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

Still playing Rance 01, it's just as cryptic as the original. I spent more than 5 (in game time) days trying to figure out how to progress, to found out that I need to get something from the same dungeon as the character who needs it.. lol

I'm now stuck again after encountering Kaname for the 2nd time, I have to search the castle, but just don't know the trigger to the events...orz

That cryptic huh? Well I have more trouble trying to beat the enemies while keeping full health and items for the bosses - it can be a little harsh to progress through dungeons if you don't try and memorize and plan for the paths. Double CD 1 Shields, 1 Constant Dagger, 1 CD 1 Sword, and single use attack boost items X 2 just to beat the Thief Boss. The difficulty's as challenging as ever >_>~

Though at least I actually enjoying playing this as compared to my first impression of Rance Quest. They even bring back the old Visual Novel conversation style! Hurray!

EDIT: Playing Baldr Sky Zero. Now this feels a little weird, because during the brief history lesson I was shown a map of my own country - literally - and apparently the red blotted areas are places that were completely polluted and uninhabitable by human life.

The thing is, that part of my country? It's absolutely teeming with a shit tonne of trees; place's literally a goddamn jungle most of the time. Even with the usual logging I can't really see it being gone before the other part of my country, which has already lost most of its greenery except the few national parks. So this is weird, like really weird. >_>

Just starting the redone rance 1 that came out a few days ago. Amusing so far. They changed and added quite a bit. New dialogue and more context about the world really. Also of course music, graphics, combat system etc. Not sure what I think of the new system yet since Ive only used it briefly while travelling to the city but it seems alright. Reminicent of hack slash thrust (or whatever it is called, the sengoku minigame) kind of but tis its own thing.

Also sort of playing rq magnum still. I finished the campaign 2 days ago but there is still the whole 2nd world thingy I might try out plus finishing the misc remaining quests. Should keep me busy for the next month. Im actually glad I had to wait a couple years before I could read it in order to improve my japanese because it sounds like the original game, prior to updates, was a bit grindy and without the magnum campaign the experience wouldve been a bit of a let down. Anyway, I had lotso fun with it for the past couple months.

After these two I plan on either galzoo or finally muvluv alternative.
Read muvluv last spring and I keep stalling on alternative.

baldr sky zero:
encountered game crashing bug on sakura route chapt 10
saw some posts on giga's support forums regarding other crashes at possibly the same segment

>>avoid sakura route if possible update to v1.02

LovelyXCAtion 2, September Append is out...(I'm late at it though)

How did you crash specifically? Because I found a walkthrough (very crude though) where the player did go through Chapter 10 without a hitch, and he didn't seem to have crash problems. Though he may have neglected mentioning it or I just misread a few lines since it's in Japanese.

EDIT: Patch 1.02 is up; it seems to fix the crashing issue you encountered (was not mentioned specifically in the patch log).

specifically it crashed while transitioning to battle mode a while after an event where your cell gets visual confirmation of cancer

and yeah 1.02 fixed that crash np

Well it still crashed on me during last 2 fights of Chapter 10 (Good god that has to be some of the hardest battles I have to go through yet; the lack of heal-on-kill in battle severely increased the game's difficulty since I use full melee -_-"), but after a restart the problem is gone.

Btw, is there any way at all to pause during battle? In the past you can just tap 'Esc' and pause the game but right now, even during the normal scenes, tapping 'Esc' does not bring up the system screen. Can't find such a button either in the key config. Is it just me, or is it fixed...?

>>only tested on one mission

while testing for pause functionality i realised that you can pause during battle mode by clicking on the 'close window' button (in windowed display)

clicking on that will also prompt a "do you really want to exit?" dialog box

the funny thing is that when you try to return to the battle by selecting "no", the game will resume and the enemies would not target you at all

need testers lol

Haven't started playing yet, but that sounds hilarious. That's really a game breaking bug. XD

-just installed the game, postponing Rance 1, because I got stuck looking for Kaname....

STUPID POST EDIT
http://alicesoft.wikia.com/wiki/Rance_1:_Walkthrough (Well, at least it can give me pointers on what to do)
FACEPALM....I'm going to play it from scratch...

Well, I finished Harukoi Otome so here's my thoughts.

First of all. I've noticed that this title isn't getting as much as the usual attention other titles have. Just look at VNDB. There's only 86 votes which I find surprising. I guess that this is happening because of the release of Grisaia no Kajitsu. Besides being a much better VN than Harukoi Otome what will obviously take all the attention from this game, it also sort of gave some pretty high expectations from the readers and that demotivates them from reading this VN. Well, this is just conjecture on my part so naturally, what I say may not apply to all users.

Essentially, I believe that Harukoi Otome is all about expectations. You'll be hardly surprised by anything you see. The common route can be sometimes boring and other times relatively decent but the routes themselves actually improve the experience. Going through them makes me think that the game succeeds on being a moege.

Let's talk about two characters that usually try to amuse us:
- There's Oikawa that will hunt you down since the beginning trying to be funny. Sometimes, I felt a bit amused by him but many times I felt rather annoyed. At least the writer could make him a bit of a more likeable character or give him better jokes.
- The Natsufuyu duo is an amusing couple honestly. The way they add up lines to each other is something I like reading. My only complain is that on very few occasions the situation where they go on and on isn't that funny. At least, I didn't felt that amused.

