What VN are you playing? What do you think about it?

Hmm. I had meant to say that some readers who read at a fast pace would have problems with reading the VN, but I guess I did a poor job screening my reply. I apologize, I did not mean to sound like an elitist, it's just a personal opinion. I understand your points perfectly.

I'm actually sympathizing from the developer's side since I'm a programmer myself (half-baked though), and so it just doesn't sit too well with me when I feel like the developers efforts could potentially be wasted by something as simple as fast reading.

Again, just using me as an example, I have the tendency to double click every text so they would display quickly, or just set Text Speed options to maximum. So obviously if you follow strictly to the default options and wait for every line perfectly as if you're setting the VN to run on Auto Mode, the animation would run perfectly to display its maximum aesthetic experience. However, ultimately these type of readers are also just one side of the entire demography, as you said it yourself. There are also problems such as animation transitions might take too long and delay the usual text reading speed, etc etc.

Also, my opinion did not stem from just Witch Garden alone. Some time ago, The PS3 version trailer for the latest White Album VNs also showcased a similar animation effect, which although looked pretty cool for some players (especially those who are new to the genre, looking from the comments), was offputting because they look unnatural and too breast-bouncy. Though I personally have no qualms with that so I didn't post it here.

Simply treat all of my posts as an opinion stemming from a completely subjective point of view, because there's no way for me to ever be completely objective. Again, I'm sorry if my post offended someone.

You can actually turn off the animations in the game and it'll become just like any other VN. There's just a lot of in-between poses instead, less bouncy hair/body motions and no mouth movements.

I don't think anyone would plow through the story since the story itself seems rather plain for now (in other words, no foreseeable crazy plot twists or tear jerking moments). So, all that is left to push this game is the animation system which is pretty good by the way. It's like watching an anime with crisp graphics and the same non-moving people in the backdrop.

EDIT: If you want to try it, you can download it here from the main site.

and yeah, all their youtube videos are really pushing their "E-mote" system.

EDIT2: Oh yeah, there is something that bugs me in the trial.

In the image above, for some reason I feel that there is something wrong with the legs of the girl on the left. Like, it can't be possible or something.

She's just flexible lol, don't think too much about it.

Finished playing Analogue: A Hate Story.

So first off, feelings. Obscenely good to be honest; it's been a long time since I read good English on Visual Novels, and this is definitely the breather I need from the usual Japanese language bombardments.

Story. So since I'm a Chinese and has watched a tonne of Hong Kong dramas with my family since birth, I'm pretty familiar with the concept of 'men are honored, women are abased'. All the same, this VN is definitely one heck of a emotional roller coaster to go through with almost surgical precision when presenting the intended moral values, furnished with beautiful writing. I'm long since past the point that I would enjoy ancient-Chinese-political drama, but this is surprisingly interesting - and fun - to read. This VN features Korean culture btw, so there is a difference.

A little bit of spoiler rambling, but the forever lost 'incident' that caused the degeneration of civilization in this VN very likely involves this singular point:



Character. Both the AI Hyun-Ae and Mute's personality are portrayed almost perfectly through the logs and their dialogues with the protagonist. While Hyun-Ae first look to be a mature twenty years plus woman form her outer appearance, it becomes increasingly obvious through her words, actions and the occasional ramblings of childish dreams that she's really just a poor, young girl. Very, very young.

Mute on the other hand, can be considered the 'pinnacle of modern woman' within the Munguhwa's society even though she's just AI. And considering that there are still so many shackles and misguided beliefs Mute has despite having a rather outward and rogue personality, it becomes painfully clear here that no one can escape the influence of one's environment. Still, she's definitely one of the most reasonable individual - well okay, there's only like one human and 2 AIs on the ship - even when we compare her to our current societies. Despite having misguided (actually I'm gonna avoid using this word from now on, because I can't help but feel like someday someone's gonna use the goddamn word against myself) beliefs, she was willing to listen to good reason, and can compromise her own feelings and admit that the right facts are indeed, right. Revenge doesn't cloud her. Anger doesn't cloud her. While Hyun-Ae is infinitely more cuter than Mute, it is impossible to deny Mute's boldness and intelligence. She is that amazing.

... Perhaps just reading through my 'more in-depth than usual' VN characterization you guys would realize that Analogue: A Hate Story writes about characters a lot better than most VNs did. And Christine Love did it with just logs and one-sided dialogues.

