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I've finished the Lucia route. It was very emotionally moving and definitely better than Chihaya. It's odd that Akane is supposed to be based on Heaven's Feel, because this was pretty similar to HF itself. I liked that it dealt with the elephant in the room: how will the characters (especially Sakura) feel about all the people killed by the Shadow a couple years later? In a reversal of the usual problem with stories like this, though, while there was a lot of focus on the deaths of 200,000 nameless people, Kotarou didn't really seem to care about the probable deaths of Kotori, Yoshino, and Akane.
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Apr 14, 2013 03:10
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Nate RFB posted:To play devil's advocate, Ever17 does have Souichirou Hoshi and Coco. Just absolute torture on the ears. Coco is ear cancer on the level of pretty much any female Key character. I did like the perspective trick of Ever17, but I would say the characters are less likable/relatable/more anime-cliche and the crisis less urgent-feeling (You have time to play a stupid game of Kick-the-Can while you're on a sinking amusement park? Really?) than in Remember11 overall. Which is not to say that I don't wish a little more had been explained in Remember11, but I guess that's a side-effect of the whole going-out-of-business thing.
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Apr 14, 2013 05:02
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I only read through Remember11 and Ever17 in the LP forum so until just now I thought the game was unvoiced. What exactly is bad about Coco's voice? The youtube video I found makes her sound fine?
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Apr 14, 2013 06:09
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The Sayaka route of Majikoi A-1 is out. Benkei will be twice as long so that's going to take longer. http://wairu.blogspot.ie/
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Apr 14, 2013 06:17
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Omniphile posted:Coco is ear cancer on the level of pretty much any female Key character. Hey now, Rewrite had Chiwa Saito and Eri Kitamura in it.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:22
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Komari is definitely awful, but I would be hard pressed to think of any other Key girls who come remotely close to being as bad as Coco. E: Not to say all of them are good, just that no one is anywhere close to being as bad as Coco and Komari.
Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 12:33
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Nate RFB posted:Komari is definitely awful,  Then I watched Angel Beat and I must say that I really hate all these sudden melodrama out of nowhere plot that come after a completely fun and enjoyable first half. Is that how all Key game works? It's just feel so stupid and cheap. Then I finished Haruka route like two months ago and I am on another few months break from this.  Maybe Key game is just not for me. 
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Apr 14, 2013 16:34
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Nyaa posted:Then I watched Angel Beat and I must say that I really hate all these sudden melodrama out of nowhere plot that come after a completely fun and enjoyable first half. Is that how all Key game works? It's just feel so stupid and cheap. Don't let you think that Rewrite is the perfect Key VN though; it has plenty of other problems and I'm actually really hesitant to say it's better than even Little Busters!.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:54
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Nyaa posted:Then I watched Angel Beat and I must say that I really hate all these sudden melodrama out of nowhere plot that come after a completely fun and enjoyable first half. Is that how all Key game works? It's just feel so stupid and cheap. That's pretty much Key's formula all the way from Kanon.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:54
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Oh well, I will just skip pass most of the Little Buster to get the important one and never touch a Key game ever again. At least I know Chinese so I actually have a larger stock of VN to read.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:58
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LB!'s problem is that the character routes are so disconnected from everything, including the main story, that they don't fit together at all. They feel like routes that were written in a vacuum without consideration to any of the rest of LB! and were just dropped in as-is with the names changed around. It's the polar opposite of say FSN, where the routes thematically mesh together very well. Even CLANNAD was able to tie all of the routes together more or less with its focus on family in just about everything. So you wind up feeling like you wasted your time in all of the character routes that are not Rin's. I think when they are dealing with a story that actually "matters", while they are still blatantly manipulative it at least comes off as being more honest and better written emotionally. Compare Komari to Rin 2, for example. And I usually really like their "True End" routes, such as CLANNAD's After Story and LB!'s Refrain.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:06
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Nyaa posted:Little buster is the first key game I played and I picked Komari first, I stopped playing the game for a few months. Eh, Angel Beats' mood whiplash is because they were approved for 12 episodes to tell a story Maeda wrote intending to span 48. But as for the other stuff, yeah that's Key's formula. The first bit is to entertain you and get you emotionally invested in the characters, then once the common route ends in come the dramabombs. Regarding LB! and Rewrite, I'm kind of amazed that they wrote one story where one of the the biggest complaints about it would be that the character wrotes felt disconnected from the true route, then went and did the same thing even worse in Rewrite. At least the epilogue of Little Busters made some comment about the girls growing emotionally, implying that their routes did happen and they remember them, in Rewrite everything prior to Moon/Terra was completely invalidated. Blhue fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 20:38
