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Visual Novels Community Thread | A Little Something for Everyone

So yeah, about two hours ago, I finally finished The House in Fata Morgana. And I must say, it was one of the most touching experiences of my life. The one thing before I go into a spoiler-tagged, emotion-addled rant is that this is likely the best OST I've seen in a visual novel. The consistent quality of the tracks is just so, so good. (Yes, I have played Umineko :p)

I had two parts of the VN that I really liked the most: the first off is the first scenes you come into the mansion, and anything before door 4 outside the doors, really- I really liked the somber and sad aura The Maid gave off, there was a sad beauty to it that I really, really enjoyed. I do not think I would have been saddened or bothered much if we never really knew The Maid's past or personality, but that doesn't mean I didn't think the chacacter development we got on all fronts was fucking stellar. The soundtracks (especially Desolation BGM accompanied by the fire crackling, and those great CGs and the incredible sprites despite the game being 4:3 and a lack of VA (debatable) helped immensely as well, and it felt lonely, truly lonely. It's about the levels of the effect Umineko creates with its own blurry CGs, its own utterly stellar OST, and the rain SFX).

The second part is the the fourth and fifth doors. Everything about that part of the story, from atmosphere to the innocent, idyllic tragedy, to Giselle's smiles, to witnessing Michel's story of personal redemption through Giselle. It was incredible, it was wondrous, it was harrowing, it was beautiful. I'm not a person that really seeks out stories of romance save for works I've taken an interest in by other means, and The House In Fata Morgana was no exception. That did not keep it from being a wonderful tale, although even by the end of the fifth door it felt as if like it were more of a story that heaved on the "beauty" side of things. Repeatedly going back to scenes from the fourth door in the fifth was a really heavy gut punch, especially seeing as how it tangibly shifted my perspective and emotions surrounding those scenes. This unraveling was something utterly unforgettable and special, especially because it could not have been brought out if I were not incredibly invested in the romance. I applaud the VN for that.

The sixth door, I feel, could have done with perhaps some expansion and brought to the length of the other Doors- as it was, the cruelties brought upon Morgana couldn't quite carry the emotional weight they could have with some more build-up. This was made up for to quite an extent in the later doors.

As for the seventh door... That was a very heavy door, especially because it went places I absolutely did not expect a visual novel to, but I am really glad it did. It bore no punches, and honestly, reading that door felt utterly miserable- a perspective I've not experienced before. As far as I can tell, it was done tastefully too. Returning yet again to Giselle and Michel's happier days after that door was incredibly moving- seeing the people who found love and redemption in that house for who they truly are, the trials they faced, knowing their sorrows and their glee- already heavy scenes packed an even larger punch anew. It really got to me.

I focused so much on the fourth door and onwards because the Giselle-Michelle arc is what got to me the most. I do like that there was redemption for Morgana as well, but I felt that the whole arc after that dragged on somewhat. Georges being the painting and Didier's appearance didn't do much for me- at this point it felt more like "You get redeemed, and you get redeemed, everybody gets redeemed!"- the game managed to ride the "Okay, we are probably reaching the endgame" feeling and the tension it brought for more or less two thirds of the whole damn game, and that's an incredible feat for Fata Morgana's storytelling. It was only by the last 15-30 minutes that it wore thin for me. The very endgame kind of took me out of the atmosphere, but that that CG with them smiling in each other's arms was beautiful, and however saccharine and someone cliché, it felt like a deserved ending in almost every manner possible, and I love it for that.

9.5/10 for me. Such a beautiful experience.
 
So i guess i should put a reminder sometimes to get the house of fata morgana when a sale happen.
i've decided to stop buying New Vn untill i've cleared my backlog ( and damn it's hard to not waver )

And that re:zero game is going to have so many bad ends lol .. hopefully the normal end is going to be worth it
 

Jazz573

Member
Grisaia Kickstarter Update #56: Monthly update #11

Hi backers, It’s time for another monthly update.

Our primary focus at this stage is to get the 18+ version of Labyrinth released as soon as possible. Overall translation is over 80% complete, and we are looking to be moving into the technical and testing stage next month for a release this fall. Thanks for your patience as we work on this in parallel with the Eden translation.

On that note, Eden TL work is 64% complete, and we should have a clearer idea of a release date soon.

The Unity port for Fruit is also essentially done, but we now need to start the integration of various platform specific code and QA testing.

This is a large and complex project, but please rest assured we're getting closer and closer to completing it.
 
