Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
GyroNinja
Nov 7, 2012

Nate RFB posted:

I'm playing Baldr Sky at the moment (just finished Dive1) and while I have not been exactly bowled over the Reminiscence section that has opened up has nearly killed my drive to go on. I'm not going to quit or anything (not when Dive2 is supposed to be one of the best VNs ever) but man this was a splash of cold water.

I loved Baldr Sky (more than MLA, even), but yeah, the forced Reminiscence section in the middle really drags. I really don't understand why they didn't let you skip the scenes you've already read, because most of them are unchanged.

:edit: Also if you enjoy Baldr Sky, you should try to find the fan translation of Baldr Force that dropped a year ago with little fanfare, it's also really good.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Like I get it, they probably wanted to have a way to refresh players returning to the story in Dive2 since there was a period of time in between the releases, but it makes no sense to just throw that into the combined release as-is. It's pretty depressing how far down I can scroll in that section and thinking about how much is ahead of me before I can like get back to the actual story, especially since the final route of Dive1 (Chinatsu) was pretty bad and not exactly the best note to end the action on.

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

I've been playing Kagetsu Tohya on the side for a while now and finally got around to finishing it. That it took me several months to get through should probably give you a good idea of my general impression about it.

I feel like its the kind of game that's more interesting to capital-t Theorize about than to actually play. The basic idea of working your way through a maze of Slice of Life shenanigans until you uncover the mysteries of what's really going on is interesting. It's just a shame that most of that SoL stuff here is just not engaging at all, particularly in the main scenario where they have to accommodate for the open nature of the main game (Thankfully the 10 Nights of Dreams don't really have this problem due their linear nature. Tohno Family Con Game for example is just as silly in intent as rest of the game but comes off much better). Even the basic idea of just spending more time with characters from the first game falls kind of flat here when most of them seem to be reduced to caricatures of themselves- like Ciel was never the deepest character before or anything but she had more going on that just "lol I'm jealous girl who eats too much curry". Or Akiha being reduced to "Jealous little sister" and so on.

The more serious stuff fares a little better at least, but man it is buried in some very boring convolution here.

If Tsukihime Remake ever actually comes out, I wonder if they'll follow it up with a Kagetsu Tohya Remake because frankly I feel like this game would benefit way more from that treatment than Tsukihime would.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012
Yeah, Kagetsu Tohya’s main game isn’t very good (and even the short stories are a very mixed bag). Arguably Nasu did remake it, though: Fate/Hollow Ataraxia is basically Kagetsu Tohya done well.

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

Yeah tbh thinking about it I probably only at least partially liked 6 or so of the 10 Dreams. Flower of Thanatos was probably the most out of place of them- I can sort of see what they were going for by bringing back the more hosed up aspects of Shiki's character but it was very NSFW and very out of place with the light-hearted nature of most of the rest of the game.

Beyond that, I feel like some of the dreams felt like they just had trouble getting off of the ground- I remember it took me a while to get through Arihiko's little episode, but even Akiha solving the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town or whatever took a while to get going.

I have to admit I'm more curious about Hollow Ataraxia now than I was before. Usually slice-of-life stuff just doesn't land for me at all, but Kagetsu Tohya was interesting enough in theory if not in practice to make me want me to see what a better version is like.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Raxivace posted:

Yeah tbh thinking about it I probably only at least partially liked 6 or so of the 10 Dreams. Flower of Thanatos was probably the most out of place of them- I can sort of see what they were going for by bringing back the more hosed up aspects of Shiki's character but it was very NSFW and very out of place with the light-hearted nature of most of the rest of the game.

Beyond that, I feel like some of the dreams felt like they just had trouble getting off of the ground- I remember it took me a while to get through Arihiko's little episode, but even Akiha solving the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town or whatever took a while to get going.

I have to admit I'm more curious about Hollow Ataraxia now than I was before. Usually slice-of-life stuff just doesn't land for me at all, but Kagetsu Tohya was interesting enough in theory if not in practice to make me want me to see what a better version is like.

I wrote a review of the KT short stories in the old VN thread; let me see if I can dig it up.

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

Sure, I'd be curious to see more takes on KT.

McTimmy
Feb 29, 2008

Raxivace posted:

Sure, I'd be curious to see more takes on KT.

Dawn was fantastic.

Arihiko should have won Con Game dammit.

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

I like what FHA does with the servants, you never get to chill with most of them in the original for obvious reasons so chatting with them is fun. It also explains how their legends are related to their masters and the events of the game.

Stairmaster
Jun 8, 2012

Raging loop post game stuff: Got all the endings including the bonus two. They're both good poo poo so don't miss out on those.

Stairmaster fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Feb 6, 2020

GyroNinja
Nov 7, 2012
No joke, seeing the flowchart for Kagetsu Tohya was a formative experience for me when it came to VN fandom. It really showed me how you could use the format to tell stories in ways that traditional media can't. That said, yeah, the actual story itself isn't that interesting.

Speaking of which, I just recently finished 428: Shibuya Scramble, which is a great example of what I'm talking about. It might be my favorite VN of all time from a "gameplay" standpoint, if that makes sense. The way your choices affect other character's story paths makes the world feel alive and interconnected in a way that it just wouldn't if it were a film or TV drama. Really good game.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Silver2195 posted:

I wrote a review of the KT short stories in the old VN thread; let me see if I can dig it up.

Found it: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3345145&pagenumber=89&perpage=40#post407049832


Silver2195 posted:

I'm in the middle of Kagetsu Tohya, and I must say that, while I like some of the side stories, I don't like the main story much. The premise takes away everything that made the characters and plot of Tsukihime interesting. Shiki's murderous impulses have been turned into a separate character, leaving him with no actual personality traits. The other characters are reduced to one-note jokes; as they're creations of Shiki's subconscious rather than the actual people, this makes sense, but it doesn't make them interesting. There's no real conflict, because Shiki is too dumb to actually care about his inability to remember anything, and I don't actually care about Nanaya, since he's been literalized into blandness and feels like a minor subplot anyway.

Some of the sidestories are good, though. Even two of the three not written by Nasu were decent. Dawn deals with one of the people killed by Nrvnqsr, who are pretty much forgotten about in Tsukihime itself. Tohno Family Con Game was genuinely funny, seeing the characters use their weird superpowers to play tag was cool, and the ending was heartwarming. The other fanfic one, Hisui-chan, Inversion Impulse!, was terrible, though. It tries way too hard to be WACKY. Plus it's a sequel to Hisui Good, which is a terrible ending.

A Story for the Evening and Nanako-chan SOS were basically good but had some extraneous stuff. Seeing how Akiha acts when she isn't at home was interesting, but it went on for a little too long. I also wish there was a bit more explanation of how Ciel saved Shiki. Arihiko's backstory was interesting and establishes that everyone in Tsukihime is really messed up, but Nanako herself was annoying.

Silver2195 posted:

I finished Kagetsu Tohya. Some of the remaining side stories were good, but I’m still not a fan of the game as a whole.

Imogirisou: Would probably be funnier if I was more familiar with what it's parodying.

Flower of Thanatos: :barf: (To be fair, this may have been the reaction Nasu was going for.)

Crimson Moon: Some interesting backstory, marred by Roa's usual :words:.

Red Demon God: Addresses some previously unexplained details from Tsukihime (the Tohno extended family, the source of Makihisa’s wealth, how Makihisa defeated the Nanayas). Kiri and Kouma are both pretty cool, even if Kouma is a bit of a cliche.

Good luck, Ciel-sensei: A lot of the humor didn’t really work, but it explained a few things that bugged me about Tsukihime; I was always curious about Hisui and Kohaku’s salaries. Explaining minor plot holes in Tsukihime is probably what this game does best, actually.

General main story stuff: More satisfyingly nitpicky explanation of Tsukihime stuff (Kohaku’s teacher, how familiars work). Otherwise just as pointless as the first half. Len isn’t very interesting. She doesn’t have enough human traits to be relatable.