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I'm about halfway through the little busters anime; is the game as boring and unevenly paced? Cuz the show had some funny moments and now it's just long stretches of terrible voices punctuated by the occasional chuckle and girl of the week introduction style.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:25
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The LB! anime is basically the common route with various girls' routes sprinkled inbetween. The problem with doing this is that it makes the common route itself feel pretty disjointed, constantly jumping back and forth between the "baseball" plot and the various girls' plots. Since those girls' plots are so disconnected from everything, it feels like a waste of time. At least in the VN I think most people would agree the common route was pretty strong, and it's only when you jump off of it into one of the girls' routes where it falls apart. In the VN this is a problem because you have to finish each route in order to unlock the true end route. In the anime I guess it's same sort of problem except you have to deal with it over the course of the common route's happenings as well. I've always maintained that LB!'s main story, that is the story that actually deals with the original five LB members, is pretty good. This means the common route, the two Rin routes, and Refrain. The problem is that you have to go through everyone else to get there, and everyone else is easily at least half the whole game.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:34
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Speaking of Ever17, am I the only one who didn't find it to be good at all? The final route is great when poo poo hits the fan but all the other routes is a slog. Especially when one route is pretty superfluous to begin with and has only one scene of any importance but is required to complete anyway. It's not like Muv Luv where I felt like playing through Extra and Unlimited was well worth it in the end and Alternative was twice as long as the previous games combined too. It just wasn't worth it to go through four boring routes for a final route that gets good and lasts for all of a couple of hours. The music's pretty meh too, aside from Karma and the OP/ED themes. I feel like part of the reason why it's well liked is because back when it came out it was a rare creature. Both porn free, a focus on mystery rather than romance and commercially released overseas. Though unfortunately the last point is moot now with it being out of print and copies being overpriced by collectors. Maybe the Xbox360 remake version fixed some of the problems.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:37
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Nah, I feel pretty similarly. It's decent, but hardly phenomenal. I don't think it's a popular opinion, but as far as I'm concerned it's basically supplanted by 999 and VLR, which are way better overall.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:41
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I recall that streamlining Ever17's repetitive early routes was something that was discussed back when that was a new thing, but I don't remember if that's what happened or if that's what we were saying should happen. But yeah, I love the true route of that game but getting there is a chore that isn't necessarily worthwhile. A better programmed skip read text function would have helped enormously. Blhue fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 21:47
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The only route I really felt was bad as such was Sora's, which was admittedly pretty damned terrible. The others were variable, but generally pretty good. Unrelatedly, finally got around to starting MLA, after putting it off for no apparent reason after finishing Unlimited. Saigyouji fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 21:47
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I think what really contributes to blandness of the Ever17 routes is all the repeated scenes. chicken sandwiches anyone?  If they had cut down on those and a majority of the superfluous scenes were removed it would have improved the whole product by a lot honestly.Nothing would have saved Sora's though. 
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Apr 14, 2013 22:01
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planetarial posted:Speaking of Ever17, am I the only one who didn't find it to be good at all? Never7 is way worse, if you can believe it. And Remember11... well, yeah. Frankly the Infinity series is not that hot, when you really get down to it! 999 is awesome, though. And everything I've heard about VLR makes it sound pretty great too.
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Apr 14, 2013 22:10
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Nate RFB posted:You're definitely not the only one, I found it extremely overrated. Good final route, mediocre everything else. They should have combined You and Sara and cut Sora entirely. I only finished the first two routes of Never7 (my computer broke shortly afterwards, and I never bothered to buy a new copy for some reason), but I don't remember it being that bad...OK, it was pretty bland in some ways (the main character's only memorable character trait is "complete idiot"), but the clock thing was an effective, if gimmicky, way of creating tension and keeping the story from dragging, and the translation was excellent. It's also one of the few times the "idiot plot" actually works, because the main character really is that dumb. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 22:17
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Problem with stuff like little busters is that I have to do the common route like 6 times with only minor cosmetic changes each runthrough. If you want to tell a deep story or whatever at least try and streamline the stuff I have to see again and again.
