Visual Novel Cafe

[pingtoryan]

Got around to starting Amenity Life after finishing skimming O'uchi ni Kaeru Mage ga Mashimaro desu...and I just realized what makes the latter so unbearable to me:

So many thing is way over the top.

Spoiler: OVER THE TOP

The heroines are always overreacting (especially with regard to the protag.) to such an unreal degree that it interrupts the flow and hurts the ear. I'm beginning to wonder if much of the whole thing is just one big manzai comedy routine with pretty graphics. Not that it hasn't happened before but this time it really is a lot to sift through.
The protag. himself also suffer from this in his own way, guess it's excusable because he had a harsh upbringing and a hard life that almost took his life, which may make many experience much newer than others would perceive.

The trouble that rose in Kanon's route seems like a throwback to the ones from Sera's story from PxH1 and Usagi's from PxH2, more towards the latter...albeit this time it comes totally out of nowhere, and it feels as if it happened just for the sake of conflict...plot twist backfiring I'd call it, which makes the whole thing unbearable if reading it in one go.
Same goes for the stuff that happen in common route, I call many of them literally random stuff happening to keep the otherwise mundane pastry shop [run by teens] something to act on.

The level of protag. donkan is pretty thick too. At times not as bad as previously, but it happens a lot here that it becomes noticable. I'll leave it at that.

I should mention that there are a lot of recycled backgrounds...if you had been playing PrimalxHearts you would recognize many of them immediately (though it may be slightly justified by Usagi making a cameo appearance).

Long story short, I'm not amused, and I shouldn't underestimate pastry shops fatigue...

At least Ushio very briefly gets the first name treatment...and I'm happy to see that...

Peace level
Ushio>Sasa>Raiha>=Kanon

...all that painkiller left me groggy...

 

[kzel]

O'uchi ni Kaeru Mage ga Mashimaro desu

I've been playing a bit of it as well. I agree that everything is too over the top and exaggerated. The protagonist is just too "perfect", always having the right plan, the perfect solution to the problem at hand, it's really tiring to follow such a superhuman. I can't help but keep wondering how he could have be driven to the situation he was in at the beginning of the game. He's resourceful enough to just get anything he wants if he puts his heart to it.

In contrast the heroines are a little too shy. Keep in mind this a game with one heroine who's the best patissier on EARTH (and also a supermodel, at 16... don't ask), another that wrote a best selling picture book, and one who has a patissier licence and whose work can easily rival adult pros (at 16 also). The latter is able to cook a whole shop's worth of confections and still attend school, and have time to fool around. Are any of these characters even human..? And yet they don't even begin to challenge the protagonist's abilities and problem solving powers.

Also, the common route is too long... I made it past the whole drug incident without skipping but the urge is growing stronger and stronger. The succession of random problems is growing annoying (like the fridge incident, who cares?!), just get to the point.

 

[pingtoryan]

I've been playing a bit of it as well. I agree that everything is too over the top and exaggerated. The protagonist is just too "perfect", always having the right plan, the perfect solution to the problem at hand, it's really tiring to follow such a superhuman. I can't help but keep wondering how he could have be driven to the situation he was in at the beginning of the game. He's resourceful enough to just get anything he wants if he puts his heart to it.

In contrast the heroines are a little too shy. Keep in mind this a game with one heroine who's the best patissier on EARTH (and also a supermodel, at 16... don't ask), another that wrote a best selling picture book, and one who has a patissier licence and whose work can easily rival adult pros (at 16 also). The latter is able to cook a whole shop's worth of confections and still attend school, and have time to fool around. Are any of these characters even human..? And yet they don't even begin to challenge the protagonist's abilities and problem solving powers.

Also, the common route is too long... I made it past the whole drug incident without skipping but the urge is growing stronger and stronger. The succession of random problems is growing annoying (like the fridge incident, who cares?!), just get to the point.

Near-death experience tend to makes one reflect on themselves and make drastic changes on their character, I guess. Also, he now had a [life] debt, and a cause to fight for after that encounter.

If you made it to the OP movie then the route split is near...

Heroines too shy? When the story starts to go their own way I doubt you would say that...and your suspicion that these people (heroines in particular) are not human just might be confirmed...

Speaking of being superhuman...I think that Kazuma (PxH1) was at least an interesting enough fellow that despite his obscene abilities is still remotely worth following... I just can't give an F about this guy here...so edgy and VERY noisy, that even without voicework, can hurt my ear...
While I'm not that sensitive over the superhuman stuff (I make scribbles of that kind of stuff myself, after all...), I do find that they create a rift when excessively used (just like here) without something to facilitate them, and there is nothing that go to that effect here. Outright superpower may have been an acceptable way to go about that...but that's just me.

This marshmallow [mashimaro] leaves a bad aftertaste...

 

[kzel]

Heroines too shy? When the story starts to go their own way I doubt you would say that...and your suspicion that these people (heroines in particular) are not human just might be confirmed...

I don't know if shy is the right word. They're loud alright, but as far as the story goes, there is only one person who solves almost everything, and that's the protagonist. Which is sad as as the story progresses, his methods rely less and less on his knowledge and cunning, and more and more on brute force. "Just do what I say bitch, I know better than you what you want" is essentially what happens with both Sasa and Reiha. I'm past the OP now, after so many events that drag on longer that they need to (if they even need to exist at all). Now to get to the good parts, apparently the ecchi is the game's real selling point. Makes me wonder why they even bother with such a boring and stretched common route.

 

[pingtoryan]

Past the prologues of Amenity's Life...now that's something I would enjoy...

 

[Mahou]

Hapymaher: Made me sleep
Chrono Clock and Amatsutsumi: Loved

For me, it was the other way around, just without the "made me sleep" description :D. Miu's route in Chrono Clock was a HUGE disappointment in how short her route-specific events had been, and Chronos' route was just strange.Can't remember much about it, though.

Past the prologues of Amenity's Life...now that's something I would enjoy...

I was pleasantly surprised with Amenity's Life from what I've played after my inital skeptical opinion (pre-release). Keshimi's characer traits made her a funny side character.

 

[kzel]

I finished Ushio's route in お家に帰るまでがましまろです. It was surprisingly void of padding events, contrary to the common route. Different writer I guess. Anyway, the route starts pretty badly with a display of world-class donkaness by the MC (especially since he only realizes he likes her after confessing to her... twice), but once the misunderstanding is cleared it's cute and relaxing, since there's no more obstacle to get in the way. I'll probably try Sasa's route next, not sure about Kanon since it looks like it's the Marmalade typical "I didn't know you were that I guy I met X and fell in love with". As for Reiha, we'll see. I liked her character at first but not so much after the events of the common route.

Amenity's Life

Anyone played the fandisk with Rezona and more Kanade?

 

[pingtoryan]

After getting into one route (Kanade) in Amenity's Life, it really was good reading up to that point, interesting characters and how stuff work and I think it's going to be good...this is Hooksoft in their home environment, and they do great.

Spoiler: priceless

Reiji trying to fap is just priceless...of course he couldn't, because reasons.

I like how you can get up to two routes in one save...saves quite a bit of effort, though it make the story come in episodic format as opposed to one coherent common route story, it still keep my interest piqued and I find myself (somewhat) tearing through it...

As opposed to that...diabete-inducing soft white stuff (AKA overfunded nukige) that left me high on [metaphorical] painkillers...the readability is just not comparable...

 

[pingtoryan]

Two weeks later...and nobody's home. Doublepost time...

I really have tore through Amenity's Life, fandisc and all...while some story elements do not go well with my psyche I thoroughly enjoy it...All stories are at uniform length at 7 parts common, 10 parts route and epilogue...which is a pretty good length for a tired reader to get some steam back...Regret not reading it the year it came out, but I guess it put me back into the business after getting exhausted with reading...

