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A couple of years back seorin did an excellent LP of Fate/stay night and I thought it would be a good idea to have a place for posters in that thread who obviously enjoyed visual novels to have a thread to post in so they could discuss them. The thread went on to surpass all of my expectations by talking about Japanese pornography games for thousands of posts without getting gassed. Now that ADTRW Spring Cleaning has rolled around, we're making a new thread. Wait, porn games? What's a visual novel anyway? A visual novel is a work of interactive fiction that features a combination of text, graphics, and music. "Interactive" can range anywhere from "no interaction other than clicking to continue until you reach the ending" to "practically has a full game as a part of it". There are a lot of visual novels that double as strategy or adventure games. Some examples you may be familiar with if you own a handheld console are the Zero Escape or Ace Attorney franchises. All of that said though: Zorak posted:If you're going to include adventure games, I might as well send you to games because you've made your definition of such broadness that it encompasses stuff that doesn't entirely fall in ADTRW! The main focus of this thread is about visual novels that wouldn't survive a thread in Games, so extended chatter about visual novels that fall on the far end of the "actually a real game" spectrum should probably go in Games. No, wait, what was that about porn? Most visual novels discussed in this thread will also have some rudimentary amount of pornographic content. Much of the modern visual novel market for personal computers has grown out of the old market for porn games in the 90s, and trends from that still continue because the companies that make them have driven themselves into a weird and kinda creepy niche. That said there are plenty of companies out there who put out material where pornographic content is either non-existent or not the main focus, and this thread is primarily to talk about those kinds of visual novels. As a general rule of thumb, if the visual novel you want to talk about looks like it belongs in the Awful Anime column of the main site, you probably shouldn't discuss it here. Who makes visual novels? Visual novels are made by a wide variety of companies, but I'll list a few names to look out for. Key - The creators of Air, Kanon (uguu~), Clannad, Rewrite, and Planetarian among other games. I haven't played any of their games aside from Planetarian and Rewrite and I'm not very interested either, but I know that some people around here are fans. Used to have extremely bad artwork, but Rewrite was at the very least half-decent. Their lead writer, Jun Maeda, also composes a lot of their music and was the writer for Angel Beats, an anime series that aired in 2010. Their newest game, Rewrite, brought in Romeo Tanaka (Humanity Has Declined, Cross Channel) to head the project and write most of it, and turned out to be very good. Type Moon - Responsible for the very popular Tsukihime and Fate/stay night as well as their seemingly limitless spinoffs, Type Moon is also responsible for publishing Kara no Kyoukai. All of their stories involve magic and the supernatural (sorcerers, vampires, etc). Their latest work, Mahou Tsukai no Yoru, was recently released and is currently undergoing translation by at least one or two fan groups. They're currently working on a remake to Tsukihime with updated assets, including new artwork and character designs. Nitroplus - Nitroplus games tend to include darker material like murder, reanimating the dead, cannibalism, demons, otherworldly monsters, and things of that nature. That said, most of their works are not meant to be taken entirely seriously. Gen Urobuchi is their best known writer and has produced several of their works (Saya no Uta, Kikokugai), and has also written other well received stories in other mediums (Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero). JAST has licensed a slew of Nitro+ games, with Demonbane being released in 2011 and Saya no Uta coming out hopefully within the next few weeks. âge - Creators of Muv Luv and Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. Their games have almost absurdly high production values. Muv Luv Alternative has something like 80 thousand different images that make up the image data used for the game. OK, so how do I get my Japanese pornography games in English? Due to the hurdles of licensing visual novels (and there are a lot of them) the number of visual novels for the PC worth checking out that can be easily officially obtained in English can probably be counted on one hand. The only two companies that license these sorts of games for English distribution are JAST and Mangagamer. JAST has been going out of their way for the past few years trying to license higher quality visual novels, and while they've managed to announce about half a dozen Nitro+ games, they're being released at a very slow pace. Mangagamer, if anything, has regressed a bit over the last few years, with only one or two notable titles being released or announced. Also Mangagamer goes around to anime cons with booths that look like this. For most games worth playing, you'll be stuck with fan translations. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as fan translations for visual novels tend to be rather serviceable. vndb will always have information on a visual novel's page about releases in other languages and where to get fan patches. Glossary/Useful Terms To Know Eroge - Erotic game. Used to describe games with some amount of erotic content in them. Nakige - Crying game. These games follow a pattern of light-hearted first halves and tragic second halves, designed in the shrewdest way possible to get the player to become attached to and then cry over the characters. This describes almost all of Key's output except for Rewrite. Nukige - Porn first, everything else second. Posting about enjoying these will probably bring the wrath of god down on this thread, so please don't. Fandisc - A "disc" for "fans". Fandiscs are follow-ups to visual novels that offer more content for fans of the original work. These usually include "after story" scenarios, scenes of the characters in more comedic situations, additional explanation of plot elements, or (most commonly) more porn. The only fandiscs worth checking out that are currently in English are Kagetsu Tohya (the fandisc for Tsukihime) and Holiday Star (the fandisc for Hatoful Boyfriend), although there are translations for a couple of other promising fandiscs that are in the works. Some requests for this thread to follow Don't be creepy. Don't post about how much you love *insert character here* and want to marry her. Don't post about how hot a sex scene was because no one cares. Don't post about games that would belong in the Awful Anime column of the main site. Laughing at terrible porn in games where porn isn't the primary focus is OK but please don't consume the thread with talk about the finer points of rape scenes in Tsukihime. You really shouldn't post about sex scenes at all really, but this is especially the case if you're being weird about it. Useful Link VNDB - The most useful English resource for visual novels. Catalogs about 12 thousand visual novels with user ratings and a very thorough tagging system. Visual novels with available English translations will have links to where you can buy them or download fan patches. Somebody fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jun 16, 2013 |
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Mar 29, 2013 08:13
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 02:46 |
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Post reserved for recommendations. Go read a real book or something in the meantime, ya nerds.
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Mar 29, 2013 08:14
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Yay new thread. Play Muv-Luv. (What's the proper terminology anyway? Should it be "playing" a visual novel or "reading" one? I guess either one works.)
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Mar 29, 2013 09:30
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Rewrite does buck the Key trend a bit eh? I checked it out for a few hours and while I know they probably just love a slow burn-in I still couldn't keep interest. Also I don't know if it's just the original text or the translation, but it felt really rough reading it.Barent posted:(What's the proper terminology anyway? Should it be "playing" a visual novel or "reading" one? I guess either one works.) I like to combine'em into "going through".
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Mar 29, 2013 10:54
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You can't emphasis enough how bad the art is for Kanon (a Key game) - I'd almost think it were a parody, what with how large the eyes of the characters are. That being said, it's not bad for slice-of-life so far. Nothing special, but I figured I'd slog out the common route and at least one heroine route before deciding what I think of it, as Rewrite pulled the same thing where it'd take forever to get started. ...No, I'm not expecting Kanon to do anything like Rewrite beyond the 'start as slice-of-life, then go serious and sad for the latter half' format. Different authors, vastly different games so far. I also wanted to note: Planetarian was good, and even though I knew what it was doing and was prepared for it - I was still in tears by the end. They did a great job in making me care about a character (and a world) in such a short amount of time.
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Mar 29, 2013 12:06
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StrixNebulosa posted:I also wanted to note: Planetarian was good, and even though I knew what it was doing and was prepared for it - I was still in tears by the end. They did a great job in making me care about a character (and a world) in such a short amount of time. Yeah, I really like Planetarian. Reverie standing in front of the mech and getting shot up and the protagonist taking her memory chip is a strong memory for me.
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Mar 29, 2013 12:15
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It definitely still deserves a spot in the recommendations I'd say, and here's the link (iOS) to the offical release
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Mar 29, 2013 14:00
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Thanks for the new thread jonjonaug. Wouldn't Hatoful Boyfriend's fandisc be worth playing too? I have only played the first game so I can't speak for the quality of the fandisc but most people seem to like it and I enjoyed the first game a lot. As a bonus it and the original is two of the very few VNs that is easily to buy and purchase for a cheap price. Also you should add 07th Expansion on the list of companies.
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Mar 29, 2013 16:51
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Mar 29, 2013 18:01
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I just finished Shikoku no Sharnoth after about two weeks. I think I enjoyed it more than Sekien no Inganock because I actually understood what was happening at the ending for the most part. The minigames were corny but I thought they were pretty fun. The overall setting and theme was really good. The only real complaints I have is that copypaste writing usually goes into the realm of annoying even if there's some cool quotes and also that the formulaic plot is still visible. I heard Hikari no Valusia isn't episodic though which sounds pretty great (the OP is amazing). And then Shiei no Sona-Nyl and Ourai no Gahkthun don't even have that much copypaste text!!
