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Stall_19 posted:Wait what? Why the hell would Jack Bauer be in a Japanese Visual Novel? As a huge 24 fan I think I need to read this Visual Novel just for this because that sounds awesome! Japan loves 24 and parodies of it, I think.
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Mar 30, 2013 02:42
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20 years in the future I wonder if Digital and Analogue: a X stories are going to be playable by people who are like "what's a command prompt?" Is Marimo playing the character I think she is in the Magica parody...? That Super Robot Wars banner is so cruel. edit: Oh man, that giant Takemikazuchi as a parody of the Gundam statue that they constructed. Davzz fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 03:03
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Max Wilco posted:On a side note, are there any recommendations for other games around the same era, or by the same team? The only one I can think of is EVE: Burst Error (which I started a while ago, but haven't had time to play). Adam and Desire were mentioned, but I won't give my full recommendations on those. Amongst other things, Adam is an incomplete game and will leave you cursing at the cliffhanger hanging as the sequel game to that was never translated. And heck, even if you had access to said sequel, it seems like the common sentiment amongst the Japanese is that Eve should really have just stayed at the first game and not have sequels made (which after playing Adam, I definitely agree with) Desire is sort of like a beta version Eve with the "one male and one female playable character" gimmick. The difference is that you can't switch between them freely and also that the female player character section is extremely stupid to the point of rage inducing. The male PC section is decent enough so if you can push yourself through the other character you're rewarded with a fairly decent ending but argh. And not by the same team but since the original games were created in around the same era, Snatcher and Policenauts, but this is Something Awful so I think just about everyone knows those two games by now.
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Apr 11, 2013 02:55
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Krinkle posted:letter You don't get one if you chose Meiya. Presumbly because it would be a little redundant.
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Apr 11, 2013 08:14
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Artificer posted:Wasn't Total Eclipse horrifyingly bad? Or are they doing a VN release now? That's the general consensus yeah. I think the VN is going to take place after the series and isn't an adaptation of it though, so maybe there's something salvagable...?
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Apr 11, 2013 17:06
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unpronounceable posted:I'm interested in seeing how they're presented to the general gaming population, if at all. Honestly if a blog or website talks about pure VNs at all, I don't think targeted towards a "general gaming population", except for games like 999 or Phoenix Wright which might be categorized as "Adventure." The general populace still seems to think they're all pornographic. Other than that, pretty much all blogs I've seen that covers the topic either 1) Relishes in the porn aspects or 2) Tries to think of a billion ways in which someone can write the scene "I know it has sex scenes in it, but you can skip them and it's really good guys!"
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Apr 12, 2013 03:02
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Nyaa posted:Then I watched Angel Beat and I must say that I really hate all these sudden melodrama out of nowhere plot that come after a completely fun and enjoyable first half. Is that how all Key game works? It's just feel so stupid and cheap. That's pretty much Key's formula all the way from Kanon.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:54
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Personally I thought Ever17 had a weaker journey but a better payoff, while 999 is the exact opposite, especially if you already played E17 first, which will make you feel like the author is a one trick pony who writes the same basic plot over and over. Remember11 would be... better journey than E17 but worst payoff of the three.
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Apr 15, 2013 03:04
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kirbysuperstar posted:but whoever it was that said Makoto's story was bad was totally on the mark. It's terrible, demeaning and I'm only doing it so I get access to the final story. I'm amazed at how the writers of that scenario managed to write something that would piss off and waste hours of the reader's time and yet have almost nothing of importance happen at all.
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Apr 18, 2013 14:08
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I can think of a group that would consider Seasons of the Sakura to be "the best Visual Novel ever" but I kind of assumed they all died out years ago: the people who got into the genre by playing the original commercially available porny visual novels of early MS DOS days and are filled with nostalgia of the time period, probably through something like The Underdogs (as opposed to modern VN readers who now come in the genre through Phoenix Wright/999/KS/Fate/Muv Luv.) I guess it's sort of like how Final Fantasy 1 which is considered a "classic" but I think it's a pretty terrible bug-filled imbalanced mess by modern RPG design standards. But I guess something to keep in mind that there were much worse/dumber VNs than Seasons of the Sakura back in the days (and I guess in FF1's time, it probably looked like a masterpiece compared to some other bad Dragon Quest clone) Thinking back about it, boy did those games not age very well, the other game I think people are nostalgic about from that era was the ironically named "True Love" and the character designs just look like Lovecraftian monsters to me now with their strange body proportions and pencil-thin necks. As someone who has been into this genre from the start I think it's kind of interesting how things "progressed" in the community. Did you guys know there was a time that Kanon was once this holy grail of non-translated VN that everyone constantly laments about it not being translated? I think when the translation patch of Kanon finally came out (many years way too late for it to have any sort of impact) there was just kind of a shrug in the community but at the time of Kanon's Japanese release it sure looked like Citizen Kane when compared to the nukige that JAST turned out at a ridiculously fast pace.
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Apr 23, 2013 08:11
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quote:Uncensored CGs I think the final outcome was that they had significant trouble offloading said versions of those games. Two of those games (that I can recall) were Critical Point and Kana and whatever anyone thinks of the quality of the writing in those games, they aren't supposed to be nukige, so there is apparently a sizable amount of people that would be willing to turn down a $10 discount for that which apparently justifies the decision to go uncensored CGs or bust. In a way, I believe it's sort of like the issue of dubbing for niche games. Even though they are niche, not having an English dub significantly reduces the amount of sales said game will have, to the point where a game without a dub is making some kind of abnormal business decision where you're going "extremely low cost/low gain". I dunno, maybe in 2013 we're entering a new paradigm or something where everyone is "enlightened" and know that the games aren't about sex so no one will care about the CGs but apparently as far as JAST is concerned, the slightly more mainstream (relatively speaking) audience that buys these games for spank material (no matter how unsuitable they are for this purpose) is still a factor. Nyaa posted:Steins;Gate's delusion experiance might not be everyone's cup of tea especially the gore at the latter part. I would really rather not recommend a story that falls apart at the end as someone's first VN.
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Apr 25, 2013 02:54
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WickedIcon posted:What the hell is with this? You'd think there'd be significantly less rape than in creepy-dude-power-fantasy games. Well, I hope I don't blow anyone minds but apparently there's research that say that rape is a surprisingly common fantasy amongst women. Source!:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19085605 (Note: I totally have no idea how reliable this source is but hey, medical journal right?
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Apr 26, 2013 00:17
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I'm not really surprised about them being xenophobic but the "If you want to play our games you should move to Japan" part just slays me.
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Apr 26, 2013 21:57
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So Aroduc's really vague post that was brought up a while ago now has context: He started a Kickstarter for a fan-translation of Littlewitch Romanesque. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1358146405/romanesque-translation-project I guess if you like Quartett or Period you might want to look into it.
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May 3, 2013 19:36
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How the heck is it possible to go into negative funding?LeeDless posted:It mentioned on the KS page that Little Witch (the original developers) went out of business several years ago. "Tenco", a "new" company which is basically made up of just about the exact same employees, which is sort of a silly trick some companies use when becoming bankrupt.
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May 6, 2013 23:55
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klapman posted:Oh my god, that is loving precious! I didn't even get that far into Saya no Uta, and I can tell that's the understatement of the century. Whoever wrote that disclaimer is pretty alright in my book. I don't know, I don't really find it funny because that's the generic message that they put before every Visual Novel with sexual content though. It's not SnU specific.
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May 24, 2013 00:52
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Cynic Jester posted:Are there any other VN like games with gameplay? I'm open to most things, provided it's not offensively bad, either in the game department or the VN department(Sengoku rance For some reason, it seems like "good gameplay" and "content that makes people freak out about" seem to be on a sliding scale: More of one, less of the other. So that being said, I've tried to use vndb to try to get some games that I think are tame. Then again, I'm pretty desensitized, so my scale of comparison is probably off. Shikkoku no Sharnoth - Has some kind of board game-ish running/stealth gameplay. I really hated it to the point of downloading a save file to skip them, but some people like it. Almost no sexual content and the ones that are there are written in the most ridiculously artsy style ever. Galaxy Angel series - I think this is some kind of Sakura Wars-like game with RTS gameplay. No adult content. Eien no Aselia - Grand Scale Strategy RPG. Pretty darn complex and kind of interesting IMO but on the other hand, it's also ridiculously slow paced to the point that doing repeated playthroughs is dead boring. No Adult Content. Symphonic Rain - VN with a music rhythm game. I always skip them though, plus the only good routes are the two true routes that open after you complete the 3 "starting" routes, which I think are ultra-boring. No Adult content. Duel Savior/Xross Scramble - Like a cross between a Tales combat system and Smash Brothers beat em up. Out of all the games, this one I'm really iffy about because the protagonist comes from an era where they're expected to be super casual perverts, but there is an option to choose the "censored" PS2 port of the game instead of the original version. That's all I can think of.
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Jun 4, 2013 14:35
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As far as the "protagonist voice" thing goes, isn't the pool of male VAs rather small, especially for VNs with sex scenes? I know Hikaru Midorikawa and Norio Wakamoto are willing to show up a lot, but they almost always play the villain (and Midorikawa has like no range IMO so they really can't use him that often for protagonists).
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Jun 6, 2013 11:39
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Fangz posted:Save the date spoilers. Yeah, I believe the 3rd option is probably the "intended" one as far as narrative goes. Anyway, the game was a fairly enjoyable 1 hour read even though I've seen it done before (but then again I read a lot so...)
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Jun 7, 2013 12:26
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I don't think 999 is superior to E17 in all ways. In fact I would say that in a certain sense it's like the opposite of E17. Whereas E17 is overall poorly paced but has a big payoff at the end, 999 has better pacing but the story and especially the end-sequence kind of breaks down if you think about it for a bit. Although the fact that they both have the exact same plot twist which means that you'll probably think less of whatever game you decide to play second.
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Jun 18, 2013 06:06
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Wow, what a blast from the past. Unfortunately I stopped liking Mega Tokyo once the other guy left (which I guess means I didn't like it much in the first place.) Also with the dude's work ethics the thing will come out in 2030 with stick figure art.
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Jun 19, 2013 02:36
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DamnGlitch posted:If that 500k kickstarter is legit he is really a huge sack of poo poo. Yes let's pay 500k for pencil drawing garbage that will never ever come out. Technically, the actual kickstarter "only" asked for 200k. 500k is the stretch goal to... add sex scenes? Yeah okay, I guess that really doesn't change anything.
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Jun 19, 2013 05:01
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Stall_19 posted:So I was just casually browsing VNDB and was surprised to see that Kara no Shoujo had a related anime link......it's a loving straight up hentai. I....never considered the drat game to be like that... Basically, while a whole bunch of VNs are lucky enough to get clean adaptations, the ones that remain are taken by H-anime companies, whose industry basically collapsed a couple of years ago. You really can't try to fit a worthwhile plot + sex scenes in about 2/3 episodes and 20 minutes worth of run time but the VN companies probably figure ANY amount of money from licensing is better than nothing.
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Jun 21, 2013 08:52
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Krinkle posted:How many is a couple of years ago? You're making my brain try to draw parallels between the tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima reactor problems and the downfall of tentacle porn. I can't really give you some kind of exact "year", it's mostly my personal observations from a couple of key events that happened. 1) The rise of "clean" VN adaptations. I think Kanon is probably the big one here, because once Kanon became this marketing juggernaut that put Key on the map, everyone and their dogs basically wanted to make Key-style nakige (see OP post for definition) which can be easily scrubbed clean for console ports, merchandising, mainstream anime liscensing and so on. Before that, plot-heavy VNs had to go through the H-anime route anyway if they wanted an adaptation, which usually didn't turn out an optimal product because there's usually only budgets for 3-6 episodes, but um, at least they tried? Nowadays said titles just go for a 26 episodes mainstream anime. 2) The rise of "softporn" Anime. Basically stuff like Queen's Blade, which allows you to attract people who consume this media for the sexual content, without the pesky "Can't sell or advertise to minors" part that hinders distribution, sales and word of mouth. Summary of points 1/2 is that non-18+ products make a lot more than 18+ products and companies want to get in on that. 3) Japanese industry throwing a hissy fit about reverse importation. At some point of time, Japanese industries realized that the Japanese was reverse-importing their titles and buying English releases which were cheaper and uncensored, which led to things like trying to create inferior US releases, forcing "dubbed" only on certain titles and then eventually just going "screw it, the bubble has already burst in the US anyway, let's not even bother" So with a combination of all factors, most clean VNs are turned into clean anime adaptations, VNs with overly sexual content has to compete with 2), so they're usually passed on, which leaves the available liscenses left to snatch up be dark content that cater to niche audiences. Then the Japanese industry, unable to grow (or even sustain itself), becomes more niche over time that with their profit margins the average length of a new title is like... like, 2 episodes.
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Jun 21, 2013 13:34
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The 1.0 translation patch of Danganronpa has been released. http://danganronpa.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/release-danganronpa-english-translation-v1-0/ That being said, is this the translation that people warned me about earlier in the thread that sucks or is this the "good" one (there are apparently multiple ongoing projects?)? There doesn't seem to be anything flagrant while I was playing the demo but you know, maybe my standards aren't that high.
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Jun 24, 2013 14:28
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So this might be interesting, maybe. Looks like Bamboo (part of Overdrive, who made stuff like Kira Kira) is trying to attempt to use Crowdfunding methods to get a game remade. http://www.usgamer.net/articles/japanese-visual-novel-dev-turns-to-crowdfunding They sourced Fuwanovel though, which is a "great" source because they immediately went and posted a follow-up which went "Actually, it's just a fancy way of saying pre-order our game and not a kickstarter at all" so I guess it was too much to hope that Japanese companies were advancing at a non-glacial pace.
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Jun 26, 2013 12:36
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Well, if you think the costumes are dumb, the good news is they're gone by Alternative.
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Jul 1, 2013 07:25
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Good_Haro: I've been meaning to ask you: would it be fair to say that a problem with Otome/BL games is that, for the most part, they haven't risen above the genre tropes in the same way that "traditional" male-focused VNs has done with works such as Ever17, 999, Gen Urobachi's works, Muv Luv Alternative and so on? (I know the ratio is still kind of low for male-focused works, but at least there are a few. I have not heard about any particular subversive BL/Otome game yet but then again, I don't actively search for them) If not, is there a BL/Otome game that's similar to what I just named?
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Jul 6, 2013 04:23
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Cake Attack posted:Is there a translation of Takeru's speech at the end of Unlimited? I don't think there was anything plot important, but I'd like to know anyways. Check the readme. Unlimited is linear, you might want to reload at the very last choice to get the "true" ending for your girl. But don't bother getting any of the other girls, because the only difference is the sex scene and palette swaps in the ending. You might want to get the Yuuko ending, which has poorly done foreshadowing that tells you nothing, just so you can experience how the Japanese players felt waiting 4 years for the conclusion.
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Jul 12, 2013 03:57
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I guess on one hand, it's nice that the thread has lasted this long without too much drama, but on the other hand, I do feel like it's on life support. It seems like when the first thread started, there was a lot more variety of posters and games being discussed, but now it's down to basically an endless repeat of F/SN and MLA... usually right down to the same exact points, even. Sometimes it's broken up by news but then it goes right back. Strangely appropriate considering how often VN reuse Time Loop as a concept.
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Jul 22, 2013 06:21
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Irukandji Syndrome posted:Yashiro getting a place in the rebuilt world is really sweet. It's kind of weird that they put Meiya's sister in? Maybe they thought she was too great a character to get killed in a car crash...
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Jul 23, 2013 07:32
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I was debating on whether or not to write about Totono, but since someone did a bulk of the work for me, I'll add my two cents on it. It is one of the more enjoyable things I've read this year, but what annoys me is that it's just so close to being "masterpiece" instead of simply "good" MLA is an interesting comparison, because Totono's structured pretty similarly. 1st Act: Extra generic childhood friends romance story. Made extra aggravating because the main character is a billion times more passive than Shinji Ikari. Honestly, if I didn't already know that this game was going to pull a twist somewhere it would have put me to sleep. At least ML Extra was completely over the top. 2nd Act: I find this slightly more interesting than the 1st Act, because the game drops all those little hints that something is not right with the game world. I guess the "problem" with this act is that it's an NTR story. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's a genre about the drama of knowing your girlfriend is cheating on you but you're unable to do anything about it (for multiple reasons, such as the audience knowing what is happening but not the main character). So yeah, it's one of the most rage-inducing genre to ever exist and most people can't stand it. 3rd Act: The best part, but I can't type anything without spoiling, which is the frustrating thing about it. "Guys, it's so great, but I can't tell you what makes it great, because that would ruin it." Like MLA, the game is basically saved by the 3rd Act. Would have been nice to have the first two parts be good and develop the characters enough to make me like them, because I think a huge part of what the game is trying to do would be making you like the characters as if they were people in real life rather than fictional characters. Which I don't. I like them both as character concepts, but if they existed in real life I would think they are both huge assholes. As far as "it's meant for people who read Visual Novels", I don't entirely agree, because I believe a lot of the meta elements are aimed at a rather targeted criticism at a subset of VN players rather than "just VN readers in general". Specifically, it's a criticism of VN readers who treat the genre like... well, the closest example would be people who are obsessed with "achievements" in regular videogames. The kind that clinically plays these games with a walkthrough in hand and whose goal is to achieve "100%" completion of CG and Scene collections rather than being immersed in the story etc. I think people might still enjoy the meta aspects of it, but it would probably be done while being 1 step removed (sort of like Metal Gear Solid 2). The game is rather short overall, which is a nice change of pace from F/SN trench warfare length VNs, which I guess would make a process of a translation much easier (but on the other hand, it also does some things which I don't want to spoil that would complicated the effort.) Ottumon posted:How complicated is the language in it? I've been meaning to pick up a japanese VN to help with my reading skills but everything I sort of wanted to play had translations either available or coming soon™. Totono's pretty easy as far as things go. It's set in contemporary Japan (i.e no archaic Kanji and ancient grammar users), and it's not really a very Prose-focused VN in my opinion. I think the only two things I would worry about is there are areas in the game where you get voice-only/no text, and one of the characters speaks entirely in Katakana which is always annoying as hell when it shows up (it's sort of a common thing in fiction to portray eccentric people/foreigners).
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Jul 25, 2013 07:28
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Removing the Cthulu mythos from Demonbane? That's like its drawing point, otherwise it would be Giant Robot Anime #0278627384234234.Ottumon posted:Maybe things just get serious later on and comedy takes a backseat when that happens? It does. Then again, the mixture of "serious" and "slapstick" where you're supposed to switch your brain on and off between the two has never really bothered me.
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Jul 30, 2013 03:06
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Nihnoz posted:Quick question: did the person who wrote YU-NO suffer a stroke halfway through. I think he's pretty dead right now. Part 2 of Yu-No was supposed to be structurally similar to Part 1 (non-linearity and all that), but they were already running into budget issues and the result is... well, what it is right now. Anyway, I expect some angry words by the time you're done.
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Aug 8, 2013 07:22
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I prefer "gameplay-focused" VNs than regular ones personally, but then again, once you reach the point of something like Kamidori, the only thing "VN" about them is how they tell the story using still images interspersed with full-screen CGs, isn't it? Then suddenly Disgaea and Ar Tonelico are now VNs and I dunno, not many people are going to agree with that I guess. So I guess there's the VNs that are more "adventure game like", such as Snatcher/Policenauts/Yu-No/Phoenix Wright. Those are either really atmospheric or really annoying depending on the writing quality. "Make a choice once in a while" VNs for me are light fare I guess, which I can throw in between a complex RPG or something in case I get bored.
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Aug 13, 2013 06:01
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Yatagarasu was made by like 3 ex-SNK people and it plays like a KOF 96-98 era fighter, so if you have some nostalgia for that, it might be worth the $1.50.
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Aug 14, 2013 03:45
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planetarial posted:But what was up with Alice suddenly showing up in the very last scene? Was it just thrown in there to gently caress with people?
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Aug 18, 2013 05:31
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The last time LPing Muv Luv was brought up, I theorized that Extra would get so much mocking from the peanut gallery that I don't think anyone would stick around long enough for Unlimited/Alternative to kick in. And Tama would probably cause a shitstorm too. But then again, Dangan Ronpa became super popular for some strange reason despite being really Anime so who knows. Though one difference is that DR does try to circumvent SOME of the tropes of the medium, whereas Extra just embraces the silliness full force. I guess you could hybridize the way DR LP does. Do most stuff in text, but offer an additional "video link" for certain scenes where you think the VA adds a lot to it.
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Aug 23, 2013 08:11
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MrCinos posted:Maybe I'm too desensitized, but after looking up at ML suits again,d I don't see what's wrong about them. It doesn't seem like they'd require any censoring. Some of the Hyperdimension Neptunia's CGs were more "dangerous" in that regard. Unlimited is the problematic one because it has actual exposed nipples, and unlike sex scenes, the suits are so prevalent that it's hard to censor out unless someone hacks the game and mods in the All-Ages version versions instead or something like that.
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Aug 27, 2013 16:09
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I must be the only one who disliked the entire canon ending sequence of Maou. The plot twist was stupid and contradicted every other path in the game (or perhaps it's because every other path in the game was tacked on?) and made the story less interesting overall. And the supposed "cat-and-mouse" battles was supposed to be a drawing point of the story, but I just thought that Haru was a gigantic jobber during the entire game.
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Aug 31, 2013 03:23
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