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Btw, each route in key’s work are written by different writer, so their quality varies a lot.
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Mar 23, 2018 18:07
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NikkolasKing posted:So I'm playing through Amnesia Memories. I just finished my third world and while Clover (my first) ended pretty happily, after the last two endings, I feel super cheated and very angry. Design philosophy varies a lot in VNs and Amnesia has its own flaws IMO. A few VNs have tons and tons of endings and all your choices can send you off in different directions. This is most common in games with life-or-death stuff going on because usually a lot of those endings will be either you or your love interest dying in some horrible way, as this is the easiest way to explain why the game is now over. In that sort of game you are usually expected to die a lot while trying to find your way through the maze to the good ending, because that's the challenge, that's the gameplay. These are terrible and stressful for people who hate frustration and narrative puzzles, but I personally like them. A few VNs have as close to zero choices as possible. Either no choice at all, or the only thing you get to pick is your love interest and then you read the story of what happens to you and it ends well. I generally hate this, if I only wanted a fixed story I would read a book or watch an anime or something. A lot of VNs make you pick a route, and then give you choices during that route, all of which seem to have no effect on the story until suddenly near the end you all of a sudden get a Good, Neutral, or Bad ending (or even just Good/Bad) based on how well you've done so far. In many of these games you cannot get a single choice wrong or you won't get the good end. And again the "right" answers may not be obvious, because they want to trick you into failing, otherwise there's no challenge. The general recommendation for playing this sort of game is to play once making the choices you would naturally make, and after that, play with a walkthrough. What's surprisingly rare in VNs is to do a more "role playing" approach, where you are probably going to get a good end at the end of the route, but details of the epilogue will change based on the personality you created throughout the game. Shaping the protagonist's personality is generally not a thing in JVNs in my experience, unless you are playing something like Princess Maker. However I found Amnesia particularly frustrating because you don't even really get a chance to develop a relationship with the guy in order to make sensible choices about winning him. You, being amnesiac and trying to hide it, have no idea what's going on, and have to be trying to win the affections of a guy that you the player may have zero interest in. In at least one route, as I recall, there was NO reason why you would like the guy at all unless you actually reached his good end and then suddenly his caring side was revealed. The neutral endings should have been used as hints to spur you in the right direction and make you care about doing it right. Instead they generally made you think "well, screw this guy anyway!", as I recall. I kept going because I'm a completionist and I was determined to find the good points in the game, but I think the game's design was backward. I would not recommend it to a VN newbie for any reason other than the art, which is pretty nice.
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Mar 23, 2018 18:16
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Steins;gate elite and robotics;notes are also getting US releases. abagofcheetos fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Mar 23, 2018 |
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Mar 23, 2018 19:07
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Sakurazuka posted:Key stuff is 'fine', didn't even start out as porn like a lot of popular stuff as far as I'm aware. The character designs for earlier stuff is awful though and not in in an amusing original Higurashi sprites kind of way, in an all the girls look like bug eyed aliens way. Their early stuff did have porn in the initial releases but they were clearly doing it out of some sense of obligation. It was legendarily bad and often sabotaged the character development. The people who wanted porn hated it and the people who didn't want porn hated it. So eventually they just stopped. Truga posted:speaking of key, they have a new game coming in june and art actually looks... OK? Itaru Hinoue, their old artist whose style sort of became iconic for Key despite its badness, left the company a while back. Na-Ga is their head artist now, who has a fairly generic style. If you want to see more Itaru art, she's doing some art for a VN currently on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1231894392/koropokkur-in-love-a-little-fairys-tale/
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Mar 23, 2018 21:06
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gegi posted:Design philosophy varies a lot in VNs and Amnesia has its own flaws IMO. Yeah I was interested in Amnesia at first because Kent's route was sweet and Shin's route had a good plot, even if I didn't likee him much. But after Toma, the game just gives me the most insulting endings. With Kent at least you remember why he thinks you hate him and you have a beautiful send-off with him. That's the normal ending and it works. With Shin? You confront Toma and Shin is like "YOU MUST REMEMBER TO SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!" And then you...don't. The climax builds and builds and builds and then just fizzles away to nothing. Same for Toma, you finally are out of the cage and he's getting even crazier. Then you run away, find Shin, and it ends. I've been told Toma's good end is your diary that you found forever ago (and which I was wondering "why haven't we read this yet?" for a long time) falls out, he sees it, and all the "misunderstandings" are cleared up. Yay? And I saw Shin's Good End after blitzing through his route with the help of a guide. I just don't understand why the normal ending has to suck so much and make me feel likeI accomplished nothing. And of course there's loads of problems with Toma's route. I honestly would have preferred if my original idea - he was the one scaring the MC with the pranks and the "accidents" in order to get her to stay all the time at his place - but that didn't happen. The game presented him as crazy butt hen didn't follow through. I'd honestly like him and the story more if he was just crazy. I like Yanderes, I guess. But anyway, I'm gonna get Kent's and Toma's Good Endings because I want to see Ukyo's route. He certainly has been the most intriguing thing all game, at least for me. (pay no mind to the two Bad Endings where he killed me) Also one thing I noticed while looking at the guide for Ikki's route, "Yes, I'll go" contributes to the Good Ending. "Yeah, I'll go." contributes to the Bad Ending. This was the stupidest loving thing ever until somebody explained to me about Japanese etiquette. At first I just thought the designers were trying to gently caress with me but I guess it makes sense. Although there does seem to be some sexism involved where a woman should be dignified and ladylike and not speak in a "course" or "rough" way....