So it happenned i finally cleared this game:

20160829204143.png

So yeah i was playing Hakuoki PS3 those last 3 weeks.. It's weird because i played the psp version ( and i still have that version ) but couldn't get into it .. but for some reason that one managed to grab me.
I guess i need that big screen to enjoy my vns and my 5.1 ?

Anyway hakuoki , i never watched the anime, i knew the characters the game took inspiration from and that's it .. and overall the game's good but has some flaws in term of writing . The pacing is quite uneven across chapters 1 & 2 , the game only becomes intresting at the end of chapter 2 and is finally good once chpater 3 is there.. maybe it's the absurd amount of characters and the way you're never sure what choice will move you toward a certain path or not .. i was throughly confused at first. Once i've finished the game once i took a faq and only then i understood the structure and how basic is was ... but untill that point i was actively making moves toward a certain character only to completely miss the mark.

The visual are ok , ON PS3 , unlike the psp there was some nice after visual effects , especially on the fires ..and that's it .. the characters are nicely animated and expressive but ..just enough.

The only good point is that i like the cast .. each route has nice strenghts and few weaknesses but each route only focus on one specific aspect of the game , never more .. i'm a little annoyed they didn't put any risk in the writing except one route..

-Hijikata route is the cannon route and the longest .. while not bad , it wasn't great. It did have some big emomtional moments at certains points .. it was ok , but it wasn't that fulfilling.

-Okita route surprised me , especially by the bad ends it contains .. Bittesweet yet full of hope, it's the only route that deal with a specific aspect of the heroine ,
her angry brother
.. Why this aspect of the game ignored in EVERY other scenario i have no idea , since it worked Very well and could have added something great elsewhere in the game.

-Saito Route probably the most conflicted and the most fight heavy , not by the number of fights but by their intensity. Very enjoyable for a character that becomes open way too late in the game.

-Toudou route is probably the funniest route to watch , and also the only route where i didn't see the twist coming
i mean imagining that
sannan would kidnap sen to try to brainwash her and create a vampire empire ? forcing kazama and toudou to co-operate ?
Give me this kind of crazy fun EVERY DAY. Especially when the ending went full shonen on me. #fun

-Harada route had SO MUCH BROMANCE in it , i don't know where to begin . Harada conflict and direct approach was certainly a welcome change only amplified by the ending.

-Kazama ending was a total disapointment. Don't get me wrong , Kazama is a Great VILAIN but his route didn't have a real pay-off , it was only a conclusion for the shinsengumi. Hopefully the "Memories" mode did correct this mistake by fully explainig his side of the argument . Now he's fine

Overall i really enjoyed the game. The quality was good the sound track was fine the characters did their job and the writing could have been a little bit improved for more consistency.
My only problem is .. SEN .
Sen , what a waste just like the other character i spoilered above , she only trully shines in 1 route and disapears in many others. She wasn't a bad character either , how i wish they could have used her more across all chapters .. Feels like a missed opportunity.

This game is a solid 7.5/10 . I enjoyed it.

Time to finally start kindred spirits on a roof
 

Taruranto

Member
Finished Higanbana.

Overall I'm pretty satisfed, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to take a break from long, time consuming novels. It's basically a bunch of short, well paced (except the last one) stories.

The best stories were probably the 3th and the 5th, the fourth was nice too and so was the second.

The seventh was the one I dislike the most: The prologue felt like it could work like a 8th story, the final twist felt very stupid
lol magical bullying.
I kinda understand why R07 did that since ultimately the 7th story is basically a continuation to the 1th and the conclusion to Marie's arc, but meh.

Speaking of Marie, I really liked her character. She becomes a positive character without feeling like a "purity sue" and she makes plenty of mistakes. (I think she ultimately fails more than anything)

I also liked Higanbana character, I've seen people describing her as a "Reskinned Bernkastel", but she's more like a cross-over between 34 and Bernkastel. She can be evil and ruthless , but she mostly acts within reasons and seems to genuinely like Marie, albeit in her own way.
 

JulianImp

Member
Finished Higanbana.

Overall I'm pretty satisfed, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to take a break from long, time consuming novels. It's basically a bunch of short, well paced (except the last one) stories.

The best stories were probably the 3th and the 5th, the fourth was nice too and so was the second.

The seventh was the one I dislike the most: The prologue felt like it could work like a 8th story, the final twist felt very stupid
lol magical bullying.
I kinda understand why R07 did that since ultimately the 7th story is basically a continuation to the 1th and the conclusion to Marie's arc, but meh.

