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Visual Novels Community Thread | A Little Something for Everyone

L

Lain

Member
Indiegala has a cheap bundle (1.99$) with some (Steam) VNs:

eden* (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
X-note (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~ (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
The Clans - Saga of the Twins Deluxe Edition (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
Blue Rose (STEAM) + STEAM TRADING CARDS
Super Chain Crusher Horizon (STEAM)
Project Root (STEAM)
Click to expand...
 
M

Marche90

Member
Holy crap, that's what I call a quality bundle. You guys think that this bundle is thread-worthy? I mean, Higurashi for $2? Plus Eden is so, so worth that price of admisión.
 
T

Twin Tails

Member
I bought it and already own some.
Quote for Eden* cause that game too good to just put up code.
Steam keys for games you'll never play!
Go! Go!
8DK4G-CEAR6-EYKI6
X-note
CMYYI-C3405-K9E0Y
The Clans
8H9KB-IIPGB-JR42C
Blue Rose
8RKN6-BHIX7-J3BCH
Super Chain Crusher Horizon
8QJPZ-XFL7Y-KP6HJ
Project Root
8M98P-6J29H-D29V4
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
J

JulianImp

Member
cosmicblizzard said:
I was happier when it was outright revealed.

I like mysteries when they confirm or deny my suspicions regarding important plot points, not leaving them up in the air so the answer can be interpreted differently. That's perfectly fine with some things, like subtle hints at familial relationships between characters, or even a character's background that is only given basic info throughout a story with several connecting hints sprinkled throughout; stuff like that. Other things, not so much.

As I said before, the identity of the culprit, or in an even more ridiculous case Umineko is guilty of, the CONTENT OF THE ACTUAL STORY, are not things I want out of a mystery. Maybe it's my dislike of the unreliable narrator trope when taken to such an extreme, or maybe I'm just disappointed in the lack of any "culprit breakdowns" that I enjoy so much in the Japanese side of this genre. Either way, it's made me dread playing through ep 8 because I know I won't find a conclusion that I find satisfying.
Click to expand...

I actually loathe the culprit breakdown trope after having watched 700-something episodes of Detective Conan and TLing about fifty of them, but that's not something I'll argue in objective terms since I know that's not how preferenecs work.

Still, the whole point of Umineko is to learn the content of the actual story in spite of (or sometimes thanks to) the wicked witches' meddling. While it is a murder mystery, the way it's presented deconstructed the genre and took it in an interesting new direction that I really appreciated.

For example, when we explored Erika's past she states that she came to the conclusion that
her boyfriend was cheating on her
because of circumstantial evidence and conjectures (blue truth), as well as the fact that humans can't use something as convenient as red truth (which is absolute in the Umineko universe). It could be a way to tell you that yeah, it's really convenient that witches began spouting red truth that you can label as absolute, but even that requires a relationship of trust between you and them, much in the same way readers play along a mystery novel's author knowing that the game is supposed to be solvable without having to be inside the author's mind (so we're actually speaking about fair-play mysteries).

Still, when you're done reading the main episodes I think you really should look into the "Our Confession" supplementary story, which has Beatrice show Dlanor the "guts" of a half-written story, explaining how
things would actually work out behind the scenes in that specific game (which isn't any of the games covered in Eps 1-8), and how she would later add magical elements to obscure the truth
. Again, you won't be able to "unlearn" this, which is something that Umineko warns you about all the time. Once you know the inner workings of the story and the main tools that characters could use to move it forward, you can very easily
deny the illusion of the witch
... but is it actually worth it? The series asks you that, and then adds that, unlike in the witche's meta-world, our world has nothing as convenient as a single, absolute answer to that question.

...Sorry for the wall of text, and if anybody notices something I should've spoiler tagged please let me know by PM so that I can fix it.
 
S

Shiina

Member
c8604280de.png
 
D

Dio

Banned
Marche90 said:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT:

A Muv-Luv official localiaztion is happening

Welp, that's something I didn't expected to happen.
Click to expand...

They're just reusing Ixrec's fan translation. They're not even using the money to retranslate the game (not that it needs to, the fan TL is fine as is.)

Maybe they just need the money for licensing voices, since that's probably more expensive than I give it credit for. All I know is that the actual translation's been done for years and they're pretty damn late to the party.
 
