's best friend Korona or princess Saya... Still, I was nice for the couple of hours it lasted so I ended the fandisk on a good note thanks to it.

 

[kzel]

Once again some quick comments on the games I've been trying lately :

恋と恋するユートピア : formulaic and pretty boring, at least for what I've played (common + Moegi route). It's not awful but... I just don't like any of the characters and the common route made me half-skip some of the text on more than one occasion. The central theme doesn't really work and some of the characters are really unpleasant (the pervert boys, the school head, the idol to cite only a few). Moegi's route was short and extremely predictable... I'll maybe try one of the main three heroines, probably Yukina, to see if there's more to it that what I've seen so far.

恋する気持ちのかさねかた～かさねた想いをずっと～ : I happen to have liked the original game, despite the high society setting which is something that usually puts me off. While it's nice to see characters make a return, I can't say I'm too fond of the game so far, mostly because it doesn't add much apart from the 2 ecchi scenes per heroine. Mio's after story was alright but rather short on character development. Mio feels pressured and Ren supports her, that's basically it. Hiyori's story was for the most part a rehash of her story from the main game, but with the MC this time. I wonder if the MC paid attention during Hiyori's training, his would have went smoother if he had... Hiyori-papa takes a central role in this one, he can be pretty obnoxious, but he's not such a bad guy in the end. As a minor complaint, it's not nice to show costume sprites and not give a related ecchi scene (maid costume for Mio, barista costume for Hiyori).

ラムネーション！ : it's pretty rare for a game to give me such an instant rejection reaction. I gave it one hour, and regret the time I spent on it. The text is awful, not much more than a succession of bad jokes with no link between them, as if the writer just put down the situations as he thought them up without trying to make any sense of it all. The tension is super high but contrary to NoraNekoHeart it's too high and the underlying story is too thin, a few minutes in and I already felt like wasting my time. There's voiced narration but it's read so hastily, it's worse than none at all. The MC seems to a complete moron. The game structure is weird, there's a chapter jump feature and all chapters are unlocked from the start? And is that a button to unlock all H-scenes and CGs ? Shows how much the company has faith that people will play the game for the scenario... Not recommended.

 

[Mahou]

ラムネーション！: I agree. I played it as I had nothing more interesting to do and quit/uninstalled after a few minutes. I mean, stuff like breaking the 4th wall is fine and all but the MC seemed at first glance too annoying to like over the long run. A bad mix of my pace, idiot and happy-go-lucky. Fortunately, I didn't have any kind of expections or prior knowledge of this VN.

 

[akosijapjapulit]

Hello, I'm interested in Visual novels right now so can anyone please recommend me good VN's meeting my specifications?

Im looking for a romance VN maybe highschool setting would be great! Also, if possible, English translated or localized is a big help :D

Maybe something similar to Tokyo School Life? I was interested by that but it was somewhat short even though I liked it.

Thanks!!