Spoiler: comments; some spoiler

The wound dressing set small girls that come with Dina the first-aid box seems to be wasted for the most part, since folks don't really get injured (happens like, once, when Rezona cut her hand after Maho said a really shocking sentence while the former is using the knife). I think that they deserve a sub chapter pertaining to how they even work...alas, injury takes second row to common cold, which seems to be why Thermo (her obsession with anus and all) has to be in the lead...

I don't like surprises when it's not made by Bananas in Pyjamas and the Cuddles Avenue's inhabitants for some reason...Such things come at the end of Mikuri, Maho, and Miki's stories. Hard for me to swallow, but everything else are great...including how smartphones have kids...how convenient, yet somewhat unfulfilling.

I sure would love to have pre image-change Mikuri...though that was considered childish (that hairstyle really look like past younger characters, namely, Koito from PriministAr, who was in middle school). It seems like she could have revert to that style at any time (as she have shown when the entire class could not recognize her after image-change)...should've been an option somewhere for that to make a re-appearance...

The third version of heroine's themes that cannot be replayed in gallery...are special soundtracks. Speaking of soundtrack, I got hooked to Mikuri's theme...

Kanade's idiosyncratic question of "What is fun?" turns out to be a hint to a very important thing later...mind: blown. I like her route the best...

Spoiler: on Fandisc

Fandisc is two parts plus epilogue for both stories...Rezona's story is very much straight to the point, and Kanade's story is set after her main story's epilogue. Both are fun enough for such short stories.

Given how fandisc came out (PriministAr got one like 3 years later and MeltyMoment had two) I wouldn't be surprised if Amenity's Life gets another...perhaps with Honami the typical Hooksoft violent-tempered yet caring teacher...

 

[Mahou]

I have been playing Haurooto AlicexGram since the crack has been released. I actually liked Nanasoft's VN in the same setting Alia's Carnival, so noticing the call backs is a nice extra. Personally, I prefer AlicexGram's way of Arcane card usage to solve the "mystery" events at school instead of the Alia Battles in Nanawind's former title; especially Elisa's power of detecting lies was - for my simple taste - quite neatly introduced. So far, there doesn't seem to be a "true" heroine thing like Asuha of Alias Carnival (based on the final showdown and the true awakening of his black arcane card).

 

[kzel]

I still play at my usual pace, I've just been lazy about writing comments. So here you go:

お家に帰るまでがましまろです : Played Sasa's route, and it was decent. The drama was centered as expected around her lack of self-confidence and her picture books. She turned into a surprisingly aggressive and perverted young lady when in a relationship. Not much else to say about her... I also recently finished Kanon's route. The first part is the usual clearing of the misunderstanding "so you WERE that person I loved since I was a child/the one I love and you are actually the same person". Once that is cleared, a sudden family drama coming out of nowhere and getting solved just as quickly, just for the heck of it. I guess it follows the common route in that aspect... Then it's on to find the perfect recipe for the shop's signature desert, and again it gets solved not by research or effort but pure chance. Kanon was in her route also surprisingly aggressive, especially in her desire to have a baby. As a nukige this game did its job for me, I only wish I hadn't had to suffer through the common route to get to it. My advice : download a save at the route branching point and skip it. I still have Reiha's left, but maybe later.

ボッチムスメ×プロデュース計画 : Tired of the usual tropes of the vanilla eroges, I tried this otome game. It was actually fairly entertaining (H-scenes excepted, voiced males... ugh). I really liked the multitude of small choices the game offers, and their accompanying little endings if you choose poorly. There's a total of 20 different endings, and most of them are pretty humorous. Speaking of the humor, it was also pretty good, not too heavy on the sex jokes for once and more about the situations themselves, in large parts thanks to the heroine and her pessimistic way of thinking. As someone who hasn't the slightest interest in fashion I managed to read the whole thing without skipping (clicking rapidly during H-scenes though), so I guess it's a good entry into the genre. I may try other otome games in the future, they provide a nice change of pace.

初情スプリンクル : Standard Whirlpool game. Despite the setting, the protagonist isn't as perverted as I would have thought and doesn't try to abuse his near mind-control powers to get into anyone's pants. I liked Hazuki's character, with her mix of arrogance and ponkotsu. The moege part of the game is pretty good, but unfortunately the later parts of each heroines' route crumbles as the scenarists try to use the questionable magic setting to pretty bad effect. Plot points appear out of nowhere or are just made to exacerbate one particular aspect of the magic setting (like Jealousy for Shizuku), even if they make little sense in the overall story. It can get pretty irritating.

ゴールデンアワー : a pretty good "teenager" game by Niko (aka MORE), with the usual themes of insecurity, worries about the future and teenage romances. It was nice to play a game in which characters don't act like children for once (I guess you could argue teens are children, but still...). I liked the more reserved art style, I appreciate the outrageous uniforms as much as anyone but seeing something more realistic is always nice. The game features "dark" elements such as light NTR, suicide, rape, etc. There's nothing too graphic but it's there nevertheless. There is also a mystery/fantasy story centered around the central heroine Yuki. It's not too original or difficult to predict but it provided a good enough context for some protagonist dedication to his love, something I always appreciate greatly.

弓張月の導き雲はるか : you may remember me saying I dropped the game, but I came back to it and don't regret it. It's the light, standard RPG I wanted and past the first ecchi scene with Freia it's back to the innocent thing I expected from it. Compared to previous DebonoSu works, it keeps the turned based battle system similar to Izumo or 偽骸のアルルーナ. The goal is more to complete each encounter without taking a hit rather than just surviving through it. It's more of a puzzle game this way, and there is no field exploration at all to distract from it. There's minimal crafting but ingredients are gathered by just completing quests as they come. Overall it's pretty easy, especially when you get the ability to slow down enemy bosses. The story is fairly generic but it does the job, and Freia can grow into one of four different adult forms depending on how the protagonist (and thus the player) treats her : spoil her, be strict, be balanced or ignore her. She'll turn into a different adult depending, with a different body and personality. While it doesn't look like it influences the overall story much, it provides for a few different "rest events", different Freia responses to the events and of course different H-scenes. Speaking of which, the game features a rare occurrence : H-scenes with a male that is not the protagonist. Each dragon has one partner, and will only engage in intimate activities with said partner.

That's it for now. I can write further details if anyone's interested. As for August's release while we're at it, I think I'll only play the Wagahigh fandisk ワガママハイスペックOC.

 

[pingtoryan]

A useless trivia about お家に帰るまでがましまろです:

The OP song, Mashimaro Whip (ましまろホイップ) in the OP video starts with a chunk from its full version's last part:
過去と未来繋がる　心と心で触れ合う想い 甘いだけじゃない　ほろ苦い思い出もまとめて

Linking the past and future together, the thought which hold together hearts, not only the sweet, but meld in the bitter ones also. (My crappy translation)

Describes Kanon's story as much as The Man who Sold the World do to 1984 Big Boss...though the "bitter" part is very much forced in an overdose...*lights phantom cigar*


A note on Raiha's story: Note the name Simo Hayha...it'll sound familiar...

-------------------------------------------------------

I need a break...went back for the last story in KanojoxStep and Tomiko's burst of self-loathing is doing a number to my ears...

 

[Mahou]

I finished Yuiko's route in fast-forward fashion of アオイロノート. Why's there a supernatural element in there with such an unsatisfying ending? I guess it *made* sense within its own supernatural rules, but meh... I didn't really expect it. Otherwise, a fairly normal down-to-earth slice of life VN. Average more or less.

 

[kzel]

A note on Raiha's story: Note the name Simo Hayha...it'll sound familiar...
-------------------------------------------------------
I need a break...went back for the last story in KanojoxStep and Tomiko's burst of self-loathing is doing a number to my ears...