J

Jazz573

Member
Dio said:
They're just reusing Ixrec's fan translation. They're not even using the money to retranslate the game (not that it needs to, the fan TL is fine as is.)

Maybe they just need the money for licensing voices, since that's probably more expensive than I give it credit for. All I know is that the actual translation's been done for years and they're pretty damn late to the party.
Click to expand...


Well, it's good for the people that don't want to shell out a large sum of money to import the games. Though there does seem to be a digital version.
 
C

CrimsonFist

Member
Dio said:
They're just reusing Ixrec's fan translation. They're not even using the money to retranslate the game (not that it needs to, the fan TL is fine as is.)

Maybe they just need the money for licensing voices, since that's probably more expensive than I give it credit for. All I know is that the actual translation's been done for years and they're pretty damn late to the party.
Click to expand...

They also need to fix it to run on Windows 8 without crashing, and run in general without Japan local, and also sub the cutscenes, unless there was a patch to fix those things that I missed.

Never thought we'd see Muv Luv get an official localization though, that's great news.
 
G

gaiages

Banned
That's great about Muv Luv. Now I just need to wait a little longer and I can play the games without the headaches of applying (or rather failing to apply) and English patch :3
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Jazz573 said:
July 2nd can't come soon enough.

Edit: Apparently Degica is going to be doing a kickstarter for a localization of Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative.
Click to expand...

Oh shit. I was not expecting this, especially from a new entrant in the VN localization business.

CrimsonFist said:
They also need to fix it to run on Windows 8 without crashing, and run in general without Japan local, and also sub the cutscenes, unless there was a patch to fix those things that I missed.

Never thought we'd see Muv Luv get an official localization though, that's great news.
Click to expand...
They'll also have to change the game to get it on Steam. I wonder if they'll have access to the console assets.
 
J

Jazz573

Member
Basileus777 said:
Oh shit. I was not expecting this, especially from a new entrant in the VN localization business.


They'll also have to change the game to get it on Steam. I wonder if they'll have access to the console assets.
Click to expand...

There is actually an official all-ages Windows release for Extra/Unlimited, and Alternative.
 
J

jonjonaug

Member
I'm really happy at the possibility of Muv Luv officially in English...but there's a couple things that make me wary of this.

1. From what I can tell through the grapevine (twitter and IRC channel people), this is just reusing the existing translation as-is. Muv Luv isn't exactly "ruinable" in the same way Cross Channel or the good parts of Rewrite are, but the translation not being touched up at all is a little worrying. This leads to...

2. age is notoriously difficult to work with. If Muv Luv is successful, that's great. But would a quality studio be willing to work with them is the future question. Degica publishes small RPGs and shmups, not visual novels with huge scripts. I find it difficult to think that this will lead to quality releases of the rest of the Muv Luv franchise. Releases maybe, but not particularly good ones.

3. The rest of the games in the franchise are mostly 18+ and PC only outside of Total Eclipse, so they aren't as financially attractive like the all ages release of the main games in the franchise are. My hope is that we'd get Altered Fable or the Chronicles games eventually out of this, but we'd probably just get Total Eclipse and nothing else.
 
J

Jazz573

Member
Just finished two more VNs. First one was Juniper's Knot, a nice short VN, that I'd heard was pretty good so I decided to check it out. Then I played 1000 Words. It's a very short VN (2-3 minutes), but it has a touching story. I'm going to play eden* next, and then hopefully I can get myself back on track with Baldr Sky, since I've not played it in almost 2 weeks, mainly because I've been too focused on just reading GAF instead of actually playing my games. :p
 
C

Crash Station

Member
See, this Umineko ep sums up pretty much everything I don't like about how things have played out so far.

The entire point of this seems to be concealing the truth. The portrayal is wildly in favor of showing the illusion side as the "right" one. Everything from the presentation to the deranged portrayals of Ange and Bernkastel to the former's exorbitant cost of learning the truth paints them as the opposing side. Even the goats, who clearly represent the audience that want to know what the fuck is happening, are shown as ravenous invaders that have no right to break the illusion. The good guys are pretty much doing everything in their power to make sure that won't happen, and because of that and what I've been able to gather from the posts in here, they'll succeed.