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Mar 23, 2018 21:46
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Game design as applied to visual novels and other kinds of IF is a really interesting field. It's an area I'd like to explore, if I were a better writer. Unfortunately, playing video games for 25 years has poisoned my mind, and now I don't know how to tell anything but a crappy video game story.
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Mar 24, 2018 01:23
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Hinoue is doing some kind of collab with R07 now too so look forward to that i guess
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Mar 24, 2018 02:14
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FractalSandwich posted:Game design as applied to visual novels and other kinds of IF is a really interesting field. It's an area I'd like to explore, if I were a better writer. Unfortunately, playing video games for 25 years has poisoned my mind, and now I don't know how to tell anything but a crappy video game story. I forget if I've posted this article in this thread before, but I think it's a useful way of categorizing different plot structures in games. The author's more into western IF and CYOA books than VNs, but the structures apply pretty easily to VNs as well.
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Mar 24, 2018 04:10
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https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/977419490928377858
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Mar 24, 2018 06:44
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Zero Escape: haha yes last time was just a joke, here's the real ending?
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Mar 24, 2018 07:03
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Sakurazuka posted:Zero Escape: haha yes last time was just a joke, here's the real ending? It was a pretty strong ending, highly conclusive and answers every question left hanging.
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Mar 24, 2018 07:23
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I have a lot of issues with Zero Time Dilemma but am glad it existed at all, but it's not fresh enough in my mind that I feel like I can articulate those issues well, so instead I will say something nice about it: The "push the button" ending is so incredibly "what did you expect?" that I burst out laughing and it is one of my favorite scenes in the entire trilogy.
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Mar 24, 2018 07:33
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Nyaa posted:Btw, each route in key’s work are written by different writer, so their quality varies a lot. This... explains a lot about Rewrite.
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Mar 24, 2018 15:53
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Not Operator posted:This... explains a lot about Rewrite.
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Mar 24, 2018 16:04
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There is currently a Let's Play going on of Fata Morgana. If you've already read it, it is great to read the speculation from everyone there.
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Mar 24, 2018 18:28
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That's another game where an LP seems to defeat the point of the experience Fata Morgana is going for. Especially during the fourth door.
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Mar 24, 2018 19:28
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Not Operator posted:This... explains a lot about Rewrite. There were three writers for rewrite. Tanaka Romeo (Cross Channel, Jintai/Humanity has Declined) did a lot of the common route as well as the Kotori, Akane, and true routes. Ryukishi07 (Higurashi, Umineko) did the Lucia route. Tonokawa Yuuto (nothing notable) did the Chiyaha and Shizuru routes. And interestingly, Hinoue Itaru, still their artist at the time, is credited with the original story concept and story planning. So yeah, there's a lot of fingers in that pie. The tonal differences in the three writers' routes are pretty apparent even to people who tend to gloss over such details. Many larger VNs are written by multiple people, but the seams show more in Rewrite than any other VN I can think of. It's like Key made absolutely no effort to keep their multiple writers to a single consistent style, and they didn't even try all that hard to keep their plot consistent. Rewrite is kind of a mess.
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Mar 24, 2018 19:31
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Makes the title seem very self-aware though.
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Mar 24, 2018 20:24
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:It was a pretty strong ending, highly conclusive and answers every question left hanging. it was an ending I guess but I thought the third game was a pretty big disappointment overall
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Mar 24, 2018 22:22
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NikkolasKing posted:Yeah I was interested in Amnesia at first because Kent's route was sweet and Shin's route had a good plot, even if I didn't likee him much. But after Toma, the game just gives me the most insulting endings. With Kent at least you remember why he thinks you hate him and you have a beautiful send-off with him. That's the normal ending and it works. Amnesia is the most egregious example of a lot of bad endings and it's one of the VN I had to rely on a guide from day 1 b/c so many of the choices were non-endings. I would say try Code:Realize which had a stronger/interesting plot and their FD is out on the 30th. It's set in steampunk London and I love fantasy Europe so it ranks highly on my otoge list. Uh skip Saint Germain's route since it's problematic.
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Mar 24, 2018 22:56
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Stefan Prodan posted:it was an ending I guess but I thought the third game was a pretty big disappointment overall Yeah it was amazing bullshit and answered every question with way more bullshit. It was the dumbest thing out there. That's very much a love it or hate it style and it doesn't gel well with the series.
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Mar 24, 2018 22:59
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ZTD is an absolutely awful enjoyable experience I'd rather have gotten the true intended conclusion.
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Mar 25, 2018 00:22
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I took a long break from Stein's Gate (according to the last save file, which is from July of last year) and decided to get back into again after hearing something about a remastered version and Stein's Gate Zero coming out soon. Looks like I took the wrong time to take a break because this story just took a weird turn. Is SG Zero worth picking up once it releases?
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Mar 26, 2018 04:09
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The consensus in this thread on SG0 generally seems to be that it is an average to decent VN at best, and that it doesn't really have any point to existing because of how it's structured. Once you finish SG, you will also pretty much know exactly how SG0 is going to go, since 0 isn't a true sequel, and nothing particularly new or surprising happens. fwiw I think if you like Stein's Gate a lot and just want more stuff with the SG characters then it's worth reading 0, and I personally enjoyed it. But all of the criticisms about it are 100% correct.
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Mar 26, 2018 04:39
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I think 0 takes a real interesting narrative structure and tone in contrast to the original game. If it had a stronger conclusion than it does I might actually like it more than the original game.
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Mar 26, 2018 04:49
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Raxivace posted:I think 0 takes a real interesting narrative structure and tone in contrast to the original game. If it had a stronger conclusion than it does I might actually like it more than the original game. Yeah I only played a bit of it but has an amazingly melancholy tone. I really dig it but I burnt out trying to play it right after the first. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Mar 26, 2018 |
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Mar 26, 2018 07:49
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Yeah, the tone was actually really good, but I basically spent the whole time playing 0 asking myself "why does this game exist?"
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Mar 26, 2018 12:48
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lol, gently caress phoneposting. Beaten by like thirty posts. I didnt even see it because nobody other than the guy who linked the tweet mentioned it. Not Operator fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Mar 26, 2018 |
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Mar 26, 2018 13:26
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If you care about getting to see more of the cast in general from Steins;Gate, then 0 does accomplish that. Hell I think it actually gives some characters like Faris and Luca something to do that makes them feel like a more organic part of the overall narrative compared to the original. The overall dynamic of the group is still there and is still entertaining in its own way. But it really can't be emphasized enough how much of a superfluous waste of time the story feels. It's, I don't know, a 20 hour or so VN and not one part of it feels like it's actually adding/enhancing/expanding any part of the world and everything "new" it adds immediately feels "oh this will not matter in about 2 or 3 scenes".
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Mar 26, 2018 13:33
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For anyone that has it, If My Heart Had Wings got a retranslation patch earlier last week. https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/20235-konosora-imhhw-retranslation-patch/ Hopefully, it'll at least turn it into something readable.
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Mar 26, 2018 14:41
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So I’ve been playing Steins;Gate on my iPhone and I’m really enjoying it. How many other good VNs are there on mobile and in english? Or did I stumble upon the only one?
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Mar 26, 2018 16:40
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Mad Wack posted:So I’ve been playing Steins;Gate on my iPhone and I’m really enjoying it. How many other good VNs are there on mobile and in english? Or did I stumble upon the only one? Do you count Phoenix Wright? Because all of those are there.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:02
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ah nevermind I figured out how to filter VNDB to IOS-only VNs
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Mar 26, 2018 18:37
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5 Otome VNs on sale for US PS+ Bad Apple Wars $19.99 Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ $11.99 Collar x Malice $19.99 Nom9: Var Commons $11.99 Period Cube $19.99 I wanted at least 2 of these, maybe 3. If I hadn't been an idiot and missed the 20% discount voucher from watching a video, I would probably get them all. But I am an idiot so I'll probably just snag three of these. Heard nothing but good things about Code Realize and it's super cheap so I'm getting on that. And Bad Apple Wars and CxM interest me.
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Mar 28, 2018 07:49
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There's another 20% voucher quest thing that's good until the 30th: https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/978329120802144256
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Mar 28, 2018 09:09
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NikkolasKing posted:5 Otome VNs on sale for US PS+ CxM is better than Bad Apple Wars imo. But none come even close to code;realize. CxM suffers from a very confusing plot (a shame because the setting had me hooked) with really weird resolutions; and very inconsistent writtinf with their main character. She's absolutely amazing in the main guys route (forget the name) but is often made to be a tad dumb or naive or useless in some others. A shame.
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Mar 28, 2018 09:16
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I was looking up the sizes of the games to see if I can fit them on my Vita memory card (I have two 8GB memory cards and I was hoping I could fit them all on one) and was surprised to seee BAW is like a full gig smaller than C:R or CxM. The review I looked at for BAW said it had no real dialoguer options, just "alignment" or faction choices + you go to wherever the boy you like hangs out and get locked into that route eventually. Maybe that's why it is so much smaller? Or it's just more cheaply made. But yeah, I just really liked the plot synopsis for all the games. Glad to hear CxM is interesting. I liked that Shin's route in Amnesia was sort of a Mystery/Suspense thing, ya know? Kinda hoping for more of that in CxM at least. Although there's some mystery going on in C:R too judging just by the story description. I like my pretty boys band romance but I think a good story or world has to support them.
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Mar 28, 2018 09:40
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If you haven’t played any of them, c:r is definitely the best one on that list
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Mar 28, 2018 18:57
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BAW from reviews sounded iffy even if we ignore the terrible font. It's a shame since the art is nice and famous VA.
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Mar 28, 2018 21:01
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I didn't realize how dark Stein's Gate could get. 
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Mar 30, 2018 08:00
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