The ending and the antagonists: I guess it makes some sense that the guy who killed Shiki’s parents would be among his greatest fears, but it still strikes me as an underwhelming concept. Surely his greatest fear would [be] himself killing everyone he cares about, but Nanaya, the representation of that fear, is only a threat to nameless extras in the dream and Shiki himself.

Summer Festival: Mostly fluff, but it was good to see the characters acting like themselves again instead of caricatures of themselves.

Easter eggs: Quite good; the translators (and some 4chan posters) manage to be much funnier than the actual writers. The scene select feature is also very convenient, although I wish it was unlocked from the start.

Drinking, Dreaming Moon: More hilarious stoner philosophy from SHIKI. It was also interesting to see SHIKI interacting with Yumizuka. One cringeworthy moment that could have been avoided if Lunacy just stuck to Mirror Moon’s name romanizations: "Correct. I am Shiki. Without doubt, I am Tohno Shiki, Shiki. I am the Shiki that was born from Shiki."

Basically, Dawn, Tohno Family Con Game, A Story for the Evening, Red Demon God, and Drinking Dreaming Moon are actually good. Crimson Moon, Nanako-chan, and Ciel-sensei contain noteworthy ~lore~ but are otherwise meh. Hisui-chan Inversion Impulse, Flower of Thanatos, and Imogirisou are bad.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Feb 6, 2020

Stairmaster
Jun 8, 2012

Imo you should not gently caress the maids for all eternity

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

Sounds like we're pretty close on our opinions on most of the side stories. I think I liked Imogirisou more than you did but I've also not played the game its parodying. I guess I'm just a sucker for haunted house-type nonsense, even in parody.

Your comment on the ending and antagonists in regards to how Shiki's greatest fear should probably his own murderous impulses represented as Nanaya, I think I agree. You could probably make a pretty solid argument that Nanaya and Kouma's place in the story should probably be switched around too. I'm sure you could use some goofy dream logic to naturally move from Shiki defeating/killing Kouma into Nanaya coming into existence in the dream world now that Shiki's knife in the dream has the taste of blood again or something.

As it is though, it is pretty odd for how unactive both of them are in KT, especially when other characters (IIRC its a few anyways) talk about how they see Nanaya just walking through town a few times.

Raxivace fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Feb 6, 2020

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Nanaya's a great character in melty blood but he's pretty bland in Kagetsu, yeah.

Between the side stories and the structure, Kagetsu Tohya felt more like Nasu experimenting than an attempt at a proper game, IMO. It doesn't really come together in the way FHA does, and a lot of the tricks and ideas in it would go on to be reused.

Stairmaster
Jun 8, 2012

that soundtrack kind of bops tho

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

After reading some more Raging Loop (I think I just finished collecting all the "final keys"), I get the impression that the answer to my previous question is that by the time Haruaki appears Chiemi was already pretty "broken," and unlike Haruaki himself she wasn't very focused on "solving" the loops by that point. She had also already encountered a couple changes to the loops, so even though Haruaki definitely shook things up more than ever before, changes weren't completely unprecedented. It's still a bit strange that she was playing the games mostly normally at that point, but I can at least understand why she didn't immediately try to check if Haruaki was also a looper.

Also, Kiyonosuke is really good. I like that guy and I'm happy that Haruaki also learned to appreciate him.

edit: Finished Raging Loop (though haven't seen the revelation scenes and extra content yet). I really liked it a lot. While there were aspects of the ending that didn't blow me away or anything, there wasn't anything that really bugged me and I was satisfied. I'd like to see other stories in this setting.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Feb 8, 2020

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

Well things finally stepped up as bodies were discovered and I started taking notes on my speculations. Some are in spoilers to not ruin things for those who haven't played (spoilers aremostly about the specifics of the murders)


golden butterflies = yellow rose petals (potentially if not magic)
6 people are dead after day 1 - will this be a patten in future arcs?
Weird symbol
Magic - relevant or red herring?