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Apr 14, 2013 22:21
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Nothing would have saved Sora's though. I really enjoyed the final route. There were some pretty big deus ex machina at the end, but I found it to be very satisfying. Ibram Gaunt posted:I think what really contributes to blandness of the Ever17 routes is all the repeated scenes. chicken sandwiches anyone? 
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Apr 14, 2013 22:31
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Silver2195 posted:I only finished the first two routes of Never7 (my computer broke shortly afterwards, and I never bothered to buy a new copy for some reason), but I don't remember it being that bad...OK, it was pretty bland in some ways (the main character's only memorable character trait is "complete idiot"), but the clock thing was an effective, if gimmicky, way of creating tension and keeping the story from dragging, and the translation was excellent. It's also one of the few times the "idiot plot" actually works, because the main character really is that dumb. Namtab posted:Problem with stuff like little busters is that I have to do the common route like 6 times with only minor cosmetic changes each runthrough. If you want to tell a deep story or whatever at least try and streamline the stuff I have to see again and again.
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Apr 14, 2013 22:32
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Nate RFB posted:Uh, so why not just use the "skip already read text" function? I do, but I don't like that VN's aren't designed so I don't have to skip half the text every time in games where they're trying to tell a story, such as Little Busters
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Apr 14, 2013 22:47
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Nate RFB posted:Never7 is way worse, if you can believe it. And Remember11... well, yeah. Frankly the Infinity series is not that hot, when you really get down to it! I've heard stories, isn't one of them suppose to have no ending what so ever? unpronounceable posted:I'm apparently weird because I actually enjoyed Sora's route. I found it better than You's in any case. Part of that is probably because I completed both of Takeshi's routs before hers, so she seemed like a completely different character. I just hated how in the end, one scene was the only thing relevant to the plot and her route isn't canon so you might as well just have grafted that one important scene into Tsugumi's route. But yeah it would have been a stronger VN with all the repetition cut out, the four character routes possibly condensed into two and a greater sense of urgency since they are all trapped with a finite amount of time to escape.
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Apr 15, 2013 02:31
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planetarial posted:I've heard stories, isn't one of them suppose to have no ending what so ever?
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Apr 15, 2013 02:48
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planetarial posted:I've heard stories, isn't one of them suppose to have no ending what so ever? Remember11, yes. It does have an ending.. in the PSP port. Which didn't have a translation. I think the ending events were put into that "Infinity Timeline" thing that came with the Never7 patch, but.. uh.. yeah. KID kinda dissolved before they could properly finish R11 and Cyberfront just pooped it out as is. e: I still really liked R11 in spite of that. The rest of the game was pretty good, I thought, but parts leading up to that bit (particularly the bad ending in the white room, with Enomoto) were really good and then... and then... hahaha serial killer girl holding a baby over a cliff while singing a song about dead babies THE END. vvv: Oh. I remember the timeline mentioned that Satoru was doing everything to try and save his sister or something and I didn't even remember a sister being MENTIONED in the story at all. It's been a while since I played, though. kirbysuperstar fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Apr 15, 2013 |
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Apr 15, 2013 02:49
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kirbysuperstar posted:Remember11, yes. It does have an ending.. in the PSP port. Which didn't have a translation.
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Apr 15, 2013 02:51
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Felt like remember11 had an ending to me? The only mystery is "hey who's that guy?" but what does it matter? Oh and "wait, then who's that guy?" I guess at the very end. Oh I guess it didn't have an end. That's really weird that I didn't notice.
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Apr 15, 2013 03:01
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Personally I thought Ever17 had a weaker journey but a better payoff, while 999 is the exact opposite, especially if you already played E17 first, which will make you feel like the author is a one trick pony who writes the same basic plot over and over. Remember11 would be... better journey than E17 but worst payoff of the three.