Did they use the name for Reiha's father or something? Typical Japanese trampling on western culture...
Tomiko is the best! She's a very entertaining heroine and watching the protagonist do his best to appease her was heartwarming.

---

Flowers -Le Volume sur Printemps- : In an effort to broaden my VN horizon and escape the sameness that plagues the industry, I played this Yuri game. It was interesting at first, with a mix of social drama with a very shy heroine and some mystery/deduction parts that I found pretty challenging (especially when it gets its facts wrong). It also features some welcome addition of western culture (books & movies), although it's sometimes clearly misunderstood, the biggest one being the confusion between catholic and christian. No, it's not the same. I'll pass on the broken french that sometimes has a complete different meaning that the Japanese subtext : "Prends-moi" would be translated as 抱いて(Make love to me) and not 連れって行って(Take me away).

However, the biggest disappointment of the game comes from its structure itself. There are a lot of choices in the game, most of them pointing to supporting either Mayuri or Rikka. However, there is only one heroine in the game, and that's Mayuri. Choosing Rikka at any point is considered a "bad" choice, it's even graphically illustrated by the lily on the right side of the screen slowly withering. That would be fine it that was clear from the start, but this is only apparent as the game approaches its end. I really, really, REALLY hate when a game gives me false choices. My first playthrough was pretty much wasted, as I went for Rikka but was forced to reject her, only to not qualify for Mayuri's route either because I had been going against her the entire game. Cue unrecoverable bad ending and needing to start over from the beginning. Thanks for wasting my time. Since I have no interest in Mayuri anyway (even less so when I discovered I was forced into her route), I skimmed through her route but it ends on a cliffhanger that is just bait for the next games in the series. Rikka does get a route, unlocked only after completing Mayuri's, but it's a five minutes affair that fails to deliver any sense of completeness.

Oh well, serves me right for trying out Yuri I guess. I'll admit I had difficulty relating to some of the characters, especially the protagonist's fear of rejection because of her traumatic childhood. So your step-mother was a bitch, so what? Is this really enough for friendships to break and for people to reject you?

 

[pingtoryan]

Did they use the name for Reiha's father or something? Typical Japanese trampling on western culture...
Tomiko is the best! She's a very entertaining heroine and watching the protagonist do his best to appease her was heartwarming.

I'd say as much impact as the identity of the school Chairwoman in PxH1...just a hint.

Very brief, yet of great importance to the pair's relationship.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...it's a miracle Tomiko didn't just go jump a cliff insofar as I can see...

 

[kzel]

...it's a miracle Tomiko didn't just go jump a cliff insofar as I can see...

That's what so great about her, especially compared to the otherwise very docile other heroines (Kuon excepted to some extent).

---

Hibiki-Works announced their next game. It's going to be called Natural Vacation.

Story seems to revolves around a first summer vacation with your girlfriend, at a city near the sea. How exciting (sarcasm?).

Not too many details yet, but judging by the promo art, the very near release date (December 22nd) and the number of writers (2), it seems like this will be a low budget game with only two heroines. Just like most studios owned by AkabeiSoft.
The game marks a return of Asami Asami as an artist (he illustrated Pretty x Cation 2).
Writers include Minase Takumi who worked on Ouchi ni Kaeru made ga Mashimaro Desu (oh God please no), and Nakajima Taiga who wrote good stuff (Dekinai Watashi) but also awful garbage (Hataraku Otona no Ren'ai Jijou).

I'm worried.

 

[pingtoryan]

Speaking of sea...there's this:

http://www.cuffs-cube.jp/products/yurauka/

Cube's new stuff. This time an island that can only be reached by boats that has a secret...

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Slowly forging on...VN's good to have for long sessions of World of Warships...might consider rereading some older one I've already way past...

I just realized one (out of a couple) reason why I don't like shimoneta despite me liking that kind of humor myself...The Japanese language, to me, doesn't make that kind of humor...humorous.

Spoiler: fun fact

In Ouchi ni Kaeru made ga Mashimaro Desu, there's an unused "virgin" version of the H-scene with Kanon hat involves the mirror in her room (of course, doesn't exist in gallery)...Which leads to the possibility that the story wasn't supposed to be that way and some things should not have happened...

 

[kzel]

Time for some more comments on the recent VN I played. Today's topic will be the WagaHigh FD ワガママハイスペック OC. It falls quite short of the quality of the base game, especially for the four main heroines. The stories vary in quality but in general they are short, don't add anything to the characters, and are mostly a pretext to fit four ecchi scenes for each heroine. Many feature a protagonist regression from the ending of the original game, especially in Toa's route in which the relationship is pretty much reset for no reason other than to let Toa do her crazy things. Kaoruko's story is basically a small vacation, and the last moralizing scenes don't really resonate too well considering most Japanese eroge creators also hide their real names and profession. Ashe's route first half is just stupid and an opportunity for dissing europeans in general, without even an effort to make the german lines it contains make any sense (foreigner talk in onomatopoeia). The second half isn't too bad but lacks the presence of Ashe, you know, the heroine of the route, for most of it. Mihiro's story is, as in the main game, once again about a misunderstanding and lack of communication, and was just meh. Overall, these routes failed to rekindle whatever interest I may have had in the heroines a year ago.

As for the three new addition, only Karen seems to have been graced with a modicum of effort towards her route. She actually has a decent romantic development with the MC, and her little sisters are very cute. Since the format is so short, there's no real obstacle to the relationship apart from the MC's donkaness, but her route still shines far brighter than anything else this FD provides. Chitose's route starts alright, with the MC aggressively moving onto her after a (reaaaal convenient) revelation, but she gives in far too fast in my opinion. As for Yukari, the route just doesn't make sense, from beginning to end, and is clearly just an excuse for additional sex scenes.

Lots of ecchi scenes (4 per character, each with 2 CGs), but for a near-full price FD, the story content is really lacking in both quality and quantity.

---

Apart from that, and since I wasn't really in the mood to start a new game recently, I've tried a few of the demos for September's upcoming releases. Here are some quick comments :

Dolphin Blade -ドルフィンブレード- : An athlete(idol) raising simulator/debt repayment simulation game. The core gameplay seems repetitive and boils down to raising stats by repeating various training sessions, racing when the heroine hits top condition, then doing fan appreciation events and photo sessions, rinse and repeat. There was almost no story or heroine interaction in the demo, to the point that I believe the debt repossession manager actually has more lines than her... Races are 100% non-interactive and only depend of the character's stats, and don't make for a very exciting show. To be perfectly honest, it looks like it'll be awful, but maybe the full game will actually have a scenario?

鬼がくる。～姉がひん死でピンチです～ : A colorful bunch of heroines, including a ponkotsu big sister, a loli-baba goddess and a stalker childhood friend. The comedy isn't too bad, but as seems to be so often the case, filled with shimoneta. I didn't like that in what of the common route the demo contains, the protagonist was made to fuck two girls already, including a sub-character just for the heck of it. Other than that, it looks passable enough.

癒しの女神の実験台（モルモット） : An interesting title for its unusual method of voice recording. Decent headphones are necessary, but then you can enjoy having your favorite CV (Toono Soyogi...) blow air or whisper some sweet words into your ears. I recommend turning off the music completely because it's bland, repetitive and only gets in the way. Don't expect anything story-wise, it's basically a salaryman's shallow fantasy come true: one day you quit your boring job, and just happen to get invited to a (nearly) all-girls school specializing in massages and other relaxation therapy as a co-teacher. Of course, big salary and lots of skinship with young innocent ladies are included in the package. The protagonist, despite being an adult, seems to lack any kind of common sense an adult would have and behaves like a kid in middle-school, but none seem to care. Other characters are not faring much better. Still, just for the voice recording only it may be worth a shot.

