Zolnir Posts
Kaimax wrote...
Zolnir wrote...
Alicesoft's Oyakorankan.Honestly, Oyako Rankan is one of Alicesoft's Sexiest Nukige's yet, since it's by one of my favorite Alicesoft illustrator "Min-Naraken"
It's mainly about incest, and your "duty" as the protagonist is to prevent any attempt of NTR by other male characters. lol
I honestly can't get enough of his Older Sister and the mother, his younger sister is a bit too innocent for my taste.
Damn... now I want to reinstall this again, just for fun.
Hmm well, I do have a tiny problem with the Windowed Mode. I tried using Actual Window Manager to remove the window bar, but there's an in-game title bar some of the interfaces are pushed to the bottom (15 inch laptop btw). With Rance Quest TA pops up anyway despite Full Screen Mode so I just need to reposition TA and play the game, but Oyakorankan doesn't seem to allow that. Not that I couldn't read Jap, but it feels more comfortable with an extra language as support...
EDIT: Okay, Oyakorankan's Harem End is one of the funniest I've ever seen. The protagonist literally fucked his way to victory; this is - I can't even - AHAHAHAHAHA!
EDIT 2: I don't know who will see this, but I had to put this here. For those who could read Japanese, and genuinely enjoyed Sharin no Kuni and G-Senjou Maou as one of the best VNs ever, please please please, go and read 波間ã®å›½ã®ãƒ•ã‚¡ã‚¦ã‚¹ãƒˆ. I had no idea how wrong I was when I said this VN is good. It's far more than that, it's INCREDIBLY AWESOE.
Spoiler:
XD
Currently playing 波間ã®å›½ã®ãƒ•ã‚¡ã‚¦ã‚¹ãƒˆ and Alicesoft's Oyakorankan. The former's because I found its setting quite interesting (and the first ten minutes into the game was pretty good! In the face Rewrite!), and the latter because... I was bored. Kinda. I mean, I do want to play these two VNs, but they're not exactly the type that would really attract me.
It's a bit like poisoning + addiction, where I could not forget the epicness Baldr Sky has managed to convey as I keep on searching for more and more gameplay VNs that could at least compare to it somewhat. I even had hopes that GIGA might be able to reproduce their success in the future VNs, just like how Type Moon always does since they rather take ten years to make quality VNs than one shitty per year, but instead...
Material Brave Ignition. A sequel to MB yay!... No I'm not that excited for it really. I'm so out of practice I can't even beat the final boss right now, even though I used to yawn through it during my first playthrough. It's embarrassing, and I blame Duel Savior completely for that. Speaking of which, I can't even last 1 minute against Duel Savior's final boss right now! FUCK YOU MATERIAL BRAVE!
Point is, the promotional trailer is boring. The system looks the same. The added 'RPG' element - if I haven't missed out anything - was more new weapons and nothing else. The storyline starts off something like this, "The world is peaceful. Protagonist tries to find a way to help his childhood friend. Something happened, and he had to go back to the island. And then he learns that the True Enemy has arrived." Like... what? Is there any way to sound more generic than this?
Oh, and did I mention they have a Baldr Sky Zero coming out next year?
... Though to be entirely honest, I'm guessing that Zero means prequel, and I've since lost any hope that it'll be as epic as the original. Of course, if it's a sequel it would be an entirely different story, but...
This is more of a language aptitude problem, and the fact that kanji is incredibly hard to learn if you didn't take lessons as a child.
There are over hundreds - or thousands, I never counted - different kanji symbols you could learn. Each one of them has a specific combination, and some of them have similar parts (What we call Bu Shou) that usually represents a certain meaning, which you could use to deduce the entire symbol's meaning. I've had ten years of Chinese education - excluding kindergarten - from primary to high school, so I could read almost every kanji that's already there, even though my ability to write them has diminished quite considerably (can't remember how to write them lol, haven't done it in years).