Is it a deconstruction? Sure, in the most unsatisfying way possible. The scary, yet moving nature of being crusaders for truth in other stuff in this medium like Danganronpa and Persona 4 is turned on its head in a way that just makes me see this as a massive waste of time. Hell, there was a protagonist in this that tried to reach out to the truth. The hell happened to that?
Battler's flipped role is among the most unsatisfying things here. Instead of becoming the badass "Phoenix Wright of magic" that I wanted him to be, he ended up becoming just another witch that speaks in riddles and non-answers.

Honestly, some of the dialogue is even making me think Ryukishi is intentionally giving a massive middle finger to the readers. But hey, with how many people like it, that either failed or I'm completely misinterpreting it. Either way, this is absolutely NOT the Higurashi successor I wanted.
 
C

calc84maniac

Member
Basileus777 said:
Now this really needs context.
Click to expand...

Well, it says it's not related to ≪Cert Dead≫, I guess.

When it hits the end of the hour I'll grab those counters and figure out when the first one is counting down to (seems to be sometime on July 2 at this point) and when the second one is counting up from (seems to be around the start of 2014).
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
cosmicblizzard said:
See, this Umineko ep sums up pretty much everything I don't like about how things have played out so far.

The entire point of this seems to be concealing the truth. The portrayal is wildly in favor of showing the illusion side as the "right" one. Everything from the presentation to the deranged portrayals of Ange and Bernkastel to the former's exorbitant cost of learning the truth paints them as the opposing side. Even the goats, who clearly represent the audience that want to know what the fuck is happening, are shown as ravenous invaders that have no right to break the illusion. The good guys are pretty much doing everything in their power to make sure that won't happen, and because of that and what I've been able to gather from the posts in here, they'll succeed.

Is it a deconstruction? Sure, in the most unsatisfying way possible. The scary, yet moving nature of being crusaders for truth in other stuff in this medium like Danganronpa and Persona 4 is turned on its head in a way that just makes me see this as a massive waste of time. Hell, there was a protagonist in this that tried to reach out to the truth. The hell happened to that?
Battler's flipped role is among the most unsatisfying things here. Instead of becoming the badass "Phoenix Wright of magic" that I wanted him to be, he ended up becoming just another witch that speaks in riddles and non-answers.

Honestly, some of the dialogue is even making me think Ryukishi is intentionally giving a massive middle finger to the readers. But hey, with how many people like it, that either failed or I'm completely misinterpreting it. Either way, this is absolutely NOT the Higurashi successor I wanted.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that one of the founders of 07th Expansion died before the Umineko story could be finished, which almost certainly darkened the finale's outcome.
 
C

Crash Station

Member
cj_iwakura said:
Keep in mind that one of the founders of 07th Expansion died before the Umineko story could be finished, which almost certainly darkened the finale's outcome.
Click to expand...

Oh... did not know that. There's a far more depressing lingering tone here than the others which I found jarring, but it makes sense if the creator had lost someone recently. That's pretty sad.
 
J

JulianImp

Member
cosmicblizzard said:
See, this Umineko ep sums up pretty much everything I don't like about how things have played out so far.

The entire point of this seems to be concealing the truth. The portrayal is wildly in favor of showing the illusion side as the "right" one. Everything from the presentation to the deranged portrayals of Ange and Bernkastel to the former's exorbitant cost of learning the truth paints them as the opposing side. Even the goats, who clearly represent the audience that want to know what the fuck is happening, are shown as ravenous invaders that have no right to break the illusion. The good guys are pretty much doing everything in their power to make sure that won't happen, and because of that and what I've been able to gather from the posts in here, they'll succeed.

Is it a deconstruction? Sure, in the most unsatisfying way possible. The scary, yet moving nature of being crusaders for truth in other stuff in this medium like Danganronpa and Persona 4 is turned on its head in a way that just makes me see this as a massive waste of time.

Honestly, some of the dialogue is even making me think Ryukishi is intentionally giving a massive middle finger to the readers. But hey, with how many people like it, that either failed or I'm completely misinterpreting it. Either way, this is absolutely NOT the Higurashi successor I wanted.
Click to expand...

I like Ryukishi's progression, since Umineko takes Higurashi logic and deconstructs it, and then Higanbana also plays with the expectations you might have from having read Umineko and turns them on its head.

