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I liked Gnosia, but the randomized games of werewolf got tedious once it was down to the last few events with very specific triggering conditions. It's not really strong enough as a game mode to hold your interest when there's nothing in particular happening. I don't know if you could make the game work without those, though, and it seems like that aspect is a pretty strong hook for a lot of people. Anyway, here's some other titles I've been reading recently: -Hermitage: Strange Case Files: I think someone mentioned this earlier in the thread. The main character is an occult bookstore manager bound to the shop and unable to leave, so he solves mysteries via delegation and advice. The 'mystery-solving' part is fairly trivial, but it's not really a big focus of the game and the linearity doesn't really hurt it. Right now I've only finished the first chapter, but it was really sweet and nice and I'm looking forward to the next few, plus whatever metaplot is brewing in the background. So far it looks like each chapter ends with them facing off against some beastie ripped straight from Lovecraftian canon - the first chapter ended with a battle against a Hound of Tindalos, though it was never directly called that. -The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass: An ontological mystery in the style of 'a bunch of strangers get trapped together, strange things start happening and the protagonist has to figure out what's going on'. Exceptionally complex even by the standards of the genre - pretty much the entirety of the back half is devoted to explaining what happened in the first half, and there's even a little quiz (which doesn't affect anything) for the player to see just how much they've figured out. One of the main complaints I see in the review is that the actual characterization tends to fall short on account of the focus being on the sheer complexity of the narrative, and having completed it I'd say that's pretty fair - most of the characters don't really get fleshed out until fairly late in the story, and even then fairly perfunctorily. -Knell of St. Godhrkar: Chinese VN that was recently translated completely into English. Revolves around a rotating cast of seven characters and the way their lives interact with each other. Has a fairly unique system for making choices - characters will make decisions on their own, but every time you hit a Bad End or characters get injured, you get fate points which allow you to change their decisions, and this in turn has repercussions on their personalities down the line. A bunch of the reviews complain about the rough translation, but so far it's been perfectly legible to me, although I haven't gotten very far in. This one is free, so it's worth a shot if you're even slightly interested.
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Jun 17, 2022 17:11
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 03:51 |
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I definitely mentally checked out about halfway through the first chapter (which is admittedly the longest one). Just “oh, I guess this is happening now, okay, I’ll process it later down the line once the narrative gives me a moment to chill and this guy shuts up”.
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Jun 21, 2022 17:42
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New VN from Square Enix just dropped, on Steam and on Switch. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2106840/PARANORMASIGHT_The_Seven_Mysteries_of_Honjo/ Seems to be a horror VN where you steer multiple characters around? Haven't had the time to play it myself, but a friend seemed to like it.
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Mar 10, 2023 03:55
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Sat down and completed Paranormasight over the weekend, great game. There were one or two puzzles that were a little obtuse, but for the most part the solution to just about anything can be easily figured out if you've been paying any attention to the story. The lack of voice acting was a bit of a shame but not a huge dealbreaker, though if this does well enough I wonder if they'll release a deluxe version with VA sometime down the line.
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Mar 26, 2023 07:41
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Kanon and Air are okay if you're into that sort of thing, though I feel like they're fairly redundant if you've already played Clannad. Then again, I've never really been into Key's whole brand of 'sad girls sadly sad at you while you solve all their emotional problems with hugs'. I think you're probably better off skipping ahead to Rewrite or Little Busters, when they've refined the formula a little more. Dating-sim type VNs don't really get talked about much in this thread, SA isn't really the audience for that sort of thing, though you're free to talk about them if you'd like. You're right that Fate/Stay Night isn't easily available for sale in English on most modern devices. That said, we had a release of Witch on the Holy Night on Switch and there's a Tsukihime remake now, so crossing my fingers for a F/SN remake any day now.
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Apr 26, 2023 10:54
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428 Shibuya Scramble currently on sale at 80% off. Don't know if I'd recommend it at full price, but at  it's probably worth a shot if you're interested. If you liked the setup in Paranormasight where you had to jump between the viewpoints of multiple protagonists to piece the full story together, this game has it in spades. Live-action visuals, as you can see, so if you're allergic to anime I suppose that's another thing it has going for it.
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May 3, 2023 11:40
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https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/angel-whisper-the-suspense-visual-novel-left-behind-by-a-game-creator-switch/ I started playing this obscure VN on Switch because it was on sale for a few bucks and the title intrigued me. Apparently it's a remake of an old VN with ARG elements from 1999 (the first part gave you hints you had to decipher to find a website where you could download the second part, or something like that). The premise is that a game designer gets hired by a shady game development company to work on a game based around the prophecies of Nostradamus. Spooky conspiracy bullshit happens, and the designer eventually vanishes, leaving behind only the very game you're playing as a record of his existence. It's a fun idea, but you can tell it's a remake of a 1990s game. Lots of clicking through speech topics repeatedly till you hit the arbitrary trigger to progress, lots of sudden and random bad ends. Translation is also a little stilted, and most egregiously, there's a noticeable amount of lag every scene transition. There was a recent patch which didn't fix the performance issues at all, but since it's still being supported I'm hoping another one comes along that alleviates it a little.
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Oct 11, 2023 08:22
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Every time I try going back to the Ace Attorney games, I think to myself 'it's been a while, I should start from the very beginning to refresh myself'. Then I tend to check out at most around the circus case in the second game, forget about it for ages, decide to pick it up again, and the cycle begins anew.
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Oct 20, 2023 10:57
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 03:51 |
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Visual novels are fairly popular in China, there's loads of Chinese VNs on Steam although they don't really get as much traction in this thread as translated Japanese VNs or ones that were originally in English. Probably because there's not many of them with a particularly good English translation (often the best you'll get is 'functional'), but there's no shortage of them and if you're planning to read them in their native language that shouldn't be an issue (aside from the traditional/simplified Chinese split). Hermitage: Strange Case Files is one I've been enjoying. You play as a bookstore manager who can't leave the building for some reason, but keep getting drawn into mysteries of a decidedly paranormal bent. The translation can occasionally be a little stilted, but it's understandable enough, though the English and Chinese versions are different games entirely so you can't switch between languages. Another fairly popular one is Will: A Wonderful World. This one has a pretty neat concept: you wake up with the ability to hear and answer people's prayers, and by rearranging the events in the letters they send to you, you can alter their destinies. This one is available in English and has traditional and simplified Chinese as language options. Knell of St Godhrkar is an indie one that popped up while I was browsing, revolving around multiple characters involved in a murder case. You'll see a bunch of Steam comments complaining about the translation, but those are fairly old and the translation has been significantly improved since then. It's free so you can't really go wrong with giving this one a shot. Oh, and one that got rave reviews even when the English translation was machine-translated garbage was The Chrono Jotter, which recently got an actual proper English translation a few days ago. Highly recommend this one. Inadequately fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 13:50
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