The general thread of generalness (a.k.a. we talk about everything)

I've been on a VN kick and as a palate cleanser from Dangan Ronpa I've been making my way through Hotel Dusk. It has a few things I'm not super fond of (is it really necessary to repeat the flashback of Hyde picking up the phone and shooting Bradley every time the subject comes up? Why do japanese games always do this?), but the extremely strong aesthetic, localized writing and memorable soundtrack make it a joy to play and I'm really sad that I put this off for so long. The more realistic tone, aesthetic and writing style is really a breath of fresh air.

So, a little late, but posting here in case anyone hasn't seen it.

Recently Mangagamer and several other companies selling visual novels and similar on Steam have received notices from Valve that their games were being removed from Steam. Kindred Spirits on the Roof being mentioned specifically and being told that it was being removed for "pornographic content" despite Mangagamer having specifically cleared everything in the game before hand.

Yesterday however the situation was updated with developers being told to disregard the previous notice and their games would be "re-reviewed" and Mangagamer told specifically that they would receive specific feedback.

Reading comments on other articles linked in the provided ANN stories suggested that some would-be group of Moral Guardians is taking credit for this by spamming content violation reports. No links were provided in these comments though so I can't confirm their veracity.

Well that sucks

Saw that Cross Channel is on Steam now. Surprised by that. Was thinking about getting into it and Shuffle, but don’t know how good they are, port wise.

I’m really behind on VN backlog. Should reread FSN

I would recommend the other Dangan Ronap games (As well as the Anime for Dangan Ronpa 3) at some point.

So Sanoba Witch is out and it's the first VN I've started reading in months. There's nothing wrong with Nene, but out of pure stubbornness I refuse to do her route first.

Is it just me or are some people becoming a bit too happy to delete entire pages? Owl House, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, The Suicide Squad, etc.?

I wish Masada released Dies Irae Pantheon, mainly for the orgasm of the ears of themes like this

Oh hey, so Walkerman finally after two years got second act out.

So I recently got inspired to play through the rest of Doki Doki Literature Club! It was certainly an experience.

I feel like the various tags and disclaimers on the game almost helped heighten the sense of dread in some cases. Like it was pretty obvious where Act 1 was going to end up after Sayori started talking about her depression, but the specifics and jump-scariness of it still caught me off guard when it happened. I was like "Oh no oh no oh no OH JESUS!" on the reveal.

I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the meta-ness you had to pull to get an actual ending, though maybe that's because I had it spoiled for me after getting to Act 3. I probably would never have actually finished it otherwise.

Still, I'm glad I played through it despite not being big on V Ns in general.

I finished a first playthrough of Everlasting Summer; I may yet try it again, but not soon. My strongest impression of it is that it is comfort food for Russian men who are stuck in life, isolated, spend to much time on imageboards and have some vague nostalgia for the Soviet era while knowing it was a pretty bad environment. But it is also in so many ways a mixed bag.

Backgrounds, music and the use of atmospheric sounds are masterpieces. Sprites are polished but simