Just finished Migiwa's route. I kind of liked it. Shiny graphics, pretty music and I thought the characters were likeable. Sure, it's no Fate Stay Night, but still...

Plus, I'm a yuri fan.

So, is this thing good? I have it lying around here and plan to play it after DC IF, DC II and Saya no Uta.

I've just started playing it. The English patch is quite good(they do leave a number of terms in Japanese that would probably be better off translated), but it's a shame they haven't yet translated most of the menu items. Hopefully that'll be done in a later version of the patch.

Well, the art quality is AMAZING. Both in character sprites, C Gs and backgrounds. It's off the f**king chain. Success have put a huge amount of effort into their art, and believe me, it shows.

As for the rest of the game, I couldn't really comment - you'd have to ask the OP, or someone else who's finished it. Call me back in a couple of weeks and I'll give my opinion :)

Although I have to say it is kind of jarring going from other V Ns where sprites are essentially static to Aoi Shiro, where not only do the sprites have lip movements synched to the audio, but they also blink at a realistic rate. It's uncanny. At some points it feels more like you're watching subtitled anime than playing a VN. Not that this is bad, of course - see above comment on art quality - but it's just unusual if you're used to traditional V Ns.

edited 27th Apr '11 8:11:08 AM by RiotousRascal

For some reason I'm getting an error when I try to play it. The error text isn't in Japanese, just random symbols.

This happens both with and without the English patch.

It's to do with the filesystem. Japanese characters screw up the execution if you're not running windows under a Japanese applocale. Look at the folder where the game's located. If that folder or any folder above it has Japanese characters in its name, you'll get this error. Just rename it to something like "Aoi Shiro" using only english characters and you'll be fine.

edited 27th Apr '11 11:50:10 PM by RiotousRascal

Wow. I never thought something that simple could fix it. Thanks!

Done.

I thought the Golden Ending was pretty awesome. Personally, I liked it. I got a bit confused with all the Japanese terms, but while the translators didn't translate the in-game encyclopedia, they did post a glossary.

It also has 56 endings, a good chunk of them bad. Many of them have C Gs too. Thusly, I'm aiming for 100% completion.

Link for the glossary thingie: (it has spoilers, though): http://www.solelo.com/aoishiro/pc/terms.htm

And the walkthrough: (this game has as many bad endings as Fate, after all): http://www.solelo.com/aoishiro/pc/faq/index.htm

edited 28th Apr '11 4:47:45 PM by risingdreams

So I'm roughly an hour or so in. (Yeah, I'm reaaaallly slow when it comes to playing V Ns) Opinions so far:

Yuukai is a bro. I mean, really. What a legend! He's basically a monk-shaped zone of nothing but PURE AWESOME. I'm this close to calling him GAR and he hasn't even done anything yet.

Aoi-sensei's lectures - <sarcasm> Yeah, these totally aren't important or relevant to the rest of the plot at all. </sarcasm>

Migiwa is the most interesting character so far. She's totally got some sort of evil scheme going on, I just know it.

Girl who washed up on the beach? I've nicknamed her Jason Bourne. Until proven otherwise, she is an amnesiac assassin for the CIA.

edited 29th Apr '11 7:07:18 PM by RiotousRascal

After the Golden Ending, I think he more than deserves being called GAR. And Migiwa is awesome.

I don't know why I like this VN and it's characters so much. As I said, it's no Clannad or Fate.

edited 29th Apr '11 8:45:51 PM by risingdreams

Further opinions:

Poor Yasumi. I don't know how she puts up with Momoko, I certainly can't.

Migiwa...let's see. Ninja-like silent walking skills? Check. Unnerving permanent Cheshire Cat Grin? Check. Sly assertions that she's never trained with a shinai before? Check.

I have now nicknamed her Ninja Assassin Migiwa. Only time will tell if that's an accurate assessment. (EDIT: Yes, yes it is.)

Natsu nee-san is far too awesome a character for them to keep in flashbacks. Six will get you ten, she'll turn up at some point. A mysterious disappearance eight years ago? People have recovered from worse.

Hmm...what else? Oh yes, Ayashiro needs more screentime. Mostly because of her voice.