 

[pingtoryan]

You know something is heading towards being crap when sub-heroine's stories are better than the main ones, eh?

Me? Too busy playing other stuff at the moment and nothing new worth pursuing at the time...

 

[kzel]

Did someone ask for more comments on the recent VNs I played? No? Well you'll get them anyway!

恋愛教室 : A very simple game, with a lot of flaws either due to rushing out the release (likely) or plain incompetence (if I want to be mean). Let's start with the system itself. First off, no scene recollection mode, or at least there's no way to make it show up in the menu. Not that I use this feature often but its absence is surprising. More concerning, many lines are not properly mapped to the correct voice, some of the voiced line don't match the text at all, and some text lines are missing their voice altogether. Finally, there's a few areas in the game in which the actual scene order seems messed up. Characters mention events that actually happened the day after, and one scene is actually repeated two days in a row. It doesn't look like there was much playtesting done before release.

These things out of the way, the very concept of the game is executed in a incomplete manner. To give a quick recap, the developer claimed that the romanceable heroines featured in the game would be decided by a series of character polls, and not by the staff as it usually goes. This is all fine and good, but the end product features only two heroines chosen from the character polls. The other two were... actually chosen by the staff from the start. I tend to be forgiving with games that try to push new concepts, but only if they actually have the guts to go through it all the way. I didn't take part in the character polls, so I don't feel cheated out, but I can imagine people whose favorite heroine got third or fourth place may be a little salty about this decision.

In spite of all that, the game manages to remain somewhat entertaining. It's a simple and innocent school moege, set in a private school in the countryside filled with young ladies with biased and dreamy views about romance and the other sex. The game's titles comes from a class the teacher invents, in which the girls are supposed to get used to having contact with men and get a bit more in touch with reality. Unfortunately, very few of this class is actually shown, as most of the common route is centered around the protagonist making every possible human being fall for him, including the teacher and the cross-dressing shota of the class... Said protagonist is your standard hitoyoshi, he starts out with pretty sharp observational skills but quickly devolves into the standard homemaker donkan the medium is so fond of. As far as heroines goes, nothing out of the ordinary either, with the tsundere Stella, the sheltered Karen, the friendly Sui and the sickly, hikikomori imouto Kazuha. All of these stories are light in both romantic and dramatic development, and the H scenes are on the short side, but they're good enough for a couple hours of relaxing, brainless read.

---

となりに彼女のいる幸せ ～Two Farce～ : A short game featuring only one heroine. It's a cute romance about the president of a literary club and his cute, facetious and playful kouhai. There's unfortunately nothing much else to say about the game, since it really is very short. I'm not talking only about the overall length of the game, but also about how each scene comes and goes very quickly, before there's any time to bathe in the relaxing and light-hearted mood they tend to achieve. I realize I am probably the first to complain about games drawing out their stories (Marshmallow...), but in this case I would have liked for the game to move a little more slowly. This is especially true for H scenes, which feature some decent art but alas last for barely more than 20 to 30 lines each. Quite the waste of material if you ask me. Same goes for the few literary recitations the game features, the text moves on auto so quickly I barely had time to read them, let alone try to think about any deeper meaning. A cute, but still flawed attempt.

---

I'll finish with another demo mini-review, this time about upcoming October's ツギハギめいくぴーす！-pretending×friendship-. The game's premise is fairly interesting, in that it forces a group of loners to spend some time together and act as friends. Each character in the game has his or her own specific issues that prevent them from making friends, and forcing them together could have resulted in a number of explosive situations. Unfortunately, the game was apparently too afraid to push its concept to the limit, and once past the early scenes everyone acts very friendly, the group is formed and we're back in standard moege territory. The only character making a bit of resistance to this is Ayase, despite being behind the whole thing in the first place, and the end of the demo reveals the reason for her behavior. Let me just say it's disappointing, childish and self-centered. Same goes for the reason why the protagonist refused to make any friends, it's pretty silly. Still, some characters were cute enough, my favorite being the senpai Nozomi, so I'll probably play the full game when it gets released.

