General Visual Novels Thread

[weeblord]

I like Masaya in Asuka and especially Misaki route. Misaki route overall has the best character writing imo, and Masayas character is written there in a way I did not quite expect. Otherwise hes pretty standard a little perverted, a little aloof, a little snarky VN MC. Since every route is written by a different person, they have a pretty different feel. Asuka is pure spectacle, Misaki is introspective, Mashiro is cute and wholesome and Rika is dumb. I assume the reason why Rika ends up with all those sigh-worthy scenes in the common route is because her route writer had their hand in them (he sucks).

But I'm glad you like Mashiro, I ended up a pretty big fan myself. How much you enjoy her route really hinges on how much you like her silly antics. But I do think the finale of Mashiros route is surprisingly great despite being a very obvious side route, her final match is actually one of my most vivid memories of Aokana. Its a bit of a dark horse route, for certain very specific people I could see it actually end up being the best, even though the majority agrees Asuka and Misaki are the real deal.

[pinetree]

Mashiro is very endearing. Her obsession with Misaki could be annoying but it usually leads to some funny stuff, and her dedicated chapter as well as Misaki's own feelings on the matter served to give it some depth.

I'm actually looking forward to her route. I'm pretty sure I'm on Asuka's route for now though.

[weeblord]

I finished Sweet Pool, a game by Nitroplus boys love branch. It was pretty good, would recommend regardless of gender and sexuality. Short too, took me 6 hours. If youre interested in the denpa genre or just plain like Saya no Uta, keep this title in mind. Oh, and the soundtrack was crazy good. Really sold that anxious, oppressive, oh-fuck-im-losing-my-mind atmosphere.

Sadly my feelings regarding the game will be a little blemished by the constant crashes i had.

[weeblord]

Finished whats currently available of Jiangshi x Daoshi. What a fun and novel experience. The first 2 chapters are free on Steam and took me barely 2 hours, i recommend giving it a try. Its a fully voiced doujin VN with a Mahoyo style approach to visuals. Actually in some ways it goes even further than mahoyo does, which is crazy considering its a work by an independent creator. Of course, because its an independent creator it doesnt have the same degree of polish and professionalism as Mahoyo does, so Mahoyo is obv ultimately the better looking one, but its is still a testament of what a guy with a strong vision is capable of.

The action is cool, the humor is fucking stupid (in a good way), the main characters are likable and you just cant stop playing because you wanna see what kind of outlandish production values and visual ideas the game throws at you next. There are just loads of visual gags that dont reflect in the text at all. Oh and its worth to mention theres a shitton of very obvious SHAFT influence. The story is basic and barebones, but the game is such a zany, ridiculous, super ambitious SHITPOST I couldnt stop grinning. Waiting warmly for next chapter.

pretty fucked up that steam wanted to ban it at first despite being an all-ages title. Fruitbat factory managed to negotiate a second chance, and now the game is on steam in censored form (theres a patch available of their site). It features some NOT-explicit nudity and "gore" (typical exaggerated anime blood splurts), apparently these are against steams content guidelines when it isnt a AAA hyperrealistic murder simulator.

[Skull]

Cool, I'll check it out.

[bassgs435]

Talking about Jiangshi x Daoshi, I noticed Reggaeton and other hispanoamerican music. Like they were singing in spanish. The kind of spanish spoken by hispanoamerican people.
Now that is a bizarre and unexpected thing to hear as an OST to a weird freeware doujin japanese VN by an independant creator.

[weeblord]

Jiangshi x Daoshi uses a lot of royalty free stock assets in bg art and bgm, i recognized some of them from other doujin games ive played. So those banging bgm tracks might from some western stock music pack. Either way, the bgm is awesome lmao. Really adds another layer to the wtf is this shit feeling. If nothing else, you really can say its a one of a kind experience.

[weeblord]

Fucked up mane

[bassgs435]

Steam strikes again. Fucked up indeed.

[SteelBeowulf]

So many ACG content is getting banned all over different platforms in such a short period of time makes it increasingly hard to keep track. The paranoid part of me is starting to think conspiracy.

[Mattias]

All this is making wonder when Huniepop 2 is going to come out.

[weeblord]

bought mubrub photonmelodies, epic.

hope its even close to as good as photonflowers, i was surprised how great that one was for a fandisc. the Confessions sidestory was some of my fave mubrub content ever.

[weeblord]

Turns out mangagamer fucked up and left a couple HCGs in the bokuten steam build. Theyre inaccessible in the game, but the files do exist on steam, and this is apparently the problem.

big L for mangagamer, they should know better what a shitshow steam is when it comes to VNs to let such a simple fuckup slip through.

[bassgs435]

It's an L for both parties. MG for the fuckup, and Steam for not communicating anything to MG before going public and make the announcement assuming malice and wanting to skirt the rules over human error. They were apparently real careful, but something went wrong somewhere as people aren't perfect and can fail. Oh well, painful lesson to b extra ultra paranoid in the future. Or just make the Steam version nothing but the title screen or something and wildly axe everything else to make sure nothing remains

[Tobias]

I hear the company that did alchemy meister actually got a new game released in English. Anyone give it a go yet,and if so, thoughts? I remember liking that game more then I thought I would

[weeblord]

It's an L for both parties. MG for the fuckup, and Steam for not communicating anything to MG before going public and make the announcement assuming malice and wanting to skirt the rules over human error. They were apparently real careful, but something went wrong somewhere as people aren't perfect and can fail. Oh well, painful lesson to b extra ultra paranoid in the future. Or just make the Steam version nothing but the title screen or something and wildly axe everything else to make sure nothing remains

Bulk of the blame obviously lies with steam but what can you do, you either obey steam or go broke. Thats the reality of visual novel localizations, sadly.

I hear the company that did alchemy meister actually got a new game released in English. Anyone give it a go yet,and if so, thoughts? I remember liking that game more then I thought I would

Havent gotten to it yet, I hear its decent but pretty grindy. But then again, i do recall Kamidori alchemy meister being quite the grind as well so i guess its nothing new.

[Tobias]

I think that was the weirdest fucking thing about alchemy mediator. Normally I would despise a system of random drops and ingredient farming for progression but somehow that game made you feel weirdly...competent. Like, OK! I have a problem! Let’s go get some shit together and make with the MAGIC baby!

somehow it brought you in enough that getting alchemy ingredients together wasn’t a chore, it was part of the fun

[weeblord]

damn what a glowup, 9 -nine- ep2 is so much better than ep1.

Ep1 was like a 5 or 6, ep2 easily like an 8 or something. The story gets much better, but thats not the biggest improvement. The story is still quite basic. The main thing is the character interactions are simply a hella lot more fun. Writing wise theyre much better, Sora simply is a more fun and lively chara than the cookiecutter cute and pure girl Miyako. But I think huge credit should also go to the VAs of Kakeru and Sora, Atsushi Abe and Atsumi Tanezaki knock it out of the park with their sick bantz. ESPECIALLY Tanezaki goes 200% on every single line, she makes even the most basic boring throwaway textbook tsukkomi hilarious. I forgot there was even a plot happening, I just looked forward to whatever funny bantz would come out of their mouths next.

Really fun VN. also one of the few times where i think the all-ages ver is the better version.

[weeblord]

Muvluv photonmelodies done. Consistently good, overall better than photonflowers but did not reach the peak kino that pflowers did with Michirus side story. The Alternative side content was great, but surprisingly the best content in photonmelodies was the Extra universe stuff. They really flexed with the cinematography that the rUGP engine allows, and the comedy was actually consistently great unlike Extra.

Now to wait for TDA to drop on steam.

[weeblord]

Kara no Shoujo 3 CM, another meme getting killed. Its been 5 years now since announcement.


meanwhile at type moon...