Speaking of Marie, I really liked her character. She becomes a positive character without feeling like a "purity sue" and she makes plenty of mistakes. (I think she ultimately fails more than anything)

I also liked Higanbana character, I've seen people describing her as a "Reskinned Bernkastel", but she's more like a cross-over between 34 and Bernkastel. She can be evil and ruthless , but she mostly acts within reasons and seems to genuinely like Marie, albeit in her own way.

The black tea gentleman chapter was great, and I liked that the one with the girl with the eyepatch could actually be solved if you still insisted on applying Umineko logic to analyze it despite how the previous arcs had strongly relied on supernatural phenomena for their narrations. The final chapter felt a bit weird in that it kept dragging on and on after a while, and Sumire's twist was meh and only served to further prolong the chapter's agony, IMO, even though I did like how annoyed and powerless the narration made me feel as the girl had no one to turn to in order to escape the class-wide bullying... the whole "bullying addiction" stuff was pretty hard to palate, though.

It was kind of nice how the second arc was later referenced in the sixth (I think) and seventh arcs, establishing some kind of continuity rather than having all stories be completely isolated from each other, and can't wait to go through the second disc once it gets released on 3DS (hopefully soon).
 

Jazz573

Member
SP has made no indication that they are localizing an 18+ version of this game.

They have actually. If you go on the page for the Kickstarter, they offer Nutaku keys on some of the tiers.

And the only problem they ever had with Kickstarter was with the Grisaia Kickstarter, because they openly advertised the fact there were dakimakuras (adult ones that is).
 
They have actually. If you go on the page for the Kickstarter, they offer Nutaku keys on some of the tiers.

And the only problem they ever had with Kickstarter was with the Grisaia Kickstarter, because they openly advertised the fact there were dakimakuras (adult ones that is).
I hadn't looked at the KS yet. This is new news.

I don't really have a problem with a Kickstarter being used to sell some physical goods, but it says January 2017 for expected delivery, haha. The game is only 31% translated, there's no way it will ever make that date.
 

Yuuichi

Member
It says January 2017 for release date, haha. The game is only 31% translated, there's no way it could ever make that date.
Especially not at the rate they translate things.

For anyone concerned about 18+, you're not missing much if they exclude it. All the H content is in another menu after you finish routes in the game, which really pissed people off in Japan.
 
Edit: I spoke a little too soon here, sorry (which is not to say that what I said has changed, just that our current official answer has).
 

JulianImp

Member
So, I'm finally back to doing some fan translations of VNs, this time directly to Spanish. From my research using the character names, it looks like the game has rather mundane H-content later on according to VNDB, but even then I've asked to be handed non-H scripts since I'd rather not have a hand in translating those kinds of scenes with how cringe-worthy they usually are.
 
PQube can tease all they like. Just please be Chaos;Head or even better, Robotics;Notes. I'd settle for Chaos;Child, but it's not the one I'm most after.
 
As long as they're still releasing visual novels for the PlayStation®Vita, I'm good.

Would just be a shame to play Chaos;Child without Chaos;Head, considering the links between them that I've read about. But I can't see PQube going after a Vita/PS3 VN in 2016 (or planning the PC release, which they haven't seemed interested in for previous games).
 

Shizuka

Member
Would just be a shame to play Chaos;Child without Chaos;Head, considering the links between them that I've read about. But I can't see PQube going after a Vita/PS3 VN in 2016 (or planning the PC release, which they haven't seemed interested in for previous games).

Maybe 5pb will re-release older SciADV titles for PS4/PC.
 

JulianImp

Member
The US Nintendo direct has announced Ace Attorney 6 will be releasing next week. Hype! ...Even though I won't be buying it for a while.
 
Perhaps. They already had fairly lukewarm sales from re-releasing them on Vita in Japan and I can't see PS4 versions doing better:

Steins;Gate 2013 5pb 958 / 13,628
Robotics;Notes Elite 2014 5pb 5,467 / 10,853
Chaos;Head Dual 2014 5pb 4,662 / 7,945

edit: Haha, and as soon as I make this post PQube announce they're publishing on Steam now. There is hope!

If anyone publishes these games on Steam, it'll be 5pb./MAGES. That's what they're doing with Steins;Gate and I assume that S;G 0 and C;C are in the pipeline.
 
Finally going to give Steins;Gate another try this weekend. Got it when it launched on Vita and played about 2 hours of it. Thought it was OK. Mostly boring.

Hoping it clicks this time!
 
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