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English Translated Japanese Visual Novel/ADV Thread

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Y

Yuuichi

Member
For anyone interested, expect the new thread in about two weeks or so. Serious progress made today.

And let us all take a moment to get hype as hell for Light's 15th anniversary. I mean, how can you hate this or this (both SFWish, badass music warning).
 
K

Khezu

Member
So all week I have been horribly sick and unmotivated to move or leave my house.
I ended up somehow deciding to try out a visual novel since I haven't played one of those in like 10? years.

I ended up choosing to play Comyu, mostly because I liked the art, and the premise sounded cool.

Since I haven't played other VN, or even watch anime ever, I can't really compare it to anything, and generic anime tropes haven't been beaten into me yet.

Overall very mixed on the game, liked some stuff, hated others, but overall it kept me entertained through most of it and it seemed like a very long game, I didn't keep track, but it felt like I put 40-50 hours into it.
(Is that normal for the genre)?

At first I didn't realize how the story paths worked, I just thought it would just have multiple endings depending on what you did.

Some thoughts on each of the story paths.

Common
Overall I like this, I liked the position the character were put in, and having to try and come together and figure out how to handle the absurd situation they were thrown into. I'm a sucker for school settings in media and liked a lot of the rooftop scenes and characters. Enjoyed getting to know the characters. I thought Jack the Ripper was a pretty good conclusion and nice mini boss, he felt like a significant threat and did a lot.

Benio
This one is probably my favorite of the secondary paths, it felt like the most natural conclusion to the common path, and overall I liked Benio a lot more then the other characters, even if she was just a generic fun/happy character. Despite that, it's also the most disappointing, because the ending straight up sucked. The conclusion with ceaser seemed half ass, and even Akihito and her relationship never felt like it really got that far, at least compared to Mayuki/Kagome/Hisoka. Akihito seemed to like her, but also seemed like he was just humoring her because she liked him so much, I also hated how he so easily cheated on her, and continued to cheat on her with Rondo. It felt like there should have been more to this one.

Mayuki
I didn't like this path at first, after Benios path, it felt like it had nothing to do with the actual story.I did eventually warm up to it though, the crowd sourced anime plot was w/e, but I liked the character interaction between Akihito and Mayuki, even though I'm not super comfortable with the age difference
.

Ayaya
Hated this character, found her really annoying, and ended up skipping like 70% of it, thankfully it wasn't very long.

Hisoka
Just doing this after Mayukis path, the difference in tone was kinda crazy. I like this path the second best, the setup for underground arena monster fights was fun, even if it got super dark fast. Fuck Rondo and her friends. I think I like Hisoka's relationship the best, even if it was kinda awkward. I think I just have a thing for slightly anti social creepy girls. Kinda weird it had two endings.

Kagome
I liked Kagome a lot in the other paths and was really looking forward to this one, but I ended up not liking it very much. I liked it up until the Nomad fight, and then the plot goes in a direction I just don't care for. Sting being Kagomes avatar was brutally obvious by that point, so much so I was hoping it was just a fakeout, but nope. I liked her better as a "normal" person. It felt like they just wanted to make Kagome the best at
everything, and went way overboard on how powerful she and sting were 400x stronger then everyone else. Also just not a big fan of the system and how the terrorist attack was just another comyu war, just felt like a lot of unnecessary twists for the sake of it, and they didn't even really capitilize on any of them. Not to mention Kagome stampeding so soon after Hisoka just felt like a boring rehash. Also main character again cheats, the fuck Akihito.

Also some random thoughts.

The self aware humor got kinda old, and some of it may have flown over my head.
Inner monologe was kinda up it's own ass at times, trying to sound deep.
Monster battles got pretty repetitive, never really got a good figure on how powerful Babs was.
Haru and Izawa didn't get enough development, should have replaced Ayaya's path with a Izawa bromance path.
Sex scenes, I don't mind em, they have their place, but a handful of them didn't really need to be there.
Also like the monster battles, sex scenes also got pretty repetitive.
A few of the side characters felt wasted.
Pacing was spotty in some areas.
I still really like the overall concept of connectors and avatars, forcing strangers together or they die.

Overall I mostly enjoyed it, I don't think it's quality though, I just have poor taste, and for me to hate something, it has to be really god damn bad. If I ever came back to it, I would probably only play Hisoka and Benio's paths again. Well I'm not going to jump into the deep end of VN's any time soon, I will give some a try every now and again.
Honestly if I could read Japanese, and had a bigger pool of stuff to choose from, I could probably get pretty into it.
Also man, this post is a lot bigger then I thought would be, sorry about that, I'm still sick, and most of this is just floating around in my head still.
 
grim-tales

grim-tales

Member
Maybe some of us should let Aksys (who have published games with Arc System Works) know about this, given the popularity of ZE and Danganronpa even if theyre just cults in the scheme if things, maybe it could work.
It does sound really cool I agree.
 
Y

Yuuichi

Member
grim-tales said:
Maybe some of us should let Aksys (who have published games with Arc System Works) know about this, given the popularity of ZE and Danganronpa even if theyre just cults in the scheme if things, maybe it could work.
It does sound really cool I agree.
Click to expand...

Dunno how inclined ASW will be to bring something over after the disaster that was that xBlaze.
 
Y

Yuuichi

Member
R_thanatos said:
what happenned with x blaze .i actually bought it but i haven't played it.

Is it bad or did it just not sell well ?
Click to expand...

Both, as I understand it. Bombed critically (expected) and with fans (means it actually sucked).

New OT should be next weekend, I haven't had much free time and I lost a good part of what I did have to a VN related programming project (more on that soon[tm]).
 
D

DiscoShark

Banned
Decided to jump back into Grisaia after taking a bit of a break after finishing the Amane route and I'm honestly glad that I gave it another go. The Michiru route so far has been a much more rewarding experience. I think the most telling thing is that the transition between the common route and the first few scenes of the dedicated character route are far less jarring compared to what was seen in Amane's story. There's a focus here on the fragile relationship between the two characters that I don't think was as well enforced in Amane's route and where as the Amane route went on a rather large tangent into a scene in her past the Michuru route genuinely feels like a more natural extension of the common route into gradually more serious matters.

If anything I think Michuru was probably robbed in terms of her development in the common route, she's turning out to be far more interesting than what the VN really went out of its way to bother showing or alluding to. It being content to use her more as a tool for comic relief than a student of this particular academy with all the implications that come with that distinction. Given the length of the common route I don't think that that's really acceptable, I'd probably wage the same sort of criticism at Sachi as well.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
WEE raised 100k so that goal isn't so crazy considering Grisaia is a shit ton more popular and well known than it. The whole thing is pretty ambitious though.
 
A

aravuus

Member
Saw the only nsfw screenshot of it on vndb

Fucking nope

e:
6gVG8XO.png
nopenopenepo
 
G

gaiadyne

Member
Just finished Killer Queen with the remaining characters making it out alive and then...
There was an episode 2 * - *

Warning don't look at these spoilers if you haven't read Killer Queen!!!

Edit: Is that
His dead girl friend greeting him at the start of the second episode!?

Second Edit: Wow!
They killed off the love interest from the last route right off the bat. Why do I feel this is going to end up being a very depressing route
 
D

DiscoShark

Banned
The female lead in Killer Queen is really really terribly written and it's seriously hampering my enjoyment of the vn. Like it's difficult to take her seriously as a character in this environment if she can't stand any sort of near physical closeness to the main lead without forgetting everything and blushing or making everyone around her think that they're in a relationship after an hour of conversation. If this were a female protagonist in a different setting it may be more believable but this shit happens like 10 minutes after X number of people have their heads literally blown off.

Edit : It's like her actions in no way betray the situation that she's in right now. She may mope about for a few moments when she's separated from a group of people or someone she knows explodes into a bloody mist of gore but all of this is completely removed from her mind when senpai asks to hold hands! Like please die, seriously.
 
grim-tales

grim-tales

Member
Literally just started Killer Queen - looks like
I've been kidnapped - really getting a 999 vibe here - the room looks like a cross between a hospital and 999's 1st room you wake up in

Quite possibly Uchikoshi could have been influenced by it.
 
G

gaiadyne

Member
DiscoShark said:
The female lead in Killer Queen is really really terribly written and it's seriously hampering my enjoyment of the vn. Like it's difficult to take her seriously as a character in this environment if she can't stand any sort of near physical closeness to the main lead without forgetting everything and blushing or making everyone around her think that they're in a relationship after an hour of conversation. If this were a female protagonist in a different setting it may be more believable but this shit happens like 10 minutes after X number of people have their heads literally blown off.

Edit : It's like her actions in no way betray the situation that she's in right now. She may mope about for a few moments when she's separated from a group of people or someone she knows explodes into a bloody mist of gore but all of this is completely removed from her mind when senpai asks to hold hands! Like please die, seriously.
Click to expand...

She get's better by the end of of the story and helps Soichi get out of his flunk and one of the things she does while incredibly dumb was a little awesome

grim-tales said:
Literally just started Killer Queen - looks like
I've been kidnapped - really getting a 999 vibe here - the room looks like a cross between a hospital and 999's 1st room you wake up in

Quite possibly Uchikoshi could have been influenced by it.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately there aren't nearly as many set pieces in this VN as in 999 you'll be looking at largely the same type of rooms through most of it
 
A

aravuus

Member
DiscoShark said:
The female lead in Killer Queen is really really terribly written and it's seriously hampering my enjoyment of the vn. Like it's difficult to take her seriously as a character in this environment if she can't stand any sort of near physical closeness to the main lead without forgetting everything and blushing or making everyone around her think that they're in a relationship after an hour of conversation. If this were a female protagonist in a different setting it may be more believable but this shit happens like 10 minutes after X number of people have their heads literally blown off.
Click to expand...

Oh god

I was going to maybe try and possibly tolerate the loli bullshit cause the premise is interesting but this sounds fucking awful

This one's gotta have some pretty crazy twists to warrant a playthrough from me
 
G

gaiadyne

Member
Muntu said:
Oh god

I was going to maybe try and possibly tolerate the loli bullshit cause the premise is interesting but this sounds fucking awful

This one's gotta have some pretty crazy twists to warrant a playthrough from me
Click to expand...

The loli is really only in the second part so you can completely avoid her by just doing the first part and getting somewhat of a conclusive ending and the heroine does get better by the end. Can't say much about the twists to avoid spoilers but there are a few.

Wow!
One of the new characters in the second part is totally after that loli :(
 
grim-tales

grim-tales

Member
Very early KQ thoughts:
This Tezuka guy seems to have the game figured out.. but I dont like him. Something reminds me of Santa from 999 for some reason, cocky and arrogant (at first..). Not sure I trust that Nagasawa kid either.
The female lead is like a more annoying version of June from 999.
Whoever has the Q PDA must be the killer/culprit imo... no wait, or the J PDA
Ahhaa.. Battle Royale reference there... "a lot of children were on an island and forced to kill each other to remove exploding collars"
......
Oh FFS, now I know you and the female lead are going to be teased all the time about being bf/gf even though they only just met...
 
L

Lusankya

Member
Overall I like what I see in the first hour of Killer Queen, although I am a sucker for these kind of stories (group of people are confined somewhere and have to follow rules to potentially get out) and even enjoy the bad ones.
 
B

Burnburn

Member
I also started Killer Queen and after an hour I'm really not feeling it. Hopefully it just has a slow start and gets better later on!
 
grim-tales

grim-tales

Member
Lusankya said:
Overall I like what I see in the first hour of Killer Queen, although I am a sucker for these kind of stories (group of people are confined somewhere and have to follow rules to potentially get out) and even enjoy the bad ones.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I really like those sort of stories too, maybe because of the tension and mystery created behind them!
I think I can guess where this is going
I bet the female lead has the Queen card/PDA (though you're supposed to kill who has the Queen PDA) and they try and escape together. Or perhaps its 'Gouda....'
 
