Visual Novels

[Xrlderek]

finished one route I think, good luck getting through this without a walkthrough, I had no chance

[Sapphire]

I just finished Swan Song.

........
...


...
.

...

Wow.

I think I'm going to go throw up now.

[shinta|hikari]

I think I warned people about that in this thread. You should go play some Akabei soft games, or Key, just to get that taste out of your mouth.

[Kraco]

Oh, she was plentifully forewarned, Shinta. I must have told her 20 times what I thought of the ending of that game. But I guess it's one of those things you still have to see for yourself.

[shinta|hikari]

Playing Ignanock right now. Pretty good stuff. The atmosphere is well set, and the world is unique and interesting. If you want to try a real alter world fantasy, try this game.

[Sapphire]

Totally worth it, though.

Not interested in sappy Key, now. I have transcended such things!

I'll write a review later.

[Xrlderek]

I found ignanock very repetitive and didn't bother finishing it.. please do post if the latter half is good after all when you're finished

edit: Oh and swan song was great :/

[shinta|hikari]

Both Ignanock and Sharnoth are repetitive, but the characters and atmosphere make up for it.

[shinta|hikari]

I just finished Inganock, and the ending pretty much sucked.

I will now start playing Katahane, my first shoujo-ai VN. I tried Yuno earlier today, but then got tired of the ugly old art.

[masamuneehs]

i just finished Eroquis' Dirty Prison Ship (Injuu Kangoku)

Very much a H-focused game, and not for fans of vanilla stuff either.

To be honest though, I was really drawn in by parts of the story and the atmosphere in general. Usually when I play these games I'm detached from the events, just playing along and seeing what leads where... In this game I found myself getting nervous, fretting over route choices, meticulously logging my saves. At first I was largely skipping around just to get an overall sense of what was going on... ... but as things progressed I found myself reading the narration and dialogue for the narration and dialogue... which actually has some really good parts. I was honestly scared shit-less at times that I had made a mistake, or that I was going towards bad ends (there are tons). I started rooting for certain characters to make it, praying for others to bite it.

I was enjoying the story. I was enjoying a "tentacle monsters gonna rape 'em good!" story.

And I probably fapped out a few dozen loads to this thing also.


Masa's Review
Story: It starts slow and boring and a great deal feels like the standard fare for "corruption/mind break with a supernatural twist"... but after awhile the story gets to be genuinely entertaining. It's a simple sexy-survival-horror plot, and even a lot of the little details are largely borrowed from anime/manga en masse. But it's actually pretty awesome for a h-game.

Characters: Again, nothing terribly original, but mightly executed. Many of the characters are repackings of old anime/manga stock and archetypes (the motherly captain, the tomboyish friend, the serious vice-captain, the sleazy American). But they are fully fleshed out with full backgrounds and nuances, and the characters interact so well and naturally that you honestly start buying into it all. They evoked the full gauntlet of emotions in me, even though I generally knew what they were going to do or say before they did!

Music: Barely any music to speak of... ... ... and that's actually good, considering how awful most VN music is.

SFX: Good to mediocre. Quite a few different SFX, but sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what certain SFX are supposed to be. The problem is how they get re-used ad nasuem, probably to make up for the lack of music. More sex SFX than anything else, but even those start to get old after a while.

Voices: Only the female cast has voice acting... ... but they're pretty spot-on. They all emote nicely and are good matches for their characters. I swear that the captain is the same voice as the captain from Gundam SEED.

Atmosphere: I included this category because this is what this game does best. It might have generic building blocks, but what's being constructed is freaky and dark and pretty much hopeless. There's a real sense of danger and desperation going on for much of the game, and the lack of music actually adds to all this.

Sexiness: If you like rape, tentacles and/or mind break, you're going to cum buckets. If you like loli, sweet romance and/or happy sex, you're going to be disappointed. Almost all of the women are on the larger side and there's probably 5 rapes for every 1 consensual act of sex.

Gameplay: Well there isn't any aside from choosing options! But at least there are plenty of those. I counted something like 20 route choices in the main game, and something like 15 more in the additional version.

Replayability: At the end of the main game there's an option to replay, but with skipping the prologue. This can be used to trigger a few different scenes... ... and can also trigger 1 or 2 deviant storylines, letting you play through the game again with different developments, different characters in different spots, and different decisions to be made. The story is largely the same, those aliens are out for some rape and they're going to get it. But it was interesting to see different characters featured in different scenes, and it's awesome if you're gunning for certain girls.