Arc 1 night 1: Initial victims: Krauss, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Godah, Shannon (4 family, 2 servants - all in main house and awake at midnight. Natsuki also in main house behind door charm.) Old lady servant location not known (certainly not revealed at this time? Cause of death - ???, bodies/faces multilated post mortem. Broadly speaking only the cousins, genji and kanon have alibis.

Thing to investigate as arcs progress: How many people are on the island. Is part of the mystery that these establishing factors (people involved and present on the island) are always the same, or will new people be introduced that were actually always there?

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I finished AI: Somnium Files finally. I really liked it a whole lot - all the plot twists made sense and were satisfying. They were the sort of twists where I realized most of them soon before they were explicitly revealed.

My one gripe about the ending is that you don't explicitly marry or at least get back in a relationship with Hitomi. I get that you're probably supposed to assume that it ended up happening in the future, but it would have been nice to see it made clearer. I actually really liked how this game seemed to be establishing that your character's love interest is an actual adult woman and was looking forward to that reunion after you remember who you were and return to your body. Also I guess Iris and Mizuki are sorta sisters now.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Experiencing AI again through SGF's streams reinforced to me that it is my favorite Uchikoshi VN. It's a story that is far more focused on the characters themselves and how they relate to one another and thus puts the pseudo-science and twists on the backburner more often than not (relatively speaking). So there's far more leg work put forth towards pathos on things that may not even relate to the main mystery and that gives a lot more weight to their lives when they do get involved; something like Mayumi's somnium I just don't think would've been realistically possible in the Zero Escape or Infinity games. It's true that that the somniums are overall not more fun to play than the puzzle rooms, but at the same time I think they also elevate the characterization in a way that the puzzle rooms couldn't have either.

I think probably my only real criticism is that some aspects of the finale do feel a little forced and clunky; it reads like Uchikoshi thought of 95% of the plot starting with the ending and worked his way backwards, but realized that there were still some plot holes and rushed to fill them in. Pretty much everything is explained but it gets far less elegant when it actually relays how Falco/Rohan/Saito ended up swapping all around and Falco subsequently losing his memories. But then again I don't think I could name another Uchikoshi story that wasn't fairly clunky in its wrap up, by contrast to all of the Zero Escape games AI got off pretty light IMO.

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

Everyone play Code:Realize on Switch. It's one of the best otome VN out so far and finally ported to a popular platform.

numerrik
Jul 15, 2009

Falcon Punch!

I’ll second that it’s a good game, but I don’t think I’d play it through again.

Alder
Sep 24, 2013

numerrik posted:

I’ll second that it’s a good game, but I don’t think I’d play it through again.

I feel ya and thankfully there will be new otome games in late 2020.

I'm looking forward to Cafe Enchante.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

Big fan of the little touches in umineko, like dead people having new bios

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Finally, finally, through Reminiscence in Baldr Sky. It took about 2 weeks though that did also include one route that unlocked halfway through. At least the back half was more new content than much of the first so it gradually got less tedious.

meefistopheles
Nov 11, 2013
Is there a canonial list of VNs I should try out? A friend recommended me Steins;Gate which I enjoyed, and I moved onto 428, which was even better. I've heard of the When they cry series, is there anything else that's a must-play?

428's interaction between different paths really highlighted what you can do with these types of games that are much harder to do in traditional storytelling. I'm currently playing Raging Loop and enjoying it, but it does feel much more linear than 428 was.

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

The When They Crys are good. House at Fata Morgana would be the next obvious suggestion once you've finished.

They are strictly linear though, and personally I think that's the better way to write VNs for the most part. It means you can avoid repetition and have a stronger meta narrative between routes.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

meefistopheles posted:

Is there a canonial list of VNs I should try out? A friend recommended me Steins;Gate which I enjoyed, and I moved onto 428, which was even better. I've heard of the When they cry series, is there anything else that's a must-play?

428's interaction between different paths really highlighted what you can do with these types of games that are much harder to do in traditional storytelling. I'm currently playing Raging Loop and enjoying it, but it does feel much more linear than 428 was.
Well, canonical, of course not since people are going to like/dislike stuff differently. Muv-Luv Alternative is the highest rated VN on vndb and I think it's pretty overrated. A lot of times you just find those styles/writers/conventions that speak to you and are able to branch out from there. Liking Steins;Gate and 428 for example instantly makes me think of Uchikoshi and therefore the Zero Escape, Infinity series, and AI: The Somnium Files possibly being of interest.