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Apr 15, 2013 03:04
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This is the interview I remember. It might be hearsay though:quote:In the original version of the game, Director Takumi Nakazawa admitted, "Not all of the information is presented." His assessment was that it was an unfinished work, and that people, "Would have to resign themselves and accept the information they were given." The cause, apparently, was, "I was not happy with the ultimate result, but it was too late to change it." "The fact that the truth had to be hidden was inevitable from the beginning." Again, he stressed the importance of seeing all 33 endings (31 of them being bad endings) to gain as much information as possible. "I understand this is unreasonable.", and to compensate for this, announced that a timeline of the Infinity series would be included in the PSP limited edition version of the game, attached to the walkthrough in a pamphlet in said version.
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Apr 15, 2013 03:17
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I remember someone posting this hilariously dense block of fan exegesis, partially translated into English, in the let's play thread (obviously spoils a lot). It's kind of amazing that a story can non-explicitly state almost as much as it states explicitly.
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Apr 15, 2013 04:39
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Yukidoh Sayaka The extra character hidden in the TIPS Ahah. That'd be why I never heard about that person, I never read any of the TIPS, because aside from the quantum theory stuff, which is explained in-game anyway I was pretty well aware of everything they discussed. Or so I thought! I might dig up my save and have a poke through.
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Apr 15, 2013 04:55
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I finished Rewrite. Right after I finished reading Akane's route I liked it, but the more I think about it the more it falls apart. Ironically, at first it felt more like a story about two equals than the others, but the way Akane decays from this clever, self-assured (if arrogant) figure into suicidal depression is handled in a disappointing way; the worst part is she doesn't get to really "own" either her reasons for ending the world (she's possessed by the memories of the holy woman) or her recovery (which is basically Kotarou propping her up and insisting that she live.) The route is overlong, largely thanks to the middle bits where Kotarou is on his own and just expositing at the audience with little dialogue, but still feels like it's missing a proper conclusion. I think Moon and Terra suffer from two problems; first, after five stories about the end of the world, the concept has kind of lost its punch. Second, Terra in particular seems like a total waste of the character development achieved throughout the earlier routes -- the girls and Yoshino are children who can't influence anything, Sakuya's erased from reality, and Kotarou might as well be a different person (and a very loosely sketched-in one, at that). Kagari suffers from a similar problem, she's a MacGuffin with very little actual personality. As a result... well, it's nice that everyone made it in the end, but it all feels a little "so what?" when it should be a triumph. My overall impression is of a story that really doesn't know what to do with itself. The translation (normally a sticking point for me) is great, but the actual writing always feels cobbled together and inefficient at getting its point across. The narrative starts with the personal and then abandons it for the impersonal when it should work the former into the latter.
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Apr 15, 2013 06:55
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The translation (normally a sticking point for me) is great Honestly, the translation grates on me a little at times; there's a little too much "Look at me! I made a Tvtropes reference!" during the common route, as well as the occasional joke that's only half translated. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Apr 15, 2013 |
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Apr 15, 2013 07:14
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Step aside Rewrite, Muv-Luv, FS/N and whatnot. Are your bodies ready for Jurassic Heart?  http://hima.gptouch.com/games/jurassic_heart/
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Apr 15, 2013 12:11
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Shinji never has a good moment, but man is he at his worst in Heaven's Feel. Just at the start of the route, here he is ordering his badly wounded Servant to keep fighting, and calling her a dog and telling her how useless she is after he got beat in like 10 seconds, and it only gets worse from there. It figures the one time you get the option to punch him in the face, the game doesn't let you have it. If it did, it would have definitely been one of stay night's more memorable moments.
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Apr 15, 2013 12:21
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Sophism posted:Step aside Rewrite, Muv-Luv, FS/N and whatnot. I set the name as 'rawr' on a whim and this is the best thing ever.
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Apr 15, 2013 18:27
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Yo, that t-rex is playing a ukelele while that anime girl sings along. This might be the greatest game ever made. Three endings is about 2 more than I expected, but for what it is this is actually not that bad. I would be legitimately interested in a full VN about a t-rex's adventures in high school. PurplieNurplie fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 16:53
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