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Mar 29, 2013 18:33
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planetarial posted:Thanks for the new thread jonjonaug. I thought the Hatoful Boyfriend fandisc was very good! It's kind of similar to the first game in that it contains four stories, the first three are light hearted comedic bird shenanigans and the last story is longer and more serious. The third and fourth stories have some gorgeous backgrounds and sprites too, so I definitely recommend it if you enjoyed the first game! 
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Mar 29, 2013 18:33
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planetarial posted:Thanks for the new thread jonjonaug. Wow I can't believe I forgot Holiday Star. Yes, Holiday Star is great. jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Mar 29, 2013 |
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Mar 29, 2013 18:58
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Disgruntled Cactus posted:I thought the Hatoful Boyfriend fandisc was very good! It's kind of similar to the first game in that it contains four stories, the first three are light hearted comedic bird shenanigans and the last story is longer and more serious. The third and fourth stories have some gorgeous backgrounds and sprites too, so I definitely recommend it if you enjoyed the first game! I am definitely going to play it, I've had some unrelated issues crop up that have made me too busy to play VNs a lot but once I finally finish Rose Gun Days Season 1 (also good with great music) I'll check it out.
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Mar 29, 2013 21:57
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Carver posted:It definitely still deserves a spot in the recommendations I'd say, and here's the link (iOS) to the offical release Whoa, I didn't even know that there was an iOS release for Planetarian! Now I have no excuse not to play it. Should we have any English VN developers in that OP? Christine Love comes to mind.
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Mar 29, 2013 22:54
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Repostin this for a new thread: Muv-Luv Trilogy MAD set to the Macross Frontier Medley Has a hell of a lot of spoilers but I think it's pretty cool!
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Mar 30, 2013 01:02
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Since there's a new thread and I haven't followed the old one for a while, I might as well post about some stuff I've read recently (mostly in Japanese) Some of the various untranslated Muv Luv side material, for fans of the original muv luvs: Altered Fable - Currently getting an in-progress 4chan translation. Is basically Extra's scenario only better written and goofier. I read this right after finishing Alternative and it worked wonders as a cooldown after it. There's a lot of great callbacks and interesting scenes, and a few (celebrating Christmas with Kasumi) even managed to squeeze a few tears out of me. It's also fairly impressively complex since in addition to all the main heroines they added in a little stuff for a few of the side characters who didn't really get much in the other games (Kashiwagi, Marimo, Kasumi, Yuuhi). The beach section has a map movement portion that took a considerable amount of time to see everything on. Lacrosse does not appear in this game, but there is a volleyball minigame that is terrible (but strangely addictive?). I don't think there are all that many scenes that you miss if you just throw the game and skip it, though. Also features Major Walken and Jack Bauer. Unlimited: The Day After - Still in progress in Japan, god knows when it's going to be translated. As far as Alternative-ish material goes, this is the one to look out for. The original characters are almost all great, the story is fairly twisty, and unlike most of the side material it even features a couple characters from the main trilogy of games. Really curious to see where they go with this, since if you've read Alternative you likely have an idea of where it's going to eventually end up. Chronicles: Confession - Packaged with the Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu, is a flashback to Isumi training under Marimo. I like both of those characters, so it was pretty great, especially when viewed in concert with the same part in Alternative and Michiru's route in Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu. Cryed like a baby towards the end of it. Chronicles: Resurrection - The basic premise of the plot is ridiculous, but it's used as a setup for some fun gags, is set at Yokohama base with A-01, and everybody gets new sprites in the new art style age has mostly switched to by now. Has a couple surprise cameos and twists, a lot of Munakata action if that's your cup of tea. Hope to see this translated someday in the hopes that some of the nonsensical-ness of the premise was due to my Japanese skill and not just how it is. Chronicles: Adoration - Fairly tangental, but funny and with a good cast of characters. Gerhard is the most fabulous character in the series. I've heard a lot of the cast shows up in The Euro Front, I need to check that out. Muv Luv Supplement - The original fandisc with a mediocre continuation of Sumika's route from Extra, a few decent prequel shorts of various characters, and Muv Luv Duelist, which is the worst thing in the entire franchise and made me feel kind of dirty after reading it. Haruko Maniax - Kinda lovely fandisc centered around Kashiwagi and her little brother. Has some silly short side drama things that came with it, though, and Faraway Dawn 2. Other stuff I've been reading: Little Busters - Great game, especially the later stuff like Rin2 and Refrain. I also played through the untranslated EX content and such, and I think I liked Saya's route more than any other single heroine's. Sasasasasasasasa's route was pretty good, too, though. I cried like a little girl through the endings of both of them. Try not to get spoiled on anything if you're planning to play it. Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu (remake) - Was alright for the most part. I liked all the characters and the art and such was alright. Story was good, but not really anything to write home about. Plus points were it developing Munakata and Touko more than they got in any of the Muv Luv games, Marimo and Yuuko having small roles, and one or two very subtle callbacks to Alternative. Michiru finally getting a chance to put the Hot Spring strategy into operation was a nice touch. Fortune Arterial - Overall a rather mediocre boarding school galge. Vaguely enjoyed Erika's route (and to a lesser extent Kiriha's) but all the rest were rather forgettable. Glad I did them, though, because the unlockable true route does tie everything together fairly nicely, though I would have liked to see Saya have a bigger part than she did. Dracu-Riot - Had worried somewhat about this being a bit porny, and while it was to a certain extent, the individual routes each have a pretty good story that are distinct from the others. Pretty good comedy, though I think they could have had some good action too if they bothered trying (they didn't). Made it a remarkably long way through the game before discovering that Miyu is voiced by the same actress who did Sumika in Muv Luv. Anyway, after I finish the last couple routes of that I'm not quite sure what I'm going to go for. I still have Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and Owarinaki Natsu, Towa Naru Shirabe left in age's catalogue, and I'm stalled a couple routes into Clannad after getting tired of it seeming like half the game was just beating up Sunohara, but I think I might give Majikoi a try, I've seen a lot of stuff about it lately. Alternatively I could give up on waiting for the Mahoyo translation and challenge it with my own skills.
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Mar 30, 2013 01:49
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Bakanogami posted:Muv Luv Duelist, which is the worst thing in the entire franchise They managed to make something worse than Total Eclipse? That's impressive.
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Mar 30, 2013 02:20
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Bakanogami posted:Also features Major Walken and Jack Bauer. Wait what? Why the hell would Jack Bauer be in a Japanese Visual Novel? As a huge 24 fan I think I need to read this Visual Novel just for this because that sounds awesome!
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Mar 30, 2013 02:30
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Bakanogami posted:Dracu-Riot - Had worried somewhat about this being a bit porny, and while it was to a certain extent, the individual routes each have a pretty good story that are distinct from the others. Pretty good comedy, though I think they could have had some good action too if they bothered trying (they didn't). Made it a remarkably long way through the game before discovering that Miyu is voiced by the same actress who did Sumika in Muv Luv. Looking at the VNTL thing, translation on this might finish up in the next 4-5 months. Dra+Koi just finished, but apparently the folks that translated it are going to try to sell it to JAST, we'll have that in about 2 years.
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Mar 30, 2013 02:42
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Stall_19 posted:Wait what? Why the hell would Jack Bauer be in a Japanese Visual Novel? As a huge 24 fan I think I need to read this Visual Novel just for this because that sounds awesome! Japan loves 24 and parodies of it, I think.
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Mar 30, 2013 02:42
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Stall_19 posted:Wait what? Why the hell would Jack Bauer be in a Japanese Visual Novel? As a huge 24 fan I think I need to read this Visual Novel just for this because that sounds awesome!   He's technically "Chuck Sauber", but he's voiced by the Japanese dub voice for Jack Bauer (who is coincidentally also the voice of Kiritsugu in Fate/Zero). For most of the plot he generally just runs around acting like he's in an episode of 24 (complete with timer), occasionally running into Takeru and yelling at him. Silver2195 posted:They managed to make something worse than Total Eclipse? That's impressive. Total Eclipse merely had a terrible plot, terrible animation, and not a single likable character (at least the anime, but I don't have super hopes for the VN improving on it greatly). The Duelists portion of Supplement literally goes like this: Rather than entering into the world of Unlimited/Alternative, Takeru gets sucked into a world where everything is based off of a terrible card game based off of moe characters from VNs and such that were popular at the time. Plot devices mean that winning card duels make the winner suck life force from the loser and lose their inhibitions. Sumika is the most powerful card player in the world. Takeru can't take this, so he goes around the school beating girls in cards and raping them after he wins. Not even making GBS threads, that's the whole plot.
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Mar 30, 2013 02:52
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I liked total eclipse a lot, for what it's worth. It's no muv luv prime but it was a lovely little anime, aside from not having an end.
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Mar 30, 2013 04:14
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Bakanogami posted:
This loving rules. I don't even care if Altered Fable has some weird stuff in it, I want to see Jack Bauer and Walken show that high school just what ~AMERICA~ is all about! 