A little talk about the flaws of this Visual Novel, which really isn't much:

1) The endings can be a little petty when we consider everything that we've been through learning what happened in the star ship Munguhwa. There's no real epilogue beyond the short excerpt within the credits, and the difference between all 5 endings is no girl, get 1 girl who was friendzoned, get 1 lover girl, get another lover girl, get both lover girls. Well, yeah, a little bit petty in my opinion. Ending 5 was especially abrupt, but then again, you did 'cheat the system'. =3

2) It's actually a plus for me as a programmer, but apparently casual players find the console terminal very annoying to use. I mean, if you think THAT's hard to use, imagine what WE have to live though with REAL softwares... T_T

3) Some mistakes with the console terminal. When you access the power controls you'd realize that even though turning off certain subsystems should theoretically kill the protagonist, it doesn't happen.

... Well I think that's it. It's rare for me to run out of flaws to ramble about, which is definitely a pleasant surprise for me. I don't believe that 'the story's too short' justify as a flaw, although it can be for certain VNs. This is however, not one of them. Definitely worth its price, ESPECIALLY when Steam is on Autumn's Sales. =D

Finished Period today.

First of all, the art is very different from the usual but it has it's own charm. Personally speaking, I really like it but I can easily see someone hating it. It may take a while to some people to get used to it.

Regarding the story we have a school setting where our main character after finding a key of a observatory deals with a group of girls and events. Basically, the usual from a VN with a school setting.

However, I think that the way the story unfolds is actually pretty good. I found it to be quite romantic and cute (well, there's also drama) and since I'm such a sucker for these types of stories you can imagine my satisfaction finishing the routes one by one. The only route that surprisingly I didn't enjoy that much was Tsuzumi's. This happened probably because I didn't found her character that appealing but I can easily see some people liking her route a lot. Needless to say, I liked all the other characters. When you get into their routes you'll just like them more since you see more sides of them.

I also liked the soundtrack. I think it contributed well to the atmosphere of the game and the way it was used on some scenes (for example, music stops playing when certain things happen) just added on my immersion. There are two or three tracks that I really like a lot. I may eventually get the soundtrack just for them lol

I give Period a 8 out of 10.

Just finished playing 操心術∞.

So first, I skipped most of the sex scenes because that's not what I'm interested at. The prologue of the story intrigued me greatly, and I decided after finishing the 1st route that the other scenes would most likely consist of just many pointless sex scenes.

I can't believe how right I was. Ever since I've downloaded 電波の奴隷 by chance, also made by the company Studio 邪恋, I've got a feeling that they've nailed the mind control thing beautifully. And now with their latest VN released I can easily tell you that YES, MY GOD, I NEVER THOUGHT A PURE-H VN CAN BE SO GOOD WITH THEIR PLOTS.

So basically, 操心術 is a series that spanned about 5 VNs long including Plus, 操心術2, 操心術3 and the latest 操心術∞, and finally 操心術 Rei 0. If you're just reading any one out of the old games, you normally would not notice a thing that there's anything amiss from the story.

But as you pick up the next title, you would start to notice something strange. More accurately, you would notice that a certain purple colored hair woman named Rei ALWAYS shows up. Her last name maybe something else, but her first name is always REI.

The next not so noticeable one - she only has an active appearance, I think, in 操心術3 (This is also the only title in the entire series that actually ends with goodness of humanity, everything else is just one heck of a sex hell) called Ibuki, is a mysterious short haired, small-sized girl whose eyes seemed to see everything and know everything.

Btw, 操心術∞ explains everything that's happened so far throughout the series, so yeah, I think it's a good idea if you want to go through the previous games first before playing this last. Although no harm done honestly.

So basically, if you had read through the above explanation, I'm going to clarify that the entire series showcases the epic war between 2 mind controllers, REI and Ibuki. And while the True Ibuki is openly blatant about the fact that her dream and ambition is to mind control the entire world, REI oftens appears at the opposite side and would do anything to stop Ibuki in the name of justice.

Spoilers!:



Can't wait for the next 操心術 VN. The sex isn't even the point anymore, I just wanna see the 2 evil masterminds - actually I should say 3, but Ibuki's boyfriend, while as evil and naturally talented in Mind Control, has very little screen time so I don't care much about him - duke it out to see who will finally take over the entire world. Oh yeah.

The title screen is badass as hell, btw. After rushing through the VN I feel like a changed man myself. I mean, goddammit, when evil starts to feel NORMAL that means... I dunno. >_>

I might play 操心術 Rei 0 because it's very recent also, and the title alone speaks enough for itself. This is very likely the origin of Rei herself, and I'm very, very, very curious about the exact plot.