I get that the later episodes go to great lengths to show
how Ange's fixation with the truth was really self-destructive for her, and how self-delusion as a coping mechanism was a possible way to save herself and move forward with her life
, but I can't honestly say it was bad. It actually made me challenge the overly formulaic way I used to read mystery novels in, since Umineko doesn't take itself like a simple riddle where the only goal is to answer who, what, when, where and why before moving on to something else. The fact that
not everything is answered outright means you can continue debating about it with others almost endlessly... which is a perfect meta-concept for Umineko, since that's exactly what the series was doing with itself in-universe
. I would've loved reading each new episode as they were released, since I heard the community that gathered and debated about hints and red herrings, theories and leaps of logic and so on was really something back then.

Even if you didn't like the whole package, what did you think of the purple truth segment? I think that, given your concerns with the VN as a whole, that part might've been more to your liking, even if it was more or less a watered-down version of what you had been reading through for over seventy hours by the time you got there.
 
C

calc84maniac

Member
So it seems the first timer is counting down to July 2, 2015 12:00 PM PDT (I used Pacific Time under the assumption that it has something to do with Anime Expo), and the second timer is counting up from January 1, 2014 midnight in Japan time zone. If I didn't miscalculate anywhere. I don't see anything interesting at noon July 2 on the Anime Expo schedule, though.
 
J

jonjonaug

Member
Vylash said:
i was excited at first but it's just the pc version and not the ps3 version so i probably won't bother
Click to expand...

Since it's a Steam release, it is very likely that the release here will be the "Windows 7 support edition" (18+ version of the 360 ports), but with the all ages versions of scenes added back in. It won't be the original PC release, since that has technical problems on modern Windows. It'll likely basically be the same thing as buying the 360/PS3 version.
 
A

aravuus

Member
Muntu said:
I might give MLA another go then, the new localization could make it a bit more interesting. And now that I know what I'm actually getting into, I won't be so disappointed lol

Not that the fan translation was particularly bad or anything like that

e: oh it's NOT getting re-translated? nvm then!
Click to expand...

Fuck it, I'll give it another try anyway later this week. Or maybe I'll even start today, if I can get it to work on Win 8.1.

At least I can skip extra and unlimited this time around.
 
D

Dracandros

Banned
This is a crazy day. It's a shame that the Indiegala bundle probably won't support Minori's fund-raising effort at all though, but it's still worth it.

The Muv-Luv news is really exciting, but there is one question (based partially on my very little and practically useless understanding of the anime :D ) that I would need answered

Is this a visual novel that uses physical horror or gore all that often to get its message(s) across? I would prefer if it had none or very little of it.

I do not enjoy that kind of material at all - in fact, I get an instant negative reaction from it that usually ruins the moment around it.
 
A

aravuus

Member
Dracandros said:
This is a crazy day. It's a shame that the Indiegala bundle probably won't support Minori's fund-raising effort at all though, but it's still worth it.

The Muv-Luv news is really exciting, but there is one question (based partially on my very little and practically useless understanding of the anime :D ) that I would need answered

Is this a visual novel that uses physical horror or gore all that often to get its message(s) across? I would prefer if it had none or very little of it.

I do not enjoy that kind of material at all - in fact, I get an instant negative reaction from it that usually ruins the moment around it.
Click to expand...

No idea why you spoiler tagged your question, but I guess I'll do mine too lol

There's the one couple of hour long arc in MLA that's pretty much there to just shock you with gore and heart-wrenching deaths but other than that, I don't remember it being very gory at all. Can't say I'm 100% certain, though, cause I actually enjoy gore if it's well made and it's been a while since I played MLA.

If gore bothers you, though, I gotta mention that all of the three games have some pretty fucking stupid sex scenes too. Pretty sure I recall a
tentacle rape
scene for example
 
P

podracer35

Member
Lain said:
Indiegala has a cheap bundle (1.99$) with some (Steam) VNs:
Click to expand...

So glad I saw this before the deal was over. Haven't heard about any of them other than Eden* and Higurashi, but at that price, it'd be criminal not to get the bundle! >_<


Also, my interest in Muv-Luv has been piqued... Got slightly spoiled in that other announcement thread, but eh, it happened with Ever17 and I still had a blast! (*Adds Muv-Luv to the growing list of VNs I need to play*)
 
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