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Mar 30, 2013 07:17
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DamnGlitch posted:I liked total eclipse a lot, for what it's worth. It's no muv luv prime but it was a lovely little anime, aside from not having an end. Yes if by "lovely" you mean "absolutely god loving awful"
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Mar 30, 2013 07:23
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Total Eclipse was terrible for so many reasons that I'll forget at least half if I begin listing them.
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Mar 30, 2013 07:50
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WickedIcon posted:Yes if by "lovely" you mean "absolutely god loving awful" My opinions differs from yours (?!!)
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Mar 30, 2013 08:13
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DamnGlitch posted:My opinions differs from yours (?!!) There's having differing opinions, and then there's calling consistently atrocious animation quality, adults acting out a trite teenage highschool romcom in an unfit setting, and blatant racism, "lovely."
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Mar 30, 2013 09:09
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I enjoyed it. My subjective views and opinions of it in no way have to infringe on your own of it being bad. I'm merely offering a different perspective.
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Mar 30, 2013 09:33
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TDA00 was loving fantastic, and that's coming from someone who isn't a huge fan of MLA. My biggest beef with MLA was the characters and I think TDA00 is much the better for getting away from the mostly terrible main cast of MLE/U/A. I started TDA01 a couple days ago and I'm enjoying it a lot less, sadly.
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Mar 30, 2013 10:30
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I watched something like 16 episodes of Total Eclipse and I still could not see where the plot was going or what they were trying to do. Aside from the romance, which, uh, wasn't particularly compelling.
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Mar 30, 2013 11:08
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They pull some weird conflict out of nowhere for the last arc then don't do anything for romantic closure so they can have a starting point for the TE VN.
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Mar 30, 2013 11:14
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So, Analogue: A Hate Story is pretty good. I've also completed Muv-Luv Unlimited and am looking forward to Alternative. Given how Unlimited.....is, is Alternative one giant tear-jerker after another? Not sure I can take it at this point. Only sort of joking.
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Mar 30, 2013 18:08
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You're definitely in for an emotional sledgehammer to the balls, but you have many hours of cool things happening before you get to that point.
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Mar 30, 2013 18:10
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Blhue posted:You're definitely in for an emotional sledgehammer to the balls, but you have many hours of cool things happening before you get to that point. gently caress. poo poo. Okay, let's do this thing. I've got access to a handle of vodka if I need it. And then to play Clannad afterwards because I'm nothing if not a sucker for punishment. Anything fun to play afterwards? I don't think Umineko would be appropriate. But I did like the happy endings of Analogue so there's that...
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Mar 30, 2013 18:14
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Artificer posted:gently caress. poo poo. Okay, let's do this thing. I've got access to a handle of vodka if I need it. Hmm. Happy endings... Most Overdrive games. Dengeki Stryker and Deardrops would be best. Kira Kira is good too but one of its routes has a pretty depressing ending, so it doesn't work as well to follow other sad poo poo.
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Mar 30, 2013 18:22
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Artificer posted:gently caress. poo poo. Okay, let's do this thing. I've got access to a handle of vodka if I need it. I downed one just to get through lacrosse.
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Mar 30, 2013 18:22
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killstealing posted:I downed one just to get through lacrosse. The lacrosse part wasn't that bad, I think? It was at least a glimpse of what Takeru becomes in Unlimited. Edit: Holy poo poo. They pulled the reset button trick AGAIN? Goddammit. Seriously getting tired of Takeru getting to know all these interesting characters, especially the chosen love interest, only to have it all be taken away. Well at least he's less hosed than he was before. Artificer fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 30, 2013 |
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Mar 30, 2013 18:30
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Blhue posted:Hmm. Happy endings... Most Overdrive games. Dengeki Stryker and Deardrops would be best. Kira Kira is good too but one of its routes has a pretty depressing ending, so it doesn't work as well to follow other sad poo poo. Dengeki Stryker? Happy ending? Either (p big spoilers in here) you haven't read the last route or you're just being sadistic.
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Mar 30, 2013 18:53
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Son Ryo posted:Dengeki Stryker? Happy ending? Either (p big spoilers in here) you haven't read the last route or you're just being sadistic. I have, I at least didn't find it that depressing and the heavy comedy of the earlier bits outweighed it to me. The real tragedy is there's no Jack route. Blhue fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Mar 30, 2013 |
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Mar 30, 2013 18:57
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Artificer posted:The lacrosse part wasn't that bad, I think? It was at least a glimpse of what Takeru becomes in Unlimited. The last two novels existed to build up this one. So strap in son. 
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Mar 30, 2013 19:18
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