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo yet again for some more routes. But as it is, I'm in the middle of Lilly's route and... just got bored. I think it's not Lilly who's boring; it's the overall game itself. I just lost the overall interest required to generally enjoy this VN, I suppose.

School Days and Lighting Warrior Raidy 2 and cant really say much on either of them because I only played about 10 minutes of each I do like them its just I got to find time to play them ^^

finish playing boob wars the story is short. attacking queen at first is wrong, lol thank to that i attacking all commander and my first route i get harem route. i not to much like loli but i love that tsundere chara.
playing otoboku ... translation kinda off, well not effect to much(the funny thing is they translate koneko-chan become little lamb, the right should be little cat/ kitten). man mangagamer...

btw, is akatsuki no goei is great vn? i see on vndb that score is high, the first get 7 and the sequel get 8

Finished some days ago Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling for Me! and finally decided to stop being lazy and write about it.

If you're reading the VN with the idea of having a lot of great scenes (you should know what I mean) because the protagonist is a trap in a all-girls school during most of the playthrough then you're in for some disappointment. That kind of scenes clearly isn't what the VN is aiming at.

So let's go for what happens in the story. Following the will of his deceased grandfather, our protagonist, Mizuho, being a male goes to a all-girls school and so he finds himself dealing with a lot of situations that could give away his true identity. With the help of his childhood friend that curiously is a talented fashionista, he prepares himself to look like a girl.
Also, Mizuho is the heir of a great corporation so being caught wouldn't be pretty.

But just to help with all his, Mizuho is elected as a "Elder Sister" who is someone recognized as a idol in the school. Attention is what Mizuho had the most so he had to be pretty careful.

When reading Otoboku, you'll notice that Mizuho usally is a considerate person so his interactions with the girls was something that I liked. His personality helped a lot to make cute scenes that for the sake of enjoyment of others I won't mention. There are also some events for amusement that I enjoyed.

The story gives the impretion of being light-hearted but by playing you'll notice that it's not always like that. Some parts are well done, others give me the impression of needing more depth / development. This specially applies to the routes themselves. Some routes in my opinion needed some more work (like Mariya's for example, I just couldn't get into it).
On this topic, the route I liked the most was Takako's. I also think that she's the best heroine.

Taking also into account the designs which were nice and the soudtrack which was average I'll give a 7 out of 10. Otoboku has potential for more but it's still good as it is.

Finished Alicetale. Storyline's kinda generic, but it has potential with interesting minor characters and the way it puts effort in developing each of the character (except the protagonist I guess, generic I-want-to-protect-everyone dude). Hinted a sequel.

God so bored these days.

Finished Dustbin Dreaming ~ The Beginning. Posted my thoughts here.

I wonder which VN I should read next...

Lol. I'm at the point that I'm scavenging Flash games Visual Novel/RPG/good-ol-SimGirls to pass time. I didn't expect the symptoms to hit so hard after a week hiatus to do work. >_>

good bye dota2 trench zone and welcome back to vn world.

Re-playing Walkure Romanze since I saw the manga few days ago. That awkward moment when Lisa likes "Nasi goreng"

dang, vateru's post about akatsuki no goei makes me want to continue it. Yet I don't want any headache from atlas+TA translation. I have the first and fan disk one, haven't downloaded the sequel. The sequel sounds much more serious than first one.

Nasi Goreng? They make that every day in my uni's canteen lol...

I remember Akatsuki no Goei as the VN that ended far too abruptly, and never gave proper closure to the one girl who looks like the true heroine. Suffice to say, I never played anything that comes out of the VN again (and could not understood how did it ever gotten a fandisk). Though that is just my opinion.

The symçtoms are pretty strong around there lol I'm not feeling much of it since I'm busy with my recent aquisition, Assassin's Creed Anthology that has the 5 games released so far :p
Hum, did you read J.Q.V Jinrui Kyuusai-bu ~With Love From Isotope~ yet?
If you liked Cross† Channel or Saihate no Ima I'm pretty sure you'll like it since the style is very similar to the one that Tanaka Romeo (writer of Cross† Channel and Saihate no Ima) uses.

Hmm, I've looked into the synopsis for the VNs you've said. To be honest J.Q.V Jinrui Kyuusai-bu ~With Love From Isotope~ read like a (Yeah I know, I noticed that I'm growing into a pretty lousy cynic >_>) joke, but I'll give it a try since it's supposed to be a serious story. The other one looks better, but I remember going through a similar VN once which narratives and execution was rather horrible, so I'm feeling rather repellant, but at this point WHO CARES! I'LL DOWNLOAD IT! *self-destructs*

I just finished Hankako's route and all that is left is Lily's and Rin's route. I'm doing Lily first. I'm also playing Sono Hana: A Kiss for the Petals. Delicious yuri action.

First impressions on Witch Garden.

So first, my worries were unfounded. Witch Garden is definitely not your generic kawaii-selling VN that has boring storylines. I hereby apologize to the VN for my previous doubts (though not for the E-mote system) and praise it to be one of the must-reads if you're interested in romance/fantasy.

So first, the story is good. I've read through it for a couple of hours, and I must say that it painstakingly builds up its plot slowly, carefully, while never cutting corners as it worked on the details. For example, one major fault in many VNs is that they try to focus on one major character at a time - which is fine, but - completely cutting out the other characters' existence, inevitably causing some readers to wonder just where the heck everyone else has gone.

This VN had so far managed to fix that problem that the contact look realistic and believable. One, the characters are not overly affectionate that they stick 24/7 with you. For example at the beginning few hours, while Ayari was shown genuinely liked the protagonist, it was not the romantic or I-wanna-have-sex-with-you unrealistic type but of a friendly relationship. Some VNs like to make the girls reluctant to part with you every single time the protagonist parts with them, but this does not show here. A friend is a friend, and Ayari was shown to mingle with other characters, do her own things off screen, able to carry herself etc... The characters felt real. They're definitely not a stereotype even if their character design might initially give off such an impression.

Such as the Ice Girl (I forgot her name lol). She basically little to no contact with the protagonist at all, and hence her attitude towards him was just dutiful and amiable, and it has never changed from that because, well, there really isn't much contact at all. That's good. It's in character, and reflects the real world more correctly than, "I'm slowly falling for you because you're always so polite when talking to me once in a blue moon" thing.

Before I start on the E-mote system, I'd like to talk about the Auto Mode. It's impressive to be honest. I know that a lot - actually, most if not all of them - simply set a global timer on the text (reach end of text, wait 1 second, next line) and that's it. Hence it usually feels incredibly unnatural to read with Auto Mode because some text/dialogues either skips too fast or too slow, which is annoying.

But Witch Garden's Auto Mode seems to be more refined. This is just a guess after testing it for around fifteen minutes, but it seems that they've given put 2 different timers for the Auto Mode - one for dialogues and one for passages - and hence when the text flows everything feels incredibly good. The two characters talking are actually talking to each other instead of giving the feels that they're just reading lines.

Now, about the e-mote system. For one, I must say that the characters do look pretty fluid most of the time, barring some moments where the animator/programmer suddenly decide to use static sprite movements when they could've been 'e-moted'. However, there are of course some faults that people cannot help but notice:

1) Sprites are blurry due to the need to make 3D-ish movements.
2) I assume that turning off the E-mote system would switch the system back to normal static sprite and the normal animation stuff, but no. Never turn it off, because the sprites remain blurry and the animations become incredibly horrid that it would completely crash your experience.
3) As I've said before - perhaps due to the fact that this is the first time they implemented the system, hence of course not everything can be perfect - certain animations that they could've e-moted or 'made real' were instead replaced with simple Dissolve transitions.

... But that's about all the faults I can find from this VN, and if there are, at the moment I can't remember any and that's good. While I suspect that certain plotlines would always remain predictable (such as Ayari's true identity etc), it is definitely epic enough for newcomers that they would not forget this experience.

EDIT: Ah, hmm. Final verdict on Witch Garden.

Have to say, in the end this VN really isn't my type of story. A little too much romance/fooling around/treating serious matter as if they're a joke. Ayari's normal route actually read better than the True route, and that kinda infuriates me to no end.

And even then, despite its outward 'happy' appearance, Ayari's true route had actually ended rather dark and ominous:



In short? True route is lousy. Read Ayari's normal route and be satisfied with it, because I personally think that it has the best storyline out of all the others. True route is incredibly the absolute lousiest out of all of them. And I must say that all the sub heroine routes are also moderately good and interesting, unlike the true route which was just... man... sigh.

Zolnir, seeing you reviewing other VN I guess that J.Q.V Jinrui Kyuusai-bu ~With Love From Isotope~ wasn't up to your taste? lol

Mind at least giving your thoughts from what you read from it?