Stuck in Yu-No

Remember, first you think up of a crazy illogical hypothesis, THEN you prove it. That is TRUE science.

Well, the 'proving' stage just seems to be 'Accept it. It must be true!' and then continuing on.

Mio route complete. Kanna/Kaori should apparently complete the story. Overall, I've liked Eriko and Mio the most. Mitsuki was really boring and Ayumi was just kinda there. Plus, her behavior was a little irritating at times.

There's still a true route after all that.

I agree about the Ayumi route. Toyotomi is a massive dick but it's only Ayumi and the MC acting like idiots that create most of the conflict.

Hm. Kanna route: Hypersense Stone pendant + mentions of immortality + Kanna not acting her age + Kanna being sick of life = Immortal Kanna? My other guess is that it's an anchor and that she's from the future.

Kanna route complete. I rather liked her as well. Kaori makes for a pretty decent Wild Card too.

And then suddenly ELVES! ELVES EVERYWHERE! What the hell.

edited 26th May '12 8:08:31 PM by Arha

It was obviously elves all along! Didn't you see the SUBTLE foreshadowing?

He's going to continue acting like an idiot all throughout Elfland isn't he? "Hey, bad shit will happen if you go into the temple you know" "Papa, remember when mama died? I feel like that now. Don't go in there." "And thus, I decided to enter the temple."

Man, this epilogue is longer than I expected. When I launch a page for this I'm probably going to cut it in two.

edited 27th May '12 10:14:58 AM by Arha

All done. I have to say I didn't much like the true route. There's nothing wrong with it as a standalone but it makes the first half of the story seem almost completely pointless.

Yeah, I have that sentiment as well even if I did like the true route. How he lost sight of his original goal rubbed me the wrong way. The plot threads tying together at the final route is still great, but the ending itself was a bit cringe worthy even without the incest. He promised Kanna, too. ;_; ... In retrospect, he would have been switching one hot daughter for a different one, but still!

edited 27th May '12 3:08:28 PM by encrypted12345

Well, since I don't need to go regather items at least I can go back and see the character epilogues. And the little puzzles in the Eriko quiz area are fun since they aren't as hard as the one in the chamber.

Wait. Would that make Amanda Kanna's mother? Hmmm. Yeah, guess it would. Well, I don't have to believe that Kanna is his daughter even if it's probably the case. Well, even if she is it wouldn't bother me. They never lived together. Yu-No, on the other hand, was pretty cringeworthy since he did raise her. Wait. Doesn't this mean that Kanna doesn't have that long to live anymore? Takuya's mother seems to have been genuinely immortal though.

I wish Eriko had been a love interest. Come to think of it the details were a little shaky in the true route as well. What was the point to the nogards?

edited 27th May '12 3:37:52 PM by Arha

Oh god, Yu-No. Yu-No is such a case of wasted potential.

The first half of the game is pretty good. I played a lot of adventure games, so the ability to examine everything and pick stupid options for amusing dialogue is a giant nostalgia trip for me. I really like the routing; while navigating from place-to-place isn't exactly the most elegant way to handle event triggering (actual hints for your next destination are lacking 90% of the time), something about the time travel mechanics just really appeals to me. It feels like a game as well as a visual novel, and I like that. While it's kind of persistently Freudian in uncomfortable ways (and why must I know the underwear color of every female I ever meet?), there's also the sense that there's a single coherent world and a solvable mystery, and you're gradually getting closer and closer to it.

Then you get to the second half of the game. You reach what feels like the very climax of the game, where you'll finally reach the answers. Then the genre changes, the cast changes, the setting changes, the game play changes, and all of the dramatic tension drops abruptly. And when you finally do reach answers, it's been about fifteen hours since you've even *seen* the questions, and they don't really feel relevant any more. And while you're waiting, it gradually goes from "Freudian" to "early psychology master's thesis." It's like you're suddenly playing a completely different visual novel, and this one sucks.

I'd recommend the first half of the novel, but only to people with the self-control to stay away from the second half. And that's a very hard thing to do when that first half seems to be building to a compelling ending. But come on. The second half has, as a serious plot element, the revelation that your wife is a reincarnation of your mother, and that your daughter is a reincarnation of your wife who is a reincarnation of your mother. And it's implied that the previous incarnations are conscious, at least for a little bit. And your dead wife has no problems passing the torch. What the hell?

Thanks for the last spoiler. It helps to clear things up a little bit. Not that it's any less WT Hish.

Oh, and that serious plot element is so heavily embedded, that I seriously can't think of a way to write around it. Sayless never dies? Kanna wouldn't have been born and the first half would have to be entirely rewritten partly since he's less likely to fuck other people on a journey to find his missing wife rather than to avenge his dead wife. Yuno never falls in love with her father? Well, they have to have sex SOMETIME since they're Adam and Eve. Seriously, I have nothing.

The Nogards were failed experiments like the other monsters, I believe. Besides, the plot element is there, so you would get to eat a deliciously hot woman. It's to be expected of an H-Game

edited 28th May '12 6:30:28 AM by encrypted12345

Yeah, the two halves of the story don't mesh up as well as they should have. There are a couple points like Amanda that link the two together but overall they felt like entirely different stories. I liked the first half better as well.

The nogards weren't failures. They were rational beings. What I meant, though, was why introduce the Fantastic Racism? And Takuya actually eating Kun Kun was both pointless and kind of a dick move on the part of the writers.

Anyway, Kanna End completed, leaving me with nothing left to see in this. I'll launch up the article eventually, but for now I need to do some class work.

I am ignoring the Adam and Eve thing. Fridge logic kinda turns a lot of things into downers. Only one version of Ryuuzouji is disposed of, Mio probably dies in any ending but her own, Kanna probably won't live that much longer etc.

I am not sure why people think this is so oh my god amazing! Apart from gameplay issues like not telling you where to go or weird event triggers, a lot of the details are guesswork, the bad guy is pretty undeveloped, the two story halves don't mesh as well as they should and there were a lot of pointless details.

Nostalgia Filter is part of it. It probably was the first Adventure Game of its insane scale. As for why modern players still call it a masterpiece, I got nothing. I'll be the first to say that it's damn good and the scale of the plot is a bit awe-inspiring, but a perfect 10 is just overrating it.

I gave it an 8 on VNDB. If the True Route had connected better it might have gotten a 9.

if you can find it,watch the 4 episode OVA to see how mucha time you wasted on a messed up plot.It is exactly what you expect when you try to adapt such game's story into a 30 minute 4 episode hentai.The story barely makes sense and it's too rushed.The characters's personalities were altered a lot,and some others are completely absent.There are many Les Yay moments between the girls for no reason and the only voices from the game that didn't get the Darrin treatment were Toyotomi(Shinichiro Miki) and Yu-No(Kimiko Koyama),though we still got some known names like Susumu Chiba(Takuya) and Mie Sonozaki(Eriko). Curiously,the official English release seems to have suffered a selective censorship,because the girls' nudity is uncensored, but not Yu-No for some reason

edited 29th May '12 8:28:14 PM by johnnysasaki

The game started with interesting questions but I got stuck with the foxy, red-haired girl in the cafe soon (I'm pretty sure my game was corrupted and the game was looping since I clicked on everything...) and so I lost interest.

Totally not worth the frustrating gameplay in the modern era though.