Linear VNs are a lot more common than you might think, and I think they can still serve as examples of how the medium can tell their stories only in the format of a visual novel even without multiple branches. When They Cry for example makes extremely deft use of music and sound/ambiance direction as well as internal monologue to develop its characters, both of which would have to be sacrificed in some fashion if they originated in anime or manga (and you would see this quite explicitly in the Umineko and Higurashi animes). Perhaps more than anything else, The House in Fata Morgana is a lot of people's favorite VN (me included) and I wouldn't want anyone interested in VNs to skip or put it off for being too linear.

The Fate series (stay/night and its sequel hollow/ataraxia), which presumably you've heard of via osmosis, does feature what I feel are some of the most intelligent route branching mechanics from a meta standpoint. I realize that that is a daunting series to perhaps jump into headfirst but it can be very rewarding if you want to see another advantage of telling a story in the visual novel format, and hollow/ataraxia in particular is an extremely fun example of what the other end of the spectrum of linearity can look like because you have an extreme amount of freedom to experience the story in any way you want due to its looping format.

Stairmaster
Jun 8, 2012

Nate RFB posted:

Well, canonical, of course not since people are going to like/dislike stuff differently. Muv-Luv Alternative is the highest rated VN on vndb and I think it's pretty overrated.

then perish

astr0man
Feb 21, 2007

hollyeo deuroga
For must-read stuff, you can't really go wrong with Higurashi/Umineko (When They Crys) or Fata Morgana.

If you're interested in more weird sci-fi/thriller stuff in a similar vein as Steins;Gate, there's pretty wide range of options. The Zero Escape series and Root Double are generally recommended in the games thread. There's also a few other games set in the same series/universe as Steins;Gate (including a direct sequel, S;G 0), but none of them come anywhere close to being as good as S;G.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

meefistopheles posted:

Is there a canonial list of VNs I should try out? A friend recommended me Steins;Gate which I enjoyed, and I moved onto 428, which was even better. I've heard of the When they cry series, is there anything else that's a must-play?

428's interaction between different paths really highlighted what you can do with these types of games that are much harder to do in traditional storytelling. I'm currently playing Raging Loop and enjoying it, but it does feel much more linear than 428 was.
depends what you're interested in. if you want more stuff along the lines of s;g/428, I'd recommend higurashi and umineko. Plus AI: The Somnium Files, though it sort of straddles the line between VN and adventure game, it's very much closer to the VN side.

Stink Billyums
Jul 7, 2006

MAGNUM
I just noticed it's taking Mangagamer longer to release Higurashi on Steam than it did for Ryukishi to make the drat things originally. Even the console arc translation project is going faster, they're almost done the alternate ending (Miotsukushihen).

The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!
a part of it is that iirc they have literally one programmer working on it and for the past few months he was also the single programmer working on baldr sky

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
(Yeah this is a copy from the other thread but shrug)
Baldr Sky was a decent VN that I feel stumbled too frequently for me to say I truly enjoyed it as much as I was hoping. In the end it just never quite came together.

To start off somewhat positively, the setting* is just interesting enough and the characters are all quite compelling that I never felt particularly bothered with reading even as it dragged at times. It was able to remain engaging enough that I had no qualms about keeping at it even as I grumbled at times. I wanted to see these characters through to a hopefully good end because I cared enough about them, and while that sounds like a very simple/basic thing sometimes I feel making the audience care about the issues/development/welfare of a cast is a hurdle that stories, especially one as long as this one (near 80 hours by Steam's count), don't pull off.