L

Li Kao

Member
Hello guys,

I'm sorta new to visual novels and figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to say hi and listen to games suggestions. Sorta new, because I played the first Ace Attorney ages ago and dropped 999 before it seemingly becomes fascinating. Now to be completely honest I have some preconceptions about Visual Novels. From my exterior and uneducated point of view, it looks like a lot of VN falls into 3 domains I want nothing to do with : gore-fest / underage porn / trauma inducing drama. Yup, preconceptions, and as there is nothing more enjoyable than discovering that you were wrong, here I am.
I'm presently reading Banshee's Last Cry on iOS but wouldn't mind something more visual to go with it. Ski lodges gets old pretty fast. The game so far is quite good, nothing very original or groundbreaking but totally enjoyable (if we don't talk about a particular sequence with the most stupid logic I've read in a long time).
If you have game recommendations, I'm all ears.

What tempts me greatly :
Steins;Gate (well I would really like Chaos;Head too)
Chou Dengeki Stryker uncensored, as it looks like an action trip and the girls don't looks like they are 8 years old (hey I never said I'm a prude)

What I have or have access to from friends or digital stores (not everything is pure Visual Novel) :
The Phoenix Wright series
999 / VLR
Danganronpa 1-2
Juniper's Knot
Dysfunctional Systems
World End Economica part 1
Planetarian iOS
Ghost Trick iOS
The Raven iOS
Dark London iOS
80 Days iOS

What I would like feedback on (well I take every feedback possible in fact) :
Kira Kira / Deardrops if like I imagine the porn is limited and these are good slice of lives
Go! Go! Nippon!
The Hakuoki series
Muv-Luv
Rose gun days

What excites me :
The What a Wonderful... series, I'm in love with the art style.

TL;DR new to the genre, what do I play ?
 
M

Madison Paige

Member
Li Kao said:
The Phoenix Wright series
999 / VLR
Danganronpa 1-2
Click to expand...
For a first foray into the VN genre as a whole, I'd recommend all of these. Hotel Dusk/Last Window are excellent as well. These games were pretty much my gateway into VNs. I'd say save STEINS;GATE for after you've played a few of these, but it's incredible and highly recommended.
 
O

OceanBlue

Member
I need to reread Planetarian to see how it holds up. Planetarian was my gateway VN and I enjoyed it. It's a very short read.

Of course, all of the games Madison Paige recommended are very good. Ghost Trick is also generally grouped with those games.
 
grim-tales

grim-tales

Member
Banshee's Last Cry sounds interesting, is there anyway to play that without IOS?
Phoenix Wright was pretty much my first foray into Visual Novels as well which were excellent (I even played bad ones like Flower Sun Rain, and okay ones like Jake Hunter) - then 999/VLR.
 
C

Crash Station

Member
Roughly how long is Killer Queen? I'm like 3-4 hours in and it seems really disjointed. Sometimes it feels like multiple story opportunities have been outright skipped and they're just rushing through the game. I also don't feel the presentation really gives off the sense of tension that is clearly trying to be communicated.

On top of all that, it's also kind of boring...
 
G

gaiadyne

Member
cosmicblizzard said:
Roughly how long is Killer Queen? I'm like 3-4 hours in and it seems really disjointed. Sometimes it feels like multiple story opportunities have been outright skipped and they're just rushing through the game. I also don't feel the presentation really gives off the sense of tension that is clearly trying to be communicated.

On top of all that, it's also kind of boring...
Click to expand...

It took me like 7 plus hours to get through the first part still playing through the second so I can't say for sure.

Edit: I just beat the second part and it was a little shorter than the first route. Very amusing interactions in the omake after beating the main story.
 
grim-tales

grim-tales

Member
I agree about the disjointed feeling, it feels like they could make a lot more of certain plot areas, and the tension and terror seems lacking given the overall situation so far. Eg
The group just went to the top floor just like that? Where's the tension?
Edit: Whoa!
Could Tezuka be behind the whole thing posing as a contestant perhaps?
 
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