Three Big Pros:
A rich game with as many frills and bells as you could want in an h-game. Very few corners have been cut.
Suspenseful
Narrative and dialogue is well written

Three Big Cons:
Rape rape rape rape rape rape rape
Audio could have been slightly better
It's only available in Japanese

Links:
NSFW so you'll have to PM me for the links. Like I said, unfortunately it's only in Japanese.

[Xelbair]

If you have NDS go play 9 Hours 9 Doors 9 People, it is a mix between VN and point-and-click game... with good plot.

[Dark Dragon]

I'm looking for a funny visual novel if someone could recommend one. I'm not in the mood for something depressing so preferably something without bad ends. It can have sexual content, but i'd really prefer it if that wasn't the main focus.

I prefer for it to be translated since my understanding of kanji is limited, i don't mind if it's japanese as long as the writing isn't too complicated.

[shinta|hikari]

I am currently playing MuvLuv Alternative, and I have to say, it deserves its rating in vndb. Great characters and character development, good plot, exciting action and loads of tactical details. It really has everything for its genre (sci-fi, mecha). The only bad thing about it is you have to play through MuvLuv Extra and Unlimited to understand Alternative.

[shinta|hikari]

Umineko no naku koro ni chiru (ep 5-8) and Little Busters! are out.

I am currently downloading Umineko (my internet connection suddenly sucks, so it might take days) while playing Koihime Musou.

I just finished A Profile, and while trudging along Koihime, I am starting to fear that what has happened with anime has also come to pass with VNs for me. I have simply completed the best of them, and everything else simply pales in comparison. I really hope Umineko changes my mind (though crap art and no voices will hurt its chances).

[Xrlderek]

I'd play through 1-4 first if you haven't (if you've only seen the anime version of those).. Just doubt you'll get as much enjoyment from just the anime + 5-8 as with all 8 chapters in VN form. (just blind assumptions from me obv)

Playing Steins;Gate at the moment, looks really good and I'm only barely into it, I think I'll watch the anime after.

Oh and I played through Yuno, great game. It has some very good parts for sure although I hate having to go through boring stuff to progress further (trying to find who to talk to). Definitely worth playing but wouldn't even try without the text walkthrough. I think I would if it wasn't for how annoying it would be to have to start over/backtrace if you've messed up something, not like there's a skip function.

[Xrlderek]

Steins;Gate was incredibly good. Patch is still in "unedited" status but I really didn't mind or find that many mistakes (english obv isn't my first language though). Going to watch the anime now One of the best visual novels I have read for sure, just insane how much better than chaos;head it was.

[David75]

Steins;Gate was incredibly good. Patch is still in "unedited" status but I really didn't mind or find that many mistakes (english obv isn't my first language though). Going to watch the anime now One of the best visual novels I have read for sure, just insane how much better than chaos;head it was.

The anime is too so much better that it will make you doubt it's from the same source, you'll even doubt there's a link at all, like it was another spacetime bubble or something. Then you'll immediately secure erase Chaos Head, burn any material you might have and try to wipe it from your memory.

[Kraco]

I installed Katawa Shoujo, and immediately after the first of the actual main characters appeared (in addition to the player character, obviously) I started wishing for voice acting. The first main girl you communicate with would be awesome with an appropriate voice actor. I can almost imagine it in my mind. It really feels like half of the game is missing.

Other than that, this seems really impressive. Even if it's crippled due to Enter not advancing the story. Hard to get used to that.

Edit: This game managed to give me my first (I think) BSOD in Win7. Impressive in its own way.

[Kraco]

Damn Katawa Shoujo. I ended up playing Lilly's route first mainly due to Shizune annoying me. So, after finishing Lilly I thought I'd try to get Misha's route next, because she was so funny right off the bat, despite having to suffer Shizune hanging around all the time. Yet it seemed like the story was veering toward Shizune against my wishes, so I went back and tried again. And again it felt like I was getting more of Shizune than Misha. I finally visited the official site and, lo and behold, it turns out Misha of all people doesn't have her own route. What blasphemy! I have zilch interest in Shizune, yet I must go through her route to get any Misha scenes... What a letdown.

[Xelbair]

one of bad ends in Shizune's route is due to focusing too much on Misha.