There's something that seriously needs to be said because it'll hunt you the whole game. The protagonist isn't very mature so in pretty much all routes you'll find him unable to figure out what he should be doing. To take a look at himself and at the issue objectively and try to solve it as soon as possible. I think that in Kisaya's route this wasn't that much of a problem because the protagonist is actually pro-active but on the other routes you'll see the protagonist being depressed for a long time without coming up with a solution. And it goes on and on until he actually talks with someone. Well, I for one actually don't feel annoyed reading these types of issues but I can easily see someone feeling bothered by it. Additionally, the way the story develops with the protagonist acting this way actually doesn't feel forced.

A positive point that can be said regarding all the routes is that they're consistent and won't feel rushed (except for Yuika's right on the end and Ayaka that felt very anti-climatic when it was actually going good). Also, character development along with interactions between characters feel natural.
A not so good point is the fact that the epilogue is there just for some h-scenes.

The BGM to accompany the game is quite generic. I don't specifically remember any track but they at least addapted somewhat to the game atmosphere on most occasions. They could be better though. Other thing related to the BGM is that it repeats quite a lot and may prove to be somewhat tiring to the reader. Given the great lenght Harukoi Otome has the developer could at least have put more diversity on the BGM.

I actually liked the art. It's true that in some cases it could use some work but I didn't feel bothered by it. Some expressions that Umi for example made were adorable to see.

Regarding the voices, there is better voice acting out there but they're not bad to listen.

At first I was thinking of giving Harukoi Otome a 7 / 10. But considering all aspects of the VN (like the BGM repetition) I decided to lower it to a 6.5/10. Basically, it's a decent read but don't be expecting something truly good.

NOW I finally know who's that mysterious, missing heroine in Baldr Sky Zero is. Unfortunately it's going to spoiler things so I won't mention anything, but heck, I was wondering why there are only 5 female heroines in total. But now, now I see, there ARE 6 of them after all...

AHHHHHHH this is such an obvious setup for Baldr Sky Zero 2, and yet they don't seem to be releasing it any time soon! I'm already regretting playing this so early aaaaaaaagghhhhhh

Type-Moon can we be honest and say "they want to fuck" instead of "the only way to save you is a complex magical ritual that involves insertion of a penis into a vagina. And mouth. And anus. And breasts. Many times. Just to be safe" or better yet "I have a raging demon inside (of my pants) that demands sacrifice. Bring me the virgin!" Well at least the scenario makes sense and besides nobody reads Type-Moon eroge for the ero.

I think one should play Baldr Sky Zero with Translator on. I've been reading Japanese for a long time but even this is a little hard for me to swallow, especially when the mystery thickens to the point that even with full comprehension deduction is near... how to say... overcomplicated? This is some dark shit though, seriously. Fran's route revealed a lot of terrible things that I would never want to see in real life. >_>

EDIT: Ugaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh there's so many battles in Fran's route, and everything's so serious, and the environment is so CONFINED that I feel like the air's being choked out of me holy SHIT. Feels like my freaking brain's melting or something. -_-"

Talking about Type-moon h-scenes made me remember a post on VNDB. It's this one. I'll just quote it:


I couldn't help but laugh a bit while I read this.

Oh wow, Fran Route, Kadakura Kou, you!~



Anyway, Fran's Route is basically - following the steps its predecessor Baldr Sky Dive 1, Chizuru Route - the absolutely darkest route that you would find in the entire series (of Zero). Basically, the absolute worst of the worst happened and even though the ultimate disaster was prevented in the end, things did not look bright. In fact, it's so dark and wriggling with corpses that I thank god they did not put any gore CGs into the game (even though I wished they did, it was a waste not to have any), because I would have nightmares worse than the apocalypse itself.

The truth was NOT resolved in the end - as expected - and a shit load of people died which unbelievable was the LIGHTEST part of the evil presented. I almost felt happy to see people die, because the alternative in Zero is so much more terrible. I must admit that I am impressed at how... creative the writer is when depicting the various way humans can be exploited thoroughly.

Like, seriously. I don't understand half of what Fran's Route is saying due to the lack of second translation texts (H code not yet out) and still I could barely understand the horror inside it. If the CG maker would dare to put some serious gore into the game this would've been absolutely terrifying. Hell.

The worst part is, even though you thought by going through Fran's Good End things were SUPPOSED to end well (like the other 2 routes are), well... You'll have to finish it to understand what I mean. To put it bluntly, it did not SOUND like it ended well.

Poor Maleru...

Holy bloody crap, man.

@zolnir

are there any more routes after fran?

there are still stuff left unexplored (black dog syndrome, unidentified wizard,GTIce)

copypasta'd from 2ch


and wtf is mareru's back story anyway? all i got were cryptic allusions of mareru's significance and involvement towards the plans of the factions in the story (エルピス/charlie/church22/walrus)

either way seems like a sequel is in line

マクシーム大佐ルート決定！！ｗ

++++++

Definitely a sequel incoming. I can't tell you exactly what Mareru is, but I can definitely tell you that:



Phew... that's a long one. Now, for the mysterious 6th heroine that has yet to be revealed:

Yes, that was the part I was referring too. Here's a few thoughts.



Regarding Mareru's True End, I really can't guess. This is how I believe the ending might go:



I'm really liking this protagonist, honestly, and I perhaps like him even more than Kou already. I mean heck, it takes BALLS to openly talk about his sexual relationship with Fran and all those details and be PROUD of it. The amount of embarrassment would've caused Kou to have a heart attack and die already, if he was forced to act like Edward.