 

[Mahou]

I have decided to play through some older VNs as I'm currently bound to mobile internet's GB limit (the so-called notebook data plans) for the time being.
1) Clover Point: A fairly normal VN where nothing too drastic happens. Tsukine's route done and overall it was well enough. The point of her drama and when she snapped was kinda overblown, to be honest. But well, I'm a "I don't like it even if it makes/were to made sense" type. Otherwise, I like the heroines mostly. Yaya in particular! Mahoshi's cute too but I GREATLY dislike the usage of her personal fan brigade. These mob chara elements become quickly obnoxious. I'm quite indifferent about Miori, though.

2) Wagamama Highspec: I can't actually remember if I played the VN before or not, but went for the English release anyway. I've become quite fond of Ashe's route and quite enjoyed the progress in relationship between MC and her.

 

[Terumi]

Kyonyuu Fantasy 3 if delayed one month to ensure quality product.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[kzel]

What's so great about Kyonyuu Fantasy to warrant so many IF and sequels ? Apart from the oversized breasts of course...

---

Nothing much for me this week, I just played a couple more demos as my free time is getting drained by Divinity:OS 2.

ヤミと祝祭のサンクチュアリ : Looks like a decent mystery VN. The demo is fairly short but asks a lot of questions about the island and its characters, who all seem to have hidden agendas beyond their friendly (or not) facade. I like characters that have a bit of depth like that, especially when apparent antagonists turn out to be simple pawns of higher schemes. The protagonist is a rather calm fellow, yet as the demo quickly reveals possesses superhuman abilities (or maybe isn't entirely human?). Fights can be a bit ridiculous when bare-handed attacks are supposed to shatter titanium body armor plates or kicks can make trees fall, but if there's a supernatural explanation to his strength then why not. No lucky sukebe and no rape (despite there being the opportunity for both in the short demo span) is a good thing for me, I'm tired of "story" games rushing to the ero content. Finally, the game features a flow-chart and an early choice already changes the story significantly, so here's hoping there will actually be a decent number of decisions to be made.

Dolphin Blade -ドルフィンブレード- : Second demo, which featured a few more heroine interactions than the first one during the allowed period, but still not many. It changes a couple mechanics, adds a few others, but the standard loop (train to top condition->race->photo->fan event) still works fine to amass lots of cash easily. There's an option to skip the races animations completely, I guess it shows the staff realized they failed to make them interesting to watch. Overall, the game is looking better than it was in the previous demo, but it still doesn't look like it'll be a very interesting game to play, either for the characters themselves or the athlete/idol raising simulator game surrounding them.

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Finally, here's what I'm likely to be playing from the upcoming releases:

癒しの女神の実験台（モルモット）: As I said before, there's probably nothing to expect from the plot but the binaural recording sounds interesting enough, as it is coupled with some CVs that I really like. Hopefully they'll have fixed the sound level issues the demo suffered from.

あるいは恋という名の魔法 : The art is cute, but the scenario is from the same guy as タラレバ, a game I couldn't bother with long enough to even complete one route.

That's about it really. Maybe I'll replay Yuzuka's route in Amakano2 to prepare for Amakano2+ coming out this december.

 

[Terumi]

What's so great about Kyonyuu Fantasy to warrant so many IF and sequels ? Apart from the oversized breasts of course...

Its probably waffle's flagship title and series over these years. Its top brass are always involved. My favorite franchise as well.
Other than the oppai? Story is one of the very best points of it, its a pauper to rich kind of stuff where the main guy deserves everything he slowly earns and accumulates along his path to success.
I aint the best guy to describe or promote anymore, maybe someone else can fill in the blanks.

 

[pingtoryan]

http://www.hook-net.jp/ixshetell/index.html

IxSHE Tell: Hooksoft's Next (17th)

Mostly same team from Amenity's Life...now back to waiting...