My point is, if you're trying to learn kanji in order to read Japanese VNs, it should be a lot easier instead to try and make sense of what the machine translations meant. I'm not sure about the other countries' education, but when I was small we had these simple exercises called, 'form a sentence' where a sentence is scrambled, and you have to put them back together and make it readable. Machine translated texts are basically like that, but on harder difficulty. Identify the key words, and if one sentence doesn't make sense never mind, proceed to the next few sentences, as you'll eventually get the whole picture quite thoroughly. Rely on voices to tell the mood of conversations, try translating only a few words at a time to see what they mean (usually the kanjis, for those who don't understand it), etc, etc.
It's fun to read, it's fun to write, and playing around with languages is something I'll never get bored with. In a sense, machine translations help me understand exactly how the Japanese language structure works. I'll even say that I would trust machine translated texts over a person's explanation any day, because the latter has strong room for misconceptions and lies. =3
There are over hundreds - or thousands, I never counted - different kanji symbols you could learn. Each one of them has a specific combination, and some of them have similar parts (What we call Bu Shou) that usually represents a certain meaning, which you could use to deduce the entire symbol's meaning. I've had ten years of Chinese education - excluding kindergarten - from primary to high school, so I could read almost every kanji that's already there, even though my ability to write them has diminished quite considerably (can't remember how to write them lol, haven't done it in years).
My point is, if you're trying to learn kanji in order to read Japanese VNs, it should be a lot easier instead to try and make sense of what the machine translations meant. I'm not sure about the other countries' education, but when I was small we had these simple exercises called, 'form a sentence' where a sentence is scrambled, and you have to put them back together and make it readable. Machine translated texts are basically like that, but on harder difficulty. Identify the key words, and if one sentence doesn't make sense never mind, proceed to the next few sentences, as you'll eventually get the whole picture quite thoroughly. Rely on voices to tell the mood of conversations, try translating only a few words at a time to see what they mean (usually the kanjis, for those who don't understand it), etc, etc.
It's fun to read, it's fun to write, and playing around with languages is something I'll never get bored with. In a sense, machine translations help me understand exactly how the Japanese language structure works. I'll even say that I would trust machine translated texts over a person's explanation any day, because the latter has strong room for misconceptions and lies. =3
Kaimax wrote...
Zolnir wrote...
Second, Gurenka. Interesting settings, mystical mystery, man eating demon girl. Looks good. After Gurenka, I probably won't touch any "Escude" VN without a gameplay, at least I can still "play" even when the story is just so-so.
Agreed. The first Akatoki was actually REALLY fun and addictive to play, and has an extremely cool final route (the other routes wasn't bad either). They had managed to nail the Hero concept perfectly there, so I don't understand why the later few... kinda-failures.
A talk on poor introduction of a Visual Novels. So I can list right off my head three VNs in my stock: Skyprythem, Rewrite, and Gurenka. Let's start with Skyprythem.
So Skyprythem is a musical themed Visual Novel which would supposedly present wonderful music and sound throughout your read. To put things shortly, it has a rather generic interface and a cool-looking clock popping up at the top right corner during the start of the scene, which was fine and everything. The character's okay, the drawings are okay, the opening lines didn't feel as generic as most VNs, so the experience was supposed to be good.
Except for one, single, most devastating element they forget to fix. The sound.
So right off the bat, you're going to be extremely irked by the sound because the BGM and voices fits each other horribly. The BGM-volume-down-when-voice-speaks feature is pretty common out there, but this VN has managed to screw this up to the point it's unbearable. So what did it do.
1) No sound effect. I'm not sure whether my version's buggy or something, but I can't hear any sound effects from this VN (no punch sound when being punched, no alarm ringing and stuff), and no, I did not turn off the sound effect volume. It's just not there.
2) This one's the worst. Immediate effect (no delay) in between the changes of BGM volume. So a character is talking something, and I'm a fast reader, so I didn't bother waiting and clicked for the next line. BGM immediately goes loud as the protagonist replies since he has no voice. If it was once or twice it would've been bearable, but in a conversation the switching is bound to happen extremely frequently, so basically the BGM brain fucks you as it goes loud and soft, loud and soft, again and again with every line you read. And there's no available settings for you to turn off the goddamn feature.
Just imagine it. A sound problem in a goddamn musical-themed VN. I'm surprised the company hasn't gone bankrupt yet. It was such a turn off that even though I tried to play the game a couple of times, slightly motivated by its pretty good OP song, in the end I just had to give up.
Second, Gurenka. Interesting settings, mystical mystery, man eating demon girl. Looks good. Oh look, you have half the demon girl's power because of that accident in the past. Mm hmm. Oh wow, you go on a berserker's rage and lost your consciousness, actually fought the demon girl on equal footing. Mm hmm! This is starting to get really interesting. Oh shit, saint-looking new powerful enemies you barely held off together with the demon girl. Oh gosh, one of your friend gets trapped in the other world and thank the gods you all made it back safely. Omigod one of your friends turn out to be a horrible snake demon and smacked you right off the cliff. Oh what the hell the other world suddenly appears with incredible frequency and you have to shut them all away or your town would vanquish. Oh Jesus the demon girl draws the snake's attention off you and fight it herself to let you do your job of shutting off the other world.
Happy End.
...
...
What? Wait a second. Let me recap. Demon girl fights snake, saint-looking enemies temporarily helps you to shut off other world, you run all over the town to do just that... End? What happened to the demon girl? What happened to the snake? What happened to your temporary allies? Why the fuck is this the ending already?
What. The. Hell?
Needless to say, I didn't bother with the other routes. When you're throw such - ahem! - feces to the face and the VN didn't even offer a True End or something, you just, don't, expect me to kiss you back on the cheek. More like bite you in the neck, but whatever.
Lastly, Rewrite. Anyone who actually reads my random rants would find this a couple pages back already, but I'm just going to make it short and simple here.
So, gameplay in Key! Omigod it's so awesome! And ten minutes into the game you're introduced to what must've been the most retarded, pointless map movement gameplay I've ever seen from my 200+ VN experience (I just updated my entire VN list on vndb, so I can be SURE). So, exactly what offense Key had made to make me hate Rewrite with such burning passion that I didn't touch it once since the first 10 minutes I've played it?
1) Over 10 GODDAMN red balls to click on the first few maps (walkthrough OP) to read events.
2) GODDAMN HIDDEN red balls that only pops when your pointer goes over it, so you have to scroll your mouse careful and painstakingly through every goddamn pixel to make sure you didn't miss one. Note that the map is so much bigger than the window size so you have to scroll all over to find red balls.
3) Said events include swimming in the lake, fooling around with random people, pranking on your neighbors, and if I remember correctly, talking to a dog.
4) Did I mention that you can repeat up to 5 times of each red ball? To the point the protagonist himself feels silly for swimming in the lake 3 times just before school?
I apologize with all my heart to Key that I am unable to read or enjoy their greatest, latest epic of all time Visual Novel because of this one simple, stupid mistake they've made, but if this is how I have to read through their epic >50 hours long VN I'd rather shoot myself in the stomach and suffer five months in the hospital.
So Skyprythem is a musical themed Visual Novel which would supposedly present wonderful music and sound throughout your read. To put things shortly, it has a rather generic interface and a cool-looking clock popping up at the top right corner during the start of the scene, which was fine and everything. The character's okay, the drawings are okay, the opening lines didn't feel as generic as most VNs, so the experience was supposed to be good.
Except for one, single, most devastating element they forget to fix. The sound.
So right off the bat, you're going to be extremely irked by the sound because the BGM and voices fits each other horribly. The BGM-volume-down-when-voice-speaks feature is pretty common out there, but this VN has managed to screw this up to the point it's unbearable. So what did it do.
1) No sound effect. I'm not sure whether my version's buggy or something, but I can't hear any sound effects from this VN (no punch sound when being punched, no alarm ringing and stuff), and no, I did not turn off the sound effect volume. It's just not there.
2) This one's the worst. Immediate effect (no delay) in between the changes of BGM volume. So a character is talking something, and I'm a fast reader, so I didn't bother waiting and clicked for the next line. BGM immediately goes loud as the protagonist replies since he has no voice. If it was once or twice it would've been bearable, but in a conversation the switching is bound to happen extremely frequently, so basically the BGM brain fucks you as it goes loud and soft, loud and soft, again and again with every line you read. And there's no available settings for you to turn off the goddamn feature.
Just imagine it. A sound problem in a goddamn musical-themed VN. I'm surprised the company hasn't gone bankrupt yet. It was such a turn off that even though I tried to play the game a couple of times, slightly motivated by its pretty good OP song, in the end I just had to give up.
Second, Gurenka. Interesting settings, mystical mystery, man eating demon girl. Looks good. Oh look, you have half the demon girl's power because of that accident in the past. Mm hmm. Oh wow, you go on a berserker's rage and lost your consciousness, actually fought the demon girl on equal footing. Mm hmm! This is starting to get really interesting. Oh shit, saint-looking new powerful enemies you barely held off together with the demon girl. Oh gosh, one of your friend gets trapped in the other world and thank the gods you all made it back safely. Omigod one of your friends turn out to be a horrible snake demon and smacked you right off the cliff. Oh what the hell the other world suddenly appears with incredible frequency and you have to shut them all away or your town would vanquish. Oh Jesus the demon girl draws the snake's attention off you and fight it herself to let you do your job of shutting off the other world.
Happy End.
...
...
What? Wait a second. Let me recap. Demon girl fights snake, saint-looking enemies temporarily helps you to shut off other world, you run all over the town to do just that... End? What happened to the demon girl? What happened to the snake? What happened to your temporary allies? Why the fuck is this the ending already?
What. The. Hell?
Needless to say, I didn't bother with the other routes. When you're throw such - ahem! - feces to the face and the VN didn't even offer a True End or something, you just, don't, expect me to kiss you back on the cheek. More like bite you in the neck, but whatever.
Lastly, Rewrite. Anyone who actually reads my random rants would find this a couple pages back already, but I'm just going to make it short and simple here.
So, gameplay in Key! Omigod it's so awesome! And ten minutes into the game you're introduced to what must've been the most retarded, pointless map movement gameplay I've ever seen from my 200+ VN experience (I just updated my entire VN list on vndb, so I can be SURE). So, exactly what offense Key had made to make me hate Rewrite with such burning passion that I didn't touch it once since the first 10 minutes I've played it?
1) Over 10 GODDAMN red balls to click on the first few maps (walkthrough OP) to read events.
2) GODDAMN HIDDEN red balls that only pops when your pointer goes over it, so you have to scroll your mouse careful and painstakingly through every goddamn pixel to make sure you didn't miss one. Note that the map is so much bigger than the window size so you have to scroll all over to find red balls.
3) Said events include swimming in the lake, fooling around with random people, pranking on your neighbors, and if I remember correctly, talking to a dog.
4) Did I mention that you can repeat up to 5 times of each red ball? To the point the protagonist himself feels silly for swimming in the lake 3 times just before school?
I apologize with all my heart to Key that I am unable to read or enjoy their greatest, latest epic of all time Visual Novel because of this one simple, stupid mistake they've made, but if this is how I have to read through their epic >50 hours long VN I'd rather shoot myself in the stomach and suffer five months in the hospital.
The biggest problem I have with DotA 2 is that the interface looks horrible on a laptop, such as super small words that I could barely make out. And my gear's a pretty standard 15 inches too. Otherwise it is pretty fine.
What I meant was that the Phenomeno thread guy wanted to discuss something, but since my post was the last I can't exactly double post to make contact and my edits there were most likely missed. so I just moved them here.
Play it at midnight with the lights off. It's one of the rules I abide to (well reading books are different unfortunately) when reading these kind of stuff; it makes the atmosphere so much more indulging. =3
Play it at midnight with the lights off. It's one of the rules I abide to (well reading books are different unfortunately) when reading these kind of stuff; it makes the atmosphere so much more indulging. =3
Since Phenomeno thread dude seems to be missing I'll just be putting that here in instead.
EDIT: God playing this without lights at 3am in the morning is so bloody nerve wracking. Even though the:
EDIT 2: Okay, I've finished everything. Now to talk about impressions.
One, I started out with the English patch, but I later find that the font they use are utterly jarring and completely disregards the spooky atmosphere, so I chose to read it in Japanese (with the help of my ever trusty little TA) instead. It was a good decision, not only because the text is much more comfortable but also that I have an excuse to look away from the fucking screen and at the translation tool instead.
Next, spooky. As. Hell. Whoever did the sounds and musics are genius, and everyone involved in making this VN deserves a goddamn medal. Perhaps it's because I never read a horror VN before, but this one scared the hell out of me even though the flow is pretty generic (as in horror -> saved at the nick of time -> horror has not ended). It makes me wonder why the hell people aren't making more of these types of VN, but then again, it takes a strong heart to write such stuff and an even stronger one to make these things. Given Nitroplus' reputation to make bloody, evil VNs I'm pretty sure this was business as usual, but what the hell.
Three. The characters are fantastic. Maybe a little too unique to be true (Drunk old lady and the terrifying Yashu), but still excellent. For the former, she gave the idea that she was so very experienced that nothing short of the apocalypse would scare her. Yashu (the main female character), well, was just, yeah. I can't find a proper word to describe her. In a sense, she's like a mysterious gateway. Once you get to know her, there is no turning back, and she will drag you into 'that' world whether you like it or not. She is of course written to be the most interesting element in the story, but these could-be-rotten hidden potentials are made of superb quality.
I love this so much, that I'm going to check out the website and read the rest of the novel. I can read Japanese after all - though with some difficulty, but it's no problem getting the general idea of what a sentence mean - and there's no way I'm letting this gem fly away from my hands. Even if it means I might not see tomorrow.
So. Guess who I am?
EDIT 3: Finished the latest chapters. There are only four in total, and including the VN one only two stories all in all. The second story is less scary and is slightly more technical (in terms of spiritual talking), so everything's fine and all. How to say, it's not as interesting as the first one, but then again it's totally not enough for me to make a verdict on... something. It's definitely good enough that I'll bookmark it and wait for the next chapter though.
EDIT: God playing this without lights at 3am in the morning is so bloody nerve wracking. Even though the:
Spoiler:
EDIT 2: Okay, I've finished everything. Now to talk about impressions.
One, I started out with the English patch, but I later find that the font they use are utterly jarring and completely disregards the spooky atmosphere, so I chose to read it in Japanese (with the help of my ever trusty little TA) instead. It was a good decision, not only because the text is much more comfortable but also that I have an excuse to look away from the fucking screen and at the translation tool instead.
Next, spooky. As. Hell. Whoever did the sounds and musics are genius, and everyone involved in making this VN deserves a goddamn medal. Perhaps it's because I never read a horror VN before, but this one scared the hell out of me even though the flow is pretty generic (as in horror -> saved at the nick of time -> horror has not ended). It makes me wonder why the hell people aren't making more of these types of VN, but then again, it takes a strong heart to write such stuff and an even stronger one to make these things. Given Nitroplus' reputation to make bloody, evil VNs I'm pretty sure this was business as usual, but what the hell.
Three. The characters are fantastic. Maybe a little too unique to be true (Drunk old lady and the terrifying Yashu), but still excellent. For the former, she gave the idea that she was so very experienced that nothing short of the apocalypse would scare her. Yashu (the main female character), well, was just, yeah. I can't find a proper word to describe her. In a sense, she's like a mysterious gateway. Once you get to know her, there is no turning back, and she will drag you into 'that' world whether you like it or not. She is of course written to be the most interesting element in the story, but these could-be-rotten hidden potentials are made of superb quality.
I love this so much, that I'm going to check out the website and read the rest of the novel. I can read Japanese after all - though with some difficulty, but it's no problem getting the general idea of what a sentence mean - and there's no way I'm letting this gem fly away from my hands. Even if it means I might not see tomorrow.
So. Guess who I am?
EDIT 3: Finished the latest chapters. There are only four in total, and including the VN one only two stories all in all. The second story is less scary and is slightly more technical (in terms of spiritual talking), so everything's fine and all. How to say, it's not as interesting as the first one, but then again it's totally not enough for me to make a verdict on... something. It's definitely good enough that I'll bookmark it and wait for the next chapter though.
Playing é”王ã¨è¸Šã‚Œï¼2.
So far it has been a rather good (although slightly generic) fantasy game. I still hate dungeon crawling, but this game manage to minimize that tedious and annoying exploration with See-All-Map items (usable for one floor) and rather easy (if not non-existent) puzzles.
Will play Phenomeno as soon as my roommate turns off the light and goes to sleep. That should be around 3am, and the best time to play horror games. =3
EDIT: I have changed my view about é”王ã¨è¸Šã‚Œï¼2 completely. This is a hidden gem. This is a RPG that could very well compete with masterpieces like Eushelly's Ikusa Megami (And a lot less tedious to be honest). I underestimated it because the story started rather slow, but now that I'm halfway through, there is clearly a significant amount of work put into this. Innovative scene transitions, beautiful music videos, significant character development and even strong tie-ins to its prequel's protagonists. This is awesome. This is great. I'm definitely looking forward to Arcana when it comes out this 22 November.
EDIT 2: Completed é”王ã¨è¸Šã‚Œï¼2. Pretty good alright, except that on Normal difficulty - the hardest it could offer on normal playhthrough - it is still a little too easy. You barely ever need to use items (except See-Whole-Floor-Map item) and your magic skills are just plain overpowered. However, That's what makes it fun to play the game =3 I'LL BURN YOU FROM OVER HALF THE MAP MUAHAHAHAHA!
So far it has been a rather good (although slightly generic) fantasy game. I still hate dungeon crawling, but this game manage to minimize that tedious and annoying exploration with See-All-Map items (usable for one floor) and rather easy (if not non-existent) puzzles.
Will play Phenomeno as soon as my roommate turns off the light and goes to sleep. That should be around 3am, and the best time to play horror games. =3
EDIT: I have changed my view about é”王ã¨è¸Šã‚Œï¼2 completely. This is a hidden gem. This is a RPG that could very well compete with masterpieces like Eushelly's Ikusa Megami (And a lot less tedious to be honest). I underestimated it because the story started rather slow, but now that I'm halfway through, there is clearly a significant amount of work put into this. Innovative scene transitions, beautiful music videos, significant character development and even strong tie-ins to its prequel's protagonists. This is awesome. This is great. I'm definitely looking forward to Arcana when it comes out this 22 November.
EDIT 2: Completed é”王ã¨è¸Šã‚Œï¼2. Pretty good alright, except that on Normal difficulty - the hardest it could offer on normal playhthrough - it is still a little too easy. You barely ever need to use items (except See-Whole-Floor-Map item) and your magic skills are just plain overpowered. However, That's what makes it fun to play the game =3 I'LL BURN YOU FROM OVER HALF THE MAP MUAHAHAHAHA!
Well the essence of horror is that its short. Given enough time we eventually get use to them and become completely numb to the fear. I guess they got the idea right at least; okay, I'll download it soon (I've got another RPG (é”王ã¨è¸Šã‚Œï¼2～change of the world～) I just found and wanted to play). Of course, it'll be better if you can PM me a working torrent. =3
Ah, the life of a VN reader. Day or night makes no difference for us. XD
Anyway, just finished Bible Black: Infection. A horrendous disappointment lol, it's so goddamn short and the protagonist acting so stupid!
Have a couple of games in store like Skyprythrem, Tomoyo After, Rewrite, Hotogisu, etc etc... But not really sure or want to play them for some reason. I wonder why. >_>
Anyway, just finished Bible Black: Infection. A horrendous disappointment lol, it's so goddamn short and the protagonist acting so stupid!
Have a couple of games in store like Skyprythrem, Tomoyo After, Rewrite, Hotogisu, etc etc... But not really sure or want to play them for some reason. I wonder why. >_>