Points of contention:

-The battle system is not fun. I appreciate it in concept and the pacing of the story probably doesn't work if they just removed them completely, but it's just not well designed at all and is more of a thing to wrestle with than anything else. I can't count how many times it extended sequences into tedium by having you deal with constant fodder that had no place interrupting the story's flow. Muv-Luv's mecha scenes were not all that exemplary but a part of me almost sees Baldr's being replaced by this awkward battle system as the writers not having the confidence to write such scenes. I never once regretted turning down to Very Easy and even that still had numerous sequences that were a pain.

-The Reminiscence section is just straight up awful and was the closest I came to dropping the whole VN, though that was never all that likely. I assume it was more necessary when Dive1 and Dive2 were separate but the moment they combined the two games they should have treated the already read scenes from Dive1 as skippable text.

-*The setting, while interesting, is just kind of weird and convoluted in a way that makes a lot of it feel "off" or otherwise just sort of forced. The entire crux of most of the conflicts in the story spin off from AI and anti-AI, but what these concepts actually entail and how the factions spin out from that just don't work that well IMO. I feel like the story wanted to hate the anti-AI characters but still distrust the AI because of all the ~mystery~ surrounding them but at no point did it feel it was done so convincingly (this is partly why Chinatsu's route is such a chore to get through, you intuitively know that Kou is making a slew of decisions that going to suck for everyone but welp the plot demands it). I don't know, this sounds like a weird thing to get hung up on but this permeates EVERYTHING in the story and after a while it just felt a bit forced. It's like the writer had this incredibly ambitious cyberpunk world envisioned that they just couldn't quite translate to paper fully. I know that there are other Baldr games so I wonder if some of this is just that those games are better introductions to the concepts of the AI in this game.

-Too many scenes had me saying, "well, that was a choice". Scenes of female sexual and physical abuse, tone deaf dialogue from lots of characters including Kou ("I know that [rape] is a terrible experience for women but it's not worth killing yourself over"), some racial stereotypes that are probably not coming from a place of malice but are still what they are, and some relationships that honestly developed in a way that felt kind of skeevy in a way that I don't feel was justified for the story being told.

-A little related to the above but the villains are not good, they are either basically non-characters or just grating. I'd go as far as to call them a very shallow part of the game.

Ultimately by no means a bad overall experience and I do think it landed the ending that it deserved and needed, if not particularly surprising. Given how long of a VN it was it would've been a bummer if it had gone out on a unsatisfying note.

Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Mar 8, 2020

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

I enjoyed Raging Loop a lot though the stuff leading up to the finale felt very Xenogears Disc 2. Really got the vibe that a route got cut. Plus while most of the characters got at least one chance to shine (big spoilers in the tags from here on) Tae was mostly just Yasunaga's sidekick in the first route and didn't do much of anything after that, Yoshitsugu never really grew beyond 'he's a delinquent who's fronting and he loves his mom' which is established in the first three minutes of his screentime, and Hashimoto is a great antagonist for Darkness but his best moment in that route is in a deadend that doesn't give a key, so some people might not see it.

As for the ending itself, I like the angle that most of it was manmade but Rikako's turn into Bargain Bin Kiara Sessyoin didn't do a lot for me. I'm fine with her being an antagonist but her personality suddenly going 'kyahaha i want to devour the people of Yamato' felt pretty boring. She got some funny lines after that was resolved ("I want to kill Fusaishi Haruaki.") but the abridged nature of the ending meant that shift back and forth didn't really have time to settle. Mocchi also felt like he was gonna do more at some point and then... kinda didn't. Chiemi was the focus of the wolves in the second route, and he mostly just was the guy who was right but didn't feel like acting on being right. I liked him as a character, at least.

There is also one plot point I'm kinda shaky on. In Darkness, why did Chiemi killing herself count as a kill for the wolves? It wasn't caused by them and they didn't lay a hand on her. I could see not wanting to risk it, like 'well she killed herself when we showed up, so maybe that counts as us doing it' but the characters just act like it obviously counts as their kill and literally everyone works off that assumption, even when the possibility is brought up in the feast. It's not a huge deal but it was the only time the logic of the game didn't click for me.

The Extras and the new game+ feature where you get to see scenes from other people's perspectives seem like they'd improve the characterization, just from reading the first couple scenes of Route 1 there seems like there's a lot of content, but it'll probably be a month or two before I reread with that stuff.

But yeah, I really enjoyed it overall. Appreciated how quickly it got into things, liked most of the characters, and it was genuinely pretty clever. And Haruaki is a fantastic protagonist. Kind of a scumbag, but likable, and genuinely really funny. I actually get why girls are into him, which is a nice trait to have in a protagonist who's characterized as kind of a womanizer.

Overall you can really see its influences (umineko, higurashi, 999) but it's still a really clever game with a lot of good moments and some unique ideas. It's not perfect but it's confident and doesn't overstay its welcome - it only took me 35ish hours to get through, not 80 like a lot of more middle of the road VNs. Definitely recommend it to anyone who likes mystery VNs.

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

I liked the villain reveal a lot more after reading through all their thoughts on NG+. Although I'd suggest doing the Sheep extra first since that has some explanations that aren't in the main game.

klapman
Aug 27, 2012

this char is good

Endorph posted:

There is also one plot point I'm kinda shaky on. In Darkness, why did Chiemi killing herself count as a kill for the wolves? It wasn't caused by them and they didn't lay a hand on her. I could see not wanting to risk it, like 'well she killed herself when we showed up, so maybe that counts as us doing it' but the characters just act like it obviously counts as their kill and literally everyone works off that assumption, even when the possibility is brought up in the feast. It's not a huge deal but it was the only time the logic of the game didn't click for me.

Now that you mention it, I don't get that either. Like, an explanation comes to mind that since it was a human that killed a human it can't count as "the corruption", but that takes some thought and so it wouldn't be the first thing that naturally comes to mind. Maybe that was the first sign that Fusaishi was getting hit with the God thoughts? Like his first thought was that they weren't allowed to kill anyone, and when he said it out loud everyone just went "ah, yes, sounds right". It's possible that Fusaishi's the one who brings up the idea of "that counted as the wolves' kill" in the feast, but I don't remember the micro-level lies very well.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Endorph posted:

As for the ending itself, I like the angle that most of it was manmade but Rikako's turn into Bargain Bin Kiara Sessyoin didn't do a lot for me. I'm fine with her being an antagonist but her personality suddenly going 'kyahaha i want to devour the people of Yamato' felt pretty boring. She got some funny lines after that was resolved ("I want to kill Fusaishi Haruaki.") but the abridged nature of the ending meant that shift back and forth didn't really have time to settle. Mocchi also felt like he was gonna do more at some point and then... kinda didn't. Chiemi was the focus of the wolves in the second route, and he mostly just was the guy who was right but didn't feel like acting on being right. I liked him as a character, at least.

Yeah, this was a bit goofy. That whole part felt like it happened so fast. Like it reveals Rikako's heel turn and then within the next 5 minutes the situation is resolved. I was also confused about one of the plot points there. What exactly did she do to everyone in the village that had Haruaki freaking out? She didn't actually sleep with them all, right? But if it was just some ritual, then it wouldn't make sense to freak out about it.

Endorph posted:

There is also one plot point I'm kinda shaky on. In Darkness, why did Chiemi killing herself count as a kill for the wolves? It wasn't caused by them and they didn't lay a hand on her. I could see not wanting to risk it, like 'well she killed herself when we showed up, so maybe that counts as us doing it' but the characters just act like it obviously counts as their kill and literally everyone works off that assumption, even when the possibility is brought up in the feast. It's not a huge deal but it was the only time the logic of the game didn't click for me.

When you take into account that it's man-made, it's not that strange that the folks managing it would be like "Hm...makes sense for the wolves to hesitate here. Guess we'll just leave it be."

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

Ytlaya posted:

What exactly did she do to everyone in the village that had Haruaki freaking out? She didn't actually sleep with them all, right? But if it was just some ritual, then it wouldn't make sense to freak out about it.
I mean, she did? She described how and when she did.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MegaZeroX
Dec 11, 2013

"I'm Jack Frost, ho! Nice to meet ya, hee ho!"



Wait, there is another thread in ADTRW again? :psyduck:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply