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I decided to play the Steins;Gate visual novel. I've already seen the anime and haven't played the VN until now because I usually don't like reading/watching things when I already know all the plot twists. Fortunately I've forgotten a bunch of the story (though I still remember the most major plot twists). It's really neat, and the cell phone stuff gives you a lot of content unique to the VN that wasn't in the anime. I've also never played a VN with such high production quality. The only thing I didn't like about Steins;Gate is that Mayuri and the girly boy I forget the name of aren't very interesting characters. The boy doesn't have much personality beyond being shy and having a crush of sorts on the main character, and Mayuri usually acts like a child with brain damage, despite being 16 years old. All the other elements of the story/characters more than make up for the downsides, though.
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Nov 13, 2015 18:02
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Higurashi is great and anyone who hasn't played it yet owes it to themselves to get it now. It absolutely nails the feeling of paranoia and distrust in a way that hits home pretty hard. Still have no clue about what the solution to the mystery is, but its been a pretty great ride up until now. Ah, this sounds like a good one to play after I finish Steins;Gate. I don't think I've played a VN of that genre yet. I've been continuing playing Steins;Gate, and it is really great. The highs aren't necessarily higher than Fate/Stay Night, but the quality is far more consistent overall, so I would say that it's even better. I'm trying to get my friends to play it, but no luck so far (none of them play any VNs).
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Nov 16, 2015 00:06
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Alder posted:I tried a few other popular PC VNs but I lost interest quickly midway through the stories. I find that most protagonists are extremely boring and they often also try to seriously set up multiple romance routes (to the detriment of the rest of the game). Part of what makes Steins;Gate good is that, while multiple routes technically exist, it's super obvious who the actual love interest is supposed to be and little effort is put towards trying to make the others seem viable. It also has a much more compelling protagonist than other VNs.
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Nov 16, 2015 04:34
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Jesus, I forgot about the part in Steins;Gate where Amane goes back to 1975 and loses her memories and only regains them in 2000 and realizes she failed to get the IBN 5100 and commits suicide. That was heartbreaking. 
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Nov 18, 2015 08:13
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I've been playing G-Senjou no Maou and it's super good so far. I was worried when I started that this one thing I knew was some giant spoiler, but it turns out that it's supposed to be super obvious from very early on and is more or less explicitly stated in chapter 2. I'm almost at the end of chapter 2 now, and Tsubaki's personality change is really interesting and unsettling. The protagonist is also very unique and interesting for a variety of reasons. Haru also recently directly stated that Azai is Maou, so I'm extremely curious about where the plot is going to go from here and how in the world Haru is going to not hate you later on, seeing as she's one of the main heroines.. I want work to end so I can go home and find out what happens next
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Dec 1, 2015 20:01
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Nate RFB posted:If I remember right they are not worth doing at all unless you do them before doing the final/true route, because they will pale in comparison to what goes down there. If you do them afterwards it will feel like a waste of time. That's what I'm planning on doing. From what I understand, there's a choice at the end of each chapter that more or less gives you the option of continuing the main route or branching off to that particular girl's route. If this is the case, I'll just create a save file at each of those choices and finish the girl's route before continuing on. If the writing/plot of this game stays consistent, I would probably rate it as the second best visual novel I've played, behind Steins;Gate (I'm not counting stuff like the Zero Escape series, since I'm not really sure how to compare it with more traditional visual novels). F/SN and the Muv-Luv games are extremely entertaining and have some very high highs, but Steins;Gate and G-Senjou no Maou have felt more consistent (I would be very hesitant to recommend F/SN or Muv-Luv to someone not already acquainted with common anime tropes, while I would feel more comfortable recommending Steins;Gate/G-Senjou). Speaking of Steins;Gate, I was wondering recently about why I enjoyed its romance. I almost never find romance in anime or visual novels compelling, so I was wondering why I felt different about the Okabe/Kurisu one. I think the reason is that, unlike most games/shows, Kurisu plays a very active role in the plot and supports you (both in actions and emotionally) throughout the game. Usually protagonists just save/help the heroines in some way, but it's almost the opposite with Kurisu. So rather than the protagonist just randomly being/falling in love with the heroine, there are actual reasons why he would start to feel that way. It also helps that Okabe isn't just a blank slate for the reader to project themselves onto, as is usually the case with these things.
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Dec 1, 2015 21:20
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FractalSandwich posted:I'm particularly interested in Japan because I've seen the bogus version of it specifically so many times, but sure, China, Singapore, Brazil, Saudi Arabia. Wherever. Places that aren't where I'm from. I went to school in Australia myself, and I have a fairly good idea of what it's like in the US just from hearing people talk about it, but I'm not even that familiar with how it's done in other Commonwealth countries. You might want to watch some live action Japanese dramas. At the very least they'd be accurate in terms of the way the people and buildings look. Something like Nobuta wo Produce comes to mind (I haven't watched any in a long time so I only know of stuff from the mid-2000s or earlier).
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Dec 2, 2015 01:00
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Ekster posted:I can't believe I've missed this thread up until now. I studied Japanese years ago and I played a fair amount of VNs back then, the last one I played was Clannad back when it came out iirc so I've been missing out on newer VNs like Steins; Gate and Higurashi. Have you gotten around to Steins;Gate yet? As I've played more visual novels, I definitely feel that it's the best I've played. Most VNs have at least some really dumb things or awkward porn, but Steins;Gate doesn't have any of those problems. I think the main reason it left such a good impression on me is that it has an extremely solid, satisfying ending, which I find to be really rare in most VNs/manga/anime. Ekster posted:Clannad was their first title that didn't have porn in the PC version but the Japanese PC VN crowd is absolutely awful so they put it in again, to which the main illustrator even quit. Ofcourse I could've played the console version but the entire affair left a bad taste in my mouth at the time so I never did. Regarding the issue of porn messing up otherwise good VNs, I've been playing Kara no Shoujo and it easily has some of the most awkward, inappropriate porn scenes that I've seen in a visual novel. It's a huge shame, because I really like the art/plot/music/characters/setting, but the random porn keeps ruining the tone/atmosphere. For example, I just went to the weird coroner lady to get the results of some analysis I asked for and she pulls the MC's pants down, sucks his dick, and has him bone her in the butt (as payment I guess?). It's especially awkward in light of the fact that a major plot point is that your character is all depressed about his fiance being brutally murdered 6 years ago. Another awkward scene was a bad ending where this girl has a serious talk with me about how she's actually a bad person who runs this prostitution ring, and then asks the MC to gently caress her because I guess that would cleanse her of her sins or something. She is then also brutally murdered and in the process the murderer tosses her uterus in your face (while you're laying on the ground and can't move) and it mentions some of the MC's cum coming out of the uterus (because he had sex with her immediately prior to them being kidnapped by the murderer). That was some of the most unnecessarily gross poo poo I've ever seen in a game. Then there's the fact that your character is 30 years old and a lot of the girls are 17/18 year old high school students (I don't know yet how many are potential love/sex interests, but I imagine at least a few). I still enjoy it and think it's interesting and worth playing, but every time I hit one of these scenes I just think "oh for fucks sake."
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Dec 8, 2015 21:59
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SerCypher posted:Are there any good fantasy VNs? Otome ones are fine as well. I've read the past few pages of this thread, and is there any reason I haven't seen anyone mention Umineko? Because it's objectively the best visual novel and never had any sort of nudity or dating sim elements. For perspective (and to get some idea where I'm coming from taste-wise), I would probably rank visual novels something like this: Umineko > Fata Morgana > Steins;Gate > Higurashi > (some stuff that is flawed but entertaining, like F;SN, Muv-Luv Alternative, etc)
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Nov 22, 2017 20:15
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ketchup vs catsup posted:I'm almost done with 999 on PS4, next up is VLR/ZTD, and I have Dangan Ronpa 1-2 after that. Also got the Silver Case. what other VNs should I be playing? PS1-4 are the only consoles I've got, and I much much prefer physical discs to digital. These are PC and not console, but: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni is by far the best VN that exists, without question IMO. Like it's the only one that crosses the line from "very high quality entertainment" to "actually legitimately great without the need to add 'for a game'." Fata Morgana I would rank second. I also really enjoy a lot of the other stuff people are recommending, so I'm recommending these more highly from a perspective of how good they are, rather than anything bad about stuff like Steins;Gate etc. All this being said, both of those titles are significantly heavier plot-wise than something like Steins;Gate or Dangan Ronpa (which are a lot more easy to read and moreso "page-turners" in general). Sakurazuka posted:There's no part where it suddenly turns to poo poo it's just boring and pointless all the way through. My feeling is that SG0 just felt sorta like a fandisc with some awkwardly appended "serious plot" content. It was worth playing, but felt sort of...unnecessary, for lack of a better explanation.
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Dec 19, 2017 08:30
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Nate RFB posted:Personally I definitely think it does, the next two chapters in particular are insane. Minagoroshi might be the best When They Cry chapter, period, even. Though the point in Umineko's favor will always be that it is more consistently excellent whereas Higurashi's quality is really backloaded (not that earlier chapters are bad, of course). Nah, in my opinion Higurashi honestly isn't remotely comparable with Umineko. It's still really good, though. I feel like the biggest difference is that Umineko has a lot of stuff worth thinking about going on beneath the surface, while Higurashi pretty much openly puts everything out there by the end (and honestly some aspects of the plot are a little goofy and it relies too heavily on red herrings). Higurashi also feels the need to keep some "anime" cliche plot elements, while it seems like he felt free to completely excise that sort of thing from Umineko. It's not so much that that's a problem in Higurashi, but rather that it's something notably good about Umineko. You can sorta see hints of the more high quality characterization from Umineko in Higurashi (Rena comes to mind), but it's generally pretty clear that he explicitly set out to improve upon a lot of things from Higurashi when he wrote Umineko.
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Dec 20, 2017 05:07
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I haven't played Chaos;Child yet, but it's a real shame they went with such stereotypical looking character designs, rather than something like Steins;Gate's art (which I thought was really neat/unique, especially with the whole "marbled" thing going on). Chaos;Child's characters look like some defaults from a "build your own VN" program or something. It's great to hear that the story is apparently good, though. Gives me something else to do once I finish Xenoblade 2.
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Dec 22, 2017 21:12
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So I started playing Chaos;Child and the very beginning made me actually sick to my stomach. I am not good with this sort of gore, and if anything having it described is worse than seeing it. Now someone started knocking on this vocalist's door and I'm just like "mm sounds like time to take a break." edit: So (honestly this is from literally 20 minutes into the game, but spoiled just in case)I had heard some people criticizing the main character, but it seems transparently obvious from the very beginning that the reader isn't supposed to think this guy is correct or treat him like a self-insert. Like, it even shows him mocking people for not appreciating deep anime themes and then getting upset about his favorite character being written out. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Dec 27, 2017 |
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Dec 27, 2017 03:10
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I don't know if "graphic" is the right word; it's more the nature of the situation that made me nauseous.AlternateNu posted:I'm about two hours in and all the main characters annoy the poo poo out of me, and not in a fun quirky kind of way. The reason Okabe is so good in early Steins;Gate is because of how he bounces off people that either ignore him (Daru) or call him out on his chuunibyou behavior (Kurisu). While I don't exactly like the main character (I really liked Okabe for more or less the reasons you say), it's a relief to know that he isn't one of the "misanthrope who the reader/viewer is supposed to relate to and approve of" protagonists that have been so common in WNs/LNs these days. Dude comes off as realistically edgy in a kind of dumb teenager sorta way, and it's obvious that the reader isn't supposed to approve of his opinions. edit: As a side comment, playing a VN on my fancy new 50 inch 4k television is a weird experience. I've only ever played these things on the PC, so it's weird to see everything on such a big screen. edit2: Are "PokeComs" from that Robotics;Notes game? edit3: Question - why do voices sometimes come out of my PS4 controller? Is that supposed to indicate something? Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Dec 27, 2017 |
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Dec 27, 2017 03:42
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Hahahah, the delusion in Chaos;Child where the protagonist randomly imagines his buddy flipping out and choking his childhood friend to death because she brought him the wrong kind of sandwich is hilarious. Actually lol'd. I'm in chapter 2 now and enjoying this a good deal, though it's the sort of thing where I feel like the resolution to the mystery will retroactively make the rest of it either good or bad. Like, Zero Time Dilemma is a good example of a game I was enjoying a lot as I played it trusting that it would have a good/satisfying resolution, and when it didn't it retroactively soured me on the whole experience (I still overall enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as 999/VLR). For the time being though, the mystery in C;C is pretty interesting and I feel compelled to keep "turning the pages," so to speak. It's a nice quality of life feature that this game auto-saves before every single delusion trigger point. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Dec 27, 2017 |
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Dec 27, 2017 08:55
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I've been playing more Chaos;Child and I'm really enjoying it a lot. I think I'm actually enjoying these earlier-to-mid parts at least as much as Steins;Gate (though part of what made Steins;Gate good is that it had such a solid resolution/ending). It actually sorta improves upon the pacing of Steins;Gate a bit by having more plot/thriller stuff earlier in the story instead of largely putting it in the second half like S;G did. The main character is also pretty good, at least for the protagonist of a Japanese "nerd media" title.Lumpy the Cook posted:It’s neat that mainstream outlets are finally willing to discuss visual novels in a non-condescending way because white people began making them To be fair, VNs have a pretty uniquely bad "good : terrible" ratio due to the whole "usually requiring porn until pretty recently" thing. It is a shame that this makes people miss out on the handful of genuinely really good ones, though.
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Dec 30, 2017 19:57
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rvm posted:VNs (and, to a lesser extent, all "otaku media" for a lack of a better term) are essentially a modern day pulp with all the good and bad it entails. I think the ratio does vary between different 'nerd media" things, though. Like, I think manga generally has much higher number of genuinely high quality things than anime or VNs, probably due to the fact that its upfront costs aren't nearly as high and thus doesn't need to spend so much effort specifically appealing to the sort of otaku willing to spend $100 on blurays or whatever. VNs are a bit of a different situation, where their issue seems to largely stem more from their history as primarily porn games, rather than having quite the same sort of costs as anime to produce. I feel like I read somewhere that higher budget VNs are actually on a decline? Like they increased some years back and then have fallen off in recent years. Not sure about that, though. That being said, I do generally agree that it doesn't make sense to treat Japanese nerd media as fundamentally different from American nerd media, with the exception of a few things present in its worst content. If anything, I'd say that manga is generally more "robust" than American comics, simply due to enjoying higher mainstream popularity and having more content produced as a result (with American nerd television/movies being generally better for the same reason, except reversed). edit: Hahahaha played more Chaos;Child and the name drop occurs (though I'm sure not the "real" one, if there even if a real one) during a chuunibyou delusion the main character has after going to Kunosato's apartment. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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Jan 1, 2018 01:11
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So I'm playing more Chaos;Child (this game is really loving long; I'm still doing the main/common route thing, and supposed this is followed by 4 character-specific routes and 1 "true" route) and Jesus loving Christ. I actually feel bad for (since I don't know how far I am, assume spoilers for all of the first playthrough) Itou. Poor fucker was mind-controlled to murder his friend's foster sister in a really grotesque way (I'm still kinda stunned they actually went there). Yuto's life is also pretty ruined at this point. This game needs a final battle where Takuru uses his gigalomanic (what a silly word) powers to make Uki Yamazoe into WEASELSCYTHE in real life. I actually have a speculation about who the main culprit might be. It's partly based on the sort of meta assumption that it'll be a character we're familiar with plus process of elimination, but I'm thinking maybe Serika. I've noticed that she often tends to subtlely push Takuru towards continuing his investigation, and if she can do mind control it could explain Takuru's (false, I guess) memories of her and the fact that Hinae's lie detection might not work properly with her. At the part I'm at now, they're discussing how it's weird the police didn't stop Takuru/Serika when they went to the first crime scene, and it would make sense for her to be able to do it since she was there. edit: One thing that comes to mind as a counterpoint to this is that IIRC Serika didn't have a reaction to the sumo seal picture. edit2: Okay, the story specifically brought up what I was thinking relatively soon afterwards. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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Jan 1, 2018 21:35
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Not Operator posted:For those of you who've finished it or are still playing it, does Chaos;Child require I finish Chaos;Head? No. I haven't played Chaos;Head, and it explains the concepts that (from what I understand) are taken from it. I think that it might give extra background on some aspects of the prior events, but you can just use a wiki summary or something for that (and it's not really necessary either way IMO). edit: Okay, I know basically what's going on in terms of the culprit and stuff now, though I think that you're probably supposed to have more or less figured things out at this point. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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Jan 1, 2018 22:10
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3D GAY WORLD posted:(SPOILERS for most of first playthrough) (Just in case, as with my earlier post just assume full spoilers of first playthrough) I'm at the point where both Serika and Sakuma's invovement has been revealed. To be honest, I had suspected Sakuma from the start, just because "taking in children from and 'earthquake' that obviously gave some people powers is circumstantially suspicious," but gradually started to assume it wasn't the case (only to obviously turn out wrong in that regard. I'm happy that Serika's involvement wasn't hidden for some late true ending revelation or something, because it was starting to feel pretty obviously soon-ish before it was explicitly revealed. It's nice that there are still some mysteries aside from the "whodunnit," like what's going on with Kurusu's powers, what was going on with Kakita/Hinae, what happened in Kunosato's history, why Takuru is a "true" gigalomanic (still a silly word), what the gently caress is the significance of Hana's character, etc (I'm guessing a lot of these will be dealt with in their respective character arcs). This whole first playthrough has felt like a VN bad ending that just keeps continuing from the bad ending and getting worse and worse. Right now they're examining Aoba dorm and planning to meet up with Sakuma.
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Jan 2, 2018 04:28
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3D GAY WORLD posted:One of the only *fist-pump* moments is coming up pretty soon, it's pretty great. It's obviously not advisable to watch the C;C anime before playing the VN, but after beating C;C I skipped around to some key action moments in the anime just to see how they were handled, and so I could see those scenes visualized with full motion. I'd recommend it for after you finish the common route, specifically for the upcoming confrontation with Sakuma. I finished common route. It was good. I had thought of/figured out a bunch of different aspects to the mystery (or at least the parts revealed thus far), but hadn't really put them together. For example I had thought of "Serika is likely involved with the murders" and "Takuru is obviously being pushed towards solving the murders" but hadn't put those together into Serika doing them with the purpose of involving Takuru. Speaking of Serika and the murders, what exactly was her involvement there? She can't do mind control, and I thought most of the murders involved the victims being mind-controlled to murder themselves. Like, I don't really understand what sort of direct involvement she had with any of the murders aside from Nono's (I mean, I guess she is the one who came up with who to murder as part of the plan to sorta-fulfill Takuru's past wish). Also, supposed she started her killing almost immediately after Takuru created her. Aside from Takuru's parents, who was she killing up until the start of the "return of the New Generation Madness"? I'm honestly kind of curious about where these character routes are going to go. I'm guessing the true route will involve some sort of resolution that doesn't involve almost everyone dying or being otherwise incapacitated, but I imagine the character routes will also have to deal with the Serika/Sakuma stuff in some capacity (since presumably they'll still be continuing their plans, etc). Then again, Steins;Gate had side routes that sort of went off the rails and ignored the main plot, but the character routes are actually required in this, unlike Steins;Gate. I'm also wondering who the main heroine is supposed to be. From googling how to access each route, I know there are routes for Hinae, Hana, Nono, and Uki (I really hope this one isn't romantic). This seems to imply none of them are the "main heroine," which leaves Kunosato and Serika. I'm really hoping it isn't Serika, so I'm guessing Kunosato? Character designs aside, I think I might actually like this more than Steins;Gate? Or at least I'm liking most of the content more, since I don't know if it'll have quite the same sort of payoff as Steins;Gate had. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 18:57
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food court bailiff posted:That's a lot of black bars. Yeah, one thing that confused me is the "those eyes, whose eyes are they" thing, which I thought had some extra significance because I didn't know it was a phrase used by the C;H protagonist that turned into a meme. And yeah, the New Generation Murders are from C;H, though I haven't read it (I just read some general summary). One thing I found funny in C;C (mild spoilers about a character's personality/connections, spoiled just in case) is that Kurisu and Daru would be friends/associates with someone with Kunosato's personality. I'm sure she has some motive/reason that hasn't been revealed yet, but she still acts like a total rear end in a top hat who makes Kurisu look like Mayuri or something in comparison. edit: Oh, another thing that I was thinking about the whole premise of C;C is that the whole real-booting thing would presumably lead to literally everyone in the world dying, if a "real" world independent of peoples' perception exists in the first place. Like, a single real-boot would cause a butterfly effect throwing everything out of whack, and people in the "real" world would stop eating/drinking because their movements would be out of sync with picking up food and what have you. Like, let's say a gigalomanic burns down a building. The "real" building is still there, so when they rebuild the building it would actually just be a bunch of people walking into the still-existing building or something (which would in turn throw off all their future movements). The real world would be a wasteland with the remaining human population starving, while everyone continues to perceive a normal world where most of the people they see no longer actually exist. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 21:03
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So I just finished the Hinae route, and if that was the good ending Jesus Christ this poor fucker never catches a break. Since I'm not sure exactly what happened (Hinae route spoilers) did Hinae just go crazy, or is what happened the result of whatever Hana's power is and a literal delusion world with delusion-Takuru was created? edit: By the way, my interpretation of the individual character routes (from having completed Hinae's and gotten into Hana's) is that Serika decides to just let the particular action/drama associated with those cases play out as a possible substitute to what she's doing, since she's basically okay as long as Takuru is "involved with things," since that was basically his wish. Her comment at the end of Hinae's route kind of supports this. edit2: Yeah, the end of Hana's route basically confirms my interpretation. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jan 3, 2018 |
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Jan 3, 2018 05:33
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3D GAY WORLD posted:Also, as far as Hinae's Good Ending, yeah, It's really a shame, since I think Arimura is probably the only heroine who has any chemistry with the protagonist. Like, it isn't hard to understand why she would enjoy being around this guy who is terrible at lying and lets his feelings show on his face, and conversely it isn't surprising that Miyashiro would grow to enjoy being around someone that he can drop his poseur facade around (since doing so is pointless due to her power). All the other girls don't seem to mesh particularly well with him, with Kurusu caring about him due to the family thing and Kazuki and him just having a suspension bridge effect thing going on. Oh, regarding her family stuff, the stuff with her mom was basically just always a thing, even before the "earthquake." Her current husband breaking up with her basically caused her to go nuts and blame her ex-family (and mostly Hinae). Regarding her brother, I'm not clear if it was just Hinae being delusional/paranoid, or if it was somehow the result of Kazuki's powers. I remember Kazuki said something like "I might have been my fault," but I'm not sure how Kazuki would have real-booted her brother, since there's no way for anyone around to have shared the same exact image of him. My guess is that Hinae saw her mom and just thought she was her brother since it was nighttime and she was paranoid. That aside, Kazuki's route was certainly A Thing, huh? Sure, the world is basically hosed at the end and Miyashiro/Kazuki are definitely going to be killed soon, but at least they totally owned the Committee of 300, whose plans for the world are basically ruined now. edit: One issue I have with whoever writes this whole series of VNs (all the "Science Adventure" games) is that they're often pretty bad about having antagonists who are randomly perfect at acting for months/years at a time and hiding their "crazy sociopath" side. Steins;Gate 0 also had this issue. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 02:39
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. Comes out of nowhere, and makes Hinae seem cursed (there's no route in which you actually get to know her and don't end up murdered by her mom). I forget exactly what causes all of the stuff with her brother/mom, but I seemnto recall it having something to do with her power. Something about realbooting her perception of the truth, in some form, into reality. And/or she just goes nuts.
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Actually, question about Arimura (assume spoilers related to the entire first play-through; I don't actually spoil any events past chapter 8, but I sort of indirectly reveal what hasn't been explained yet): Why did she tell Miyashiro that he was going to be killed? Early on I was under the impression that it was because she was involved or something, but since she wasn't and (I think) shouldn't have known about him having powers at that point, I'm not sure why she assumed he'd be killed. It could be because she was apparently close with Kakita and just assumed the people who killed him would come after any witnesses, I guess. Speaking of Kakita, her route never went into more detail on that. How did she meet him? Was she crying just because of the shock of presumably suddenly seeing her friend killed after being released from mind control? Does the true route cover that?
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Jan 4, 2018 22:55
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One thing I'm not totally clear on is how (spoilers related to all of the first playthrough) long Itou had been mind-controlled. Like, was he secretly hating Miyashiro and planning this all of the rest of the game prior, or did he just get hijacked for brief periods to send the IMs to himself and stuff. Also, regarding the bleeding eyes stuff, I get the impression it only does that when the person in question starts to feel there's a conflict between what they're being mind-controlled to believe and reality, since it only really seems to happen once the person starts getting confused or the mind control needs to heavily override reality (like when that guy was cutting his arm off). Obviously Itou's eyes weren't bleeding when, for example, he sent the knocking to his phone to creep out Miyashiro, or when Serika had herself mind-controlled. By the way, regarding Kakita, his power was mind reading, the exact same as Serika's. Which is, I think explicitly, a big reason he was killed; his power was a big risk. Regarding Kakita/Arimura, who knows how they met; maybe Kakita just noticed randomly that she was also a gigalomanic from reading her mind.
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Jan 6, 2018 22:09
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theblackw0lf posted:How in the world are you supposed to figure out the character routes in Chaos Child without a walk-through? Eh, to be fair most of them are just "do positive delusion for the girl you want, ignore the other girls." edit: Speaking of which, doesn't this sort of carry the implication that you're altering reality to hook up with the girls and possibly also make them interested in you? hepcat posted:I just started the 4th door of Fata Morgana and noticed something weird. I checked the backlog and noticed some word fragments and phrases had been x'd out even though I'd just read them. I check the back log frequently and did not notice this earlier in the game unless something (like the "Beast's" speech) was also X'd out in the main script. Is this some kind of bug, or is it actually relevant to the story? Also, it's only in that chapter, so you don't need to go back and reread other chapters' logs.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:42
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Also, regarding Fata Morgana, I would argue that Mell's crimes were not especially bad, particularly for a boy his age. His first crime was leading Yukimasa to Morgana because he threatened Nellie, which is totally understandable. His second crime is one of inaction and not helping Morgana in the tower. While this is kinda bad, it's hard to condemn a teenager in that situation too much for failing to take action, particularly with Yukimasa around. So it's mostly just a lack of bravery and a tendency to not take responsibility that he's guilty of, which isn't quite "grr, I hope he gets his!" territory. Jacapo is interesting because his crimes were actually super bad, but also very easy to understand. Not helping Morgana was really terrible and evil, but I understand his fear at revealing to her his responsibility for cutting her arm off and abducting her. He is probably my favorite character and I look forward to the expansion that involves him more.
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Jan 23, 2018 08:37
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Selane posted:And one of the reasons the writing is good is because what happens happens, things aren't going to always be conveniently wrapped up in a neat package just because it makes the reader feel better. [/spoiler] Actually, this pretty much does happen with his brothers. They both get a convenient redemption. And Michel and Giselle also get their happy ending reincarnation. Not that this is bad in any way, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as the sort of story that refuses to "wrap things up in a neat package" as you put it. By the way, regarding Fata Morgana, one thing I didn't realize/understand when I was playing that I feel like I should mention in case anyone else also didn't understand it is that Michel is intersex (confirmed by one of the developers apparently) and his "transformation" wasn't anything magical. When I initially read it I thought he just magically transformed into a conventionally male body (minus genitals), but in retrospect it's actually completely consistent with him basically being a feminine intersex boy growing up and then developing more masculine traits in puberty. It's kind of a neat thing since intersex people are pretty underrepresented in media, and particularly game media like this. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 23, 2018 |
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Jan 23, 2018 20:48
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kirbysuperstar posted:Vic Mignogna: Eyyy it's Yuka-taaaan IIRC it's actually not even Yuka-tan originally; it was Yukaricchi. (I think they were trying to do some pun with "Yucatan (peninsula)" or something and ended up using something that is also a casual honorific in the process) Truga posted:speaking of key, they have a new game coming in june and art actually looks... OK? I'm sad that it doesn't look like it's going to be another crazy action-y thing like Rewrite. Rewrite was kind of a mess, but I still had a lot of fun reading it. Dr. Video Games 0031 posted: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. Haha, I made the post above mentioning it being a mess before seeing this post. I still recommend it just because it's still pretty ambitious and entertaining. Snooze Cruise posted:I like to pretend Umineko is really about Eva, Rosa, and Natsuhi. I think Umineko might be the only one with older adults as major characters. Other VNs might have adults, but usually only ones in their 20s/30s, while Umineko spends a bunch of time with 40-50-somethings. Holy poo poo! I had just assumed this would never come out in English! Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:38 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 02:26
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Ryuga Death posted:Is the house of fata morgana a good read? I've read all the Danganronpas and am still going through Stein's Gate and the Nonary Games. It's easily the second best VN IMO, after Umineko, which is still first by a long shot. It's a much "tighter" story than Umineko, but its "core" isn't quite as interesting (though it's still really more interesting than most/all other VNs; I only mean that in comparison with Umineko which is exceptional in that regard). Since your post implies you haven't played Fata Morgana or Umineko, you should absolutely play both. Though make sure you get either the PS3 sprites or the original ones for Umineko, because the Steam version default sprites are loving awful (they give everyone big faces and give all the women huge boobs that they never had with either the original or PS3 sprites). edit: A lot of people have trouble with the original Umineko sprites (the ones that look all amateur-ish) for understandable reasons, but even if you choose to not use them I would still recommend looking at the original ones just because they're surprisingly good at conveying some nuances that the other sprites aren't (stuff like facial expressions and what have you).
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May 20, 2018 07:01
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CottonWolf posted:This is 100% my view. The end makes the rest of the game worse, and really soured my memory. There are bits that are genuinely very cleverly set up, but they're not enough to save itself from its ending. Just echoing this. Part of my enjoyment of the earlier game was based around trying to figure out what was going on (under the assumption that the answer would be something similarly entertaining to some of the reveals in the first two Zero Escape games). Now that I know the explanation isn't anything particularly good, it retroactively makes that stuff less interesting.
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Jun 4, 2018 20:53
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Radio Free Kobold posted:god i feel exactly the same way about g-senjou no maou. the whole first half of the game is this crime thriller, it keeps hinting that your alter-ego is the main villain, even the other characters are getting suspicious. there's lots of suspense and drama and i really really enjoyed it. it's like the whole thing is the setup for this psychological character drama where the big reveal is that actually YOU are the bad guy and the main character and all the heroines have to come to terms with that, and what that means for the main character's Self and all their relationships... Oh man, this was exactly my reaction. I was so excited for the (I thought) inevitable drama when it was revealed that the protagonist was doing this stuff, and love interest's (forget her name) reaction to it. But then it just introduced this random guy. What really bothered me is that a number of things don't even make sense in light of this revelation. Like, all the scenes where protagonist's memory loss just happens to perfectly coincide with Maou doing poo poo end up being some of the most absurd red herrings ever, and other stuff (like when the protagonist feels an inexplicable sense of accomplishment at love interest not catching Maou during chapter 1* - seriously, wtf?) makes zero sense unless the protagonist is also Maou. Part of me thinks that the writer was actually planning for that to be the twist, and then near then end he figured out that he couldn't come up with a good way to resolve the situation and decided to choose the easy route of just having there be some other villain. * This is really the worst, since it just flat-out literally has no other explanation. NRVNQSR posted:I felt GSnM dropped the ball in the last act too, but for very different reasons. The twist was a bit dumb and poorly handled but I didn't really have a problem with it; for me the problem was that I liked the main heroine, and the last act completely removes all of her personality and competence, becoming little more than a victim to be saved by the MC. This too; I feel like the switch to her loving the protagonist was very abrupt. Like they went from having this interesting relationship where she was suspicious and never let her guard down to her becoming a typical VN waifu suddenly in the final act. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jun 11, 2018 |
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Jun 11, 2018 23:00
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edit: assume full Higurashi spoilers for the spoiler bars below I feel like one way Higurashi kinda failed (where Umineko correspondingly didn't*) is that the "solution" to its mysteries wasn't really that great. Like, it fit and technically made sense, but not in a "ah ha!" sort of way or a way that felt thematically satisfying (specifically the reliance on a fake illness that causes hallucinations was not a very satisfying explanation for many of the story's mysteries, and I also feel like it went too far with certain red herrings). I prefer to approach that game from a perspective more focused on the characters and specific events than the mystery. * (Umineko spoilers)This isn't to say that Umineko had some brilliant mystery solutions or anything - pretty much every mystery boiled down to either Shannon/Kanon being the same person or them working with the servants + collaborator. But Umineko was primarily about the mystery of the culprit's motive than the specific mechanics of the murders themselves, and that was dealt with very well. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Jun 23, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 20:26
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What the gently caress is wrong with you guys, Krauss is obviously the best Ushiromiya.food court bailiff posted:I'm really trying to push past the boring intro and how much I hate most of the characters in Umineko (so far, at least) to get to the meat of it and keep my 7th Expansion fix going, and an offhand joking comment from Battler early on seems to be a callback to some stuff from Higurashi. Like, I know they're not directly related but it seemed like a wink and nod to the reader and has me wracking my brain trying to figure out if I can actually work any new theories or hints out from it. Umineko's biggest strength is the characters, so I would mostly focus on them. Knowledge of Higurashi in no way contributes to figuring out what's going on, aside from arguably being misleading in some ways.
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Jun 23, 2018 03:13
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While I agree playing Alternative is necessary (and even with my complaints it's definitely a fun page-turner), I'm of the seemingly unpopular opinion that Alternative is kind of overrated and Unlimited is actually a bit better. I liked the whole "there's all this poo poo going down but the plot isn't directly interacting with it" aspect Unlimited has, and I feel like a lot of the events in Alternative were kind of predictable* (this is mostly a complaint during the latter third or so; I liked the first half of Alternative a lot more). I mostly feel like Alternative started going downhill once they really got into the Beta fighting. I enjoyed everything up through the coup d'etat stuff a lot more. All this being said, most people seem to feel differently, so statistically speaking Sakurazaka is likely to as well (though the fact they enjoyed Unlimited so much means there's a decent chance their opinions will be similar to mine). As a random character-related comment, I found it really funny how pitiful Meiya's character is in Alternative. Poor girl friend-zones herself with all this "noble confidante" business. Takeru is all like "thank you so much for being my GOOD FRIEND, my NOBLE CONFIDANTE" and she's just like "yes I am okay with this, this is a fine state of affairs." * spoilers (so don't read Sakurazuka) Namely, the death of the Valkyrie squadron people and main girls was extremely predictable and crossed the line into melodrama. It wasn't bad exactly, but I feel like a lot of people were emotionally impacted by that and it just did nothing for me.
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Jun 28, 2018 20:43
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voltcatfish posted:i love death games It is my favorite trashy manga genre. The "kami-sama no iu toori" series (there are two that take place in the same story with different protagonists) are extremely entertaining.
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Jul 2, 2018 05:35
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Irony Be My Shield posted:It's been a while since I played MLA, but I thought the coup guys were in the wrong and ultimately the game sides with the need for international co-operation? While this is true, the shogun is portrayed almost 100% positively, like some avatar of perfect morality and selflessness, and (as mentioned) the coup guys are still portrayed as having good intentions and legitimate concerns. This is in contrast with the Americans who are generally portrayed as lovely/bad with the exception of a few Good Ones. Of course, I don't have the slightest issue with portraying America as being self-interested/bad, since that's pretty accurate, but it's more the contrast between that and the super-idealized way the shogun and Japan are portrayed that's strange (even when Japan does bad, it's has good intentions - which happens to be very similar to the narrative frequently used about WW2 in real life). It also feels like part of the "moral of that story" is that Takeru has things to learn about ~yamato damashii~ from Meiya.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:41
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Raxivace posted:Yeah its interesting that that seems to be a common sentiment among several of us who read Alternative for the first time within the last year or so. I can completely understand a teen/college-aged person preferring the more action-packed nature of Alternative (and being impacted by its drama more due to having less of a sense for anime tropes/cliches). I probably would have felt the same if I played it in college, instead of around the age of ~26/27. I think a big reason I liked Unlimited more is that a lot of its plot elements were just more interesting; I enjoyed the whole focus on the other characters growing up in a different culture where technology was different and people played cat's cradle and stuff. I really wish that the characters had been more interesting, though; I feel like Unlimited could have been truly great if its characters weren't as relatively cliche as they were. I feel like player response to the Muv-Luv games and player response to Umineko are a good gauge for someone's general VN taste, since it seems like VN readers are more or less split into two subgroups - people who really love Muv-Luv Alternative (more than Unlimited) and really dislike Umineko, and people who still like Alternative a lot (but don't think it's the best thing ever and might prefer Unlimited) and think Umineko is easily the #1 or #2 VN. The latter is probably sufficient as a litmus test on its own (since the gap between people who dislike it and people who think it's literally the best VN is so huge), but opinions on the former usually coincide with it. edit: One particularly weird thing about the people who recommend skipping Extra/Unlimited is that I think one of the cooler things the VN does is include a bunch of random references to the events of Alternative/Unlimited in Extra. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Jul 8, 2018 |
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Jul 8, 2018 07:09
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Raxivace posted:OTOH the idea of sitting through some of those George and Shannon scenes again seems like a bit much for me. I'm not sure if this is related to whatever specific problem you had, but (umineko spoilers) those scenes are supposed to be really uncomfortable, because George isn't a very good person. There's also a lot going on on Shannon's end that makes sense once you understand everything. It's also worth mentioning that Umineko does not explicitly explain everything. It gives who the culprit is, but never explicitly explains the full nature of their motive, and it seems like most players do not pick up on this on their own unless they spend a long time thinking about the game afterwards (there's only one line that directly references the biggest source of the motive, and many people end up with the false impression that Battler not returning was the only (or biggest) factor. I would strongly recommend this blog (http://goatsreadingseacats.tumblr.com/) for a reading of the game with a correct understanding of it in mind (with only a couple minor exceptions, like understandably being wrong about one minor detail of the Episode 3 murders). Yakiniku Teishoku posted:Yeah don't worry about it too much, it's a "mystery" in the sense of there are mystery trappings but it tends to other genres more later & you're not going to have actually spoiled the whole thing unless you started reading detailed character summaries or something (& even then I still think it would be well worth the read) To add to this, I was spoiled on the culprit fairly early (around episode 2 or 3) and it didn't negatively impact my playing of the game much at all. Mostly for the reasons you mention - the fact that the specific mechanics of the murders aren't the core of the mystery. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jul 14, 2018 |
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Jul 14, 2018 19:33
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