Well, it's looking good so far!

edited 4th May '11 7:19:02 AM by RiotousRascal

Natsu nee-san has her very own route. But you can only clear it after Yasumi and Migiwa's. PERSEVERANCE.

edited 4th May '11 8:13:44 AM by risingdreams

So I've obtained *a* normal ending - not sure whose route I stumbled into in the end. Thoughts:

Kaya is ridiculously, over-the-top awesome, and what's more, that seems to be hereditary because Shouko is too. Blocking the <<Sword>> with a bokken? Awesome. Bizarre immunity to the miasma which will probably be explained in a different route? Doubly awesome.

Kohaku is...strange. You see her once, never hear about her again, then at the very end she's like OH HAI GUYS. Presumably that'll be explained in a different route as well.

Kaya's showdown with Munetsugu on top of the Gate. It's pretty hilarious, considering they spend about five minutes discussing obscure aspects of Japanese history before they finally remember they're supposed to be having a sword fight.

Talking Is a Free Action seems to be in effect when Migiwa and Shouko fight Kenki Kaya. Migiwa would probably have more of a chance if she didn't spend so much time explaining everything that was happening, as it happens.

Ah, well; On to the next route!

You should use the walkthrough. Too many endings. X_X

And you can't, I repeat, can't get Kaya's good ending ending without getting Migiwa and Yasumi's first, nor you can't get Nami and Kohaku's without getting Kaya's first.

Ah, I loved Aoishiro. <3

makes me wonder why I don't have any Aoishiro avatars in my gallery last time I checked :<

You can change avatars o_o?

Wait, why would Yasumi have her own route? She doesn't seem to be very importa-

Wait a minute.

(Symptoms of demonic possession = similar to the common cold...)

(Yasumi = anemic...)

(Symptoms of anemia bear some resemblance to symptoms of the common cold...)

OH MY GOD

edited 8th May '11 9:03:44 PM by RiotousRascal

Yes. Select "edit your forum profile" and go from there... :)

I think you came across Kaya's route, but you couldn't get a good ending due to not getting Migiwa and Yasumi's good endings first. All obtainable characters are very important to the plot.

Meaning, Yasumi is actually very important. She's one of my favourite characters. But you'll have to play her route to figure out why (or you can ask me to spoil you by PM ^^').

Thanks so much!

edited 9th May '11 2:23:15 PM by risingdreams

Not long had this and just gotten into this. I think I was in Migiwa's route but I just ran into a bad end. Went looking for Migiwa on the second night and got pulled into the sea by a bunch of Oni. I'm definitely going to need that play guide.

Finally got around to finishing Kaya/Natsu's route and have noticed something.

For someone who can't swim Migiwa sure gets tossed into the water alot

Currently proceeding through Yasumi's route according to a walkthrough. Seems like going in blind didn't work out so well for me the last time - I ran straight into a Bad End on the third day. Well, no matter.

I'm considering doing a Let's Play of Migiwa's route, but I'm not exactly sure how I'd go about setting it up. If I wanted to do it in a similar style to the FSN LP by seorin, I'd need to rip a huge amount of image data. I wonder if Seorin does that manually, or has some automated thing set up for it? I'll have to look in to it.

Or maybe I should do something similar to what he did for the Tsukihime LP, and have people vote whenever a choice comes up.

- and that's Migiwa's route cleared. Damn, that took a while.

It occurs to me that if I want to see the Grand Route, I'm gonna have to put a loooot of time into this.

Finished Yasumi's? If so, then Kaya's next (but you already realized that). Before Kaya, you can pick between Nami and Kohaku.

And yeah, getting to the Grand Route takes a long time, but it's worth it if you enjoyed the game so far.

I see. Yeah, I cleared Yasumi's route last week. I am definitely looking forward to Kohaku's route - she's awesome. Especially in that scene towards the end of Migiwa's route which goes like this: Kaya's also very GAR, but she doesn't get nearly enough screentime. Hopefully, her route will remedy this.

Also: does Yuukai ever break out his badass sword skillz which he presumably has? It'd be a real shame, introducing a character like that and not having him fight anyone.

edited 26th Oct '11 7:49:04 PM by RiotousRascal

Okay, so after a stupendous effort consisting of me clicking the mouse over and over again upwards of five thousand times, I cleared Kaya's route in a single day. And it was awesome.

• Ba Rouryuu is a douche, but damn if he doesn't look cool. Rockin' that trench coat and gloves.

• With every route I clear, Munetsugu just gets more and more awesome. Especially with his takedown of Rouryuu and subsequent Heroic Sacrifice at the end. One might call him the most badass of the Badass Normals.