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

Prepare yourself. One of the best scenes in Higurashi is on Meakashi.
Now as for the real meaning of the word "best" I used you'll have to see for yourself lol

I started playing Corpse Party: Book of Shadows. I already got my first Dead End. I think Corpse Party counts as a VN on here...

I already know a bit about what happens when, which is why I so wanted to start Meakashi-hen (and so far, it is my favourite scenario). That said, there are a lot of good scenes (then again, I don't know your definition of "good" :V), for example

So, I finished Meakashi. After playing Kara no Shoujo I thought "ok, now go find me a nutcase that is MORE nuts than the psychos of this visual novel and you'll win a cookie", thinking it was impossible to top some of them.

Well...

Yeah, that's one thing about Higurashi that I really like. It showcased the amazing combi between sound effects and storyline, and since I read it with the old sprites - which looked distorted - the experience became even more surreal.

Even Umineko did very well in that department, even though I disliked how the story turned out in the end.

I bought Corpse Party Book of Shadows and Hakuoki just yesterday, to find my PSP broken.

Ok, with today I finished Tsumihoroboshi-hen. I must admit, I'm impressed. This arc was fairly unique, in that the beginning was somewhat weaker (still better than the question arcs though), but then everything escalated to freaky levels quite quickly.



Well now, let us proceed to the finale. I want to see if the next arc will trump Meakashi-hen in sheer evilness.

Fate/stay Night Heaven's Feel route

Saying that it's awesome would be a colossal understatement.

You sir deserve a round of applause. :3

Anyway, currently I'm playing through the first half of Minagoroshi-hen.

The best route in my opinion, though some people that I know of have issues with 'Bob' (Shirou).

Currently on Kurisu's route in Steins;Gate, and it's quite a treat. Be back with more later.

I found a very short one called Yandere-chan. It's very short and has less-than-great art, but I liked it. I especially loved the only mostly stupid ending, since it has a more dramatic feel than the others. Oh, and there's only one "good" ending.

Ok, finished Minagoroshi-hen. One more to go~

The revelation always turns out to be less than expected, and Minagoroshi is the turning point of everything. The final arc goes all out positive and brings to a satisfying - albeit a little embarrassing - end to the entire story.

material brave is a really fun rpg hentai i love it there is another but is complex kanji, but its made by luxury and anime game girls pop out of some dudes computer and he has fun*wink wink** i love them both very fun

So, last chapter of Higurashi, I'm currently playing through it, but I have some things to say.



Oh well, onwards to the finale. Whatever happens, I can already say that I like Higurashi more than Umineko.

Finally finished Gears of Dragoon. It took one helluva bloody time to play it. I suggest that if you're pursuing the story then just go Easy Mode because they offer the choice to go insta-win battles.

Plot-wise, a dragon slaying, hero-centric story. It's very well detailed and played out, with the direction clear and not too complicated. I had fun reading even though the climax was as cliched as any hero story you might expect. Both Chaos and Law route are equally good as both provided a very satisfying climax and ending to each side of the stories. Just so you know, the True End for Chaos Route is Sheeta's, so if you don't want the story to suddenly cut short between Chapter 6 to 7 you had better choose every route available for her. Otherwise you'll default to a sub heroine and don't even get to fight the final boss.

Character wise, this is a surprise. The good kind. My favorite character out of all was Falco, the head of the Saku Seed family. He is literally the light of the story as he brings in clarity, determination and foresight into the story as he guided the protagonist and his family throughout various hardships. Even his skillset is far more useful than the protagonist's, whose strongest ability does not show up until the very last dungeon (Law route).

And oh, obviously by favorite heroine in the game is Sheeta. That one CG where she's perched on her own dragon tail looking at the sea is sooooo cute! *faints*

Gameplay-wise, well... it takes forever. You would spend nearly an hour just tweaking your stash of equipments preparing for the quest, and if you don't destroy the red pillars regularly you'll find yourself faced with impossible bosses possibly 20 to 30 levels ahead of you. The Normal difficulty is a LIE, it is HARD AS FUCK especially when Chapter 6 begins, where Darkness Period is a total nightmare. Some dungeon maps doesn't show up on the walkthrough, and by the fucks I hate the last dungeon so much because you have to fall through a hole at the first level to get on the right path, which you wouldn't know until you take a good look at the map and notice the discrepancy. No warning and all.

Make no mistake, it IS fun as hell, but at the same time it's such a goddamn time sink (I switched to Easy difficulty both times near the end because it was getting retardedly frustrating, exploring the fucking huge map while carefully conserving mana because you could only buy ONE TYPE OF MANA POTION FROM BEGINNING TO THE END). +80 MP wasn't even enough to wipe my ass, and you'll need at least 30 if you want to crawl through the shithole (post Chapter 6) without returning to your base once. If you're lucky.

The difference between Chaos and Law route, other than the plot, would be that for Chaos the protagonist will have a completely new skillset and super stat boost, whereas for Law you'll be able to add active skills to your weapons at the Research Room. To be honest most of them pretty useless, and it's not like you can expand the number of skills on a single skill palette anyway.

The greatest irony in the game is that in both routes, Radei managed to gain mastery over his Dragon powers, except that in Law route he kept his humanity intact and his hands clean, whereas in Chaos route he became a complete monster in both body and heart. Well in Law route Radei does not gain a Dragon's natural vitality and strength, but he does have all of the greatest ability of a dragon, in addition to an improved version of Falco's ultimate based on his Dragon abilities. Regardless of whether he choose to take a shortcut or not, he would've acquired the needed powers anyway and even at the same time, which is just bloody ironic whenever I thought about it.

Another one would be that in Law route, some sub heroines will die because they're on the evil's side, and:



But in Chaos route, everyone lives to see another day and just like Law route - no, better than Law route in a way - all is well and everyone's happy. So you can even say that being evil ultimately brought a bigger chunk of happiness even though Radei was forced to run away from the country in Chaos. These little tweaks and irony in the plot definitely scored a huge liking in my book, and I can safely vouched that Gears of Dragoon is a must-play game for any RPG-VN lovers.

I just completed Steins;Gate.

It was amazing to read through (though, in my opinion, not as amazing as Muv-Luv Alternative - though that was mainly because MLA had recently good CGs and actions scenes...)

Now, I must admit that I did watch the anime before reading the VN - and it did, in fact, lower my scoring of the VN. The anime was actually a pretty faithful adaptation to the VN, and I recommend watching it if you have not.

I repeat, get out of here and go watch it. Now.

Anyway, because of that I felt there were some scenes that were better in the anime (for example, the confrontation before the final Time-Leap, and the confrontation between Okabe and Nakabachi. You know, that scene)



Carrying on, the one thing that stuck out was the use of the in-game cellphone; it wasn't until after my first time 'round (ie the first route), that I realized you could send different text replies - or that they were critical to achieve certain objectives. It took time getting used to, but it was an interesting mechanic.

The character design is also unique, in that they used a more... well, unlike the regular color scheme found in other VNs and most anime. The voice acting was superb though, though for some reason my auto-read was far too slow to be of any use. As the main character, Okabe's (and by extension, Hououin's) voice actings was the best - and spoiled by the anime, I did not like Daru's too much. It lacked the... appeal, I would say, that was found in the adaptation.

Gameplay: I came from a Type-Moon background, where the main heroine is the first route and required to beat the others. However, it was different in this VN, in that Christina's was last - and that, to reach her's you had to go through every other route in linear progression. Each prospective heroine's (... and hero...) route was in fact a separate chapter in the story, and the results of Okabe's, one might say, failures are interesting and compelling to read through.

There is a bunch of menus, both on the start and in the pause screen that allows you to view several 'collectibles' - achievements, CGs, music, and my personal favorite was the tip menu. I learned a lot from that, especially terms common on the internet. It also presents a "movie library" in that you can reread significant events, such as the conclusion to each route, and as well watch the different openings.

Today I finished Matsuribayashi-hen, and with that, I can wrap up Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai. Overall it was good, definitely better than the anime, though I would've loved to play Matsuri (the DS port if I'm right), since I hear it's a true visual novel with choices and different endings instead of a series of sound novels. Of course, there were flaws, some parts were unnecessary and others were just too long for my liking, but nevertheless, I'm happy I read this.

Now onwards to something else. Currently I'm waiting for Kara no Shojo 2, but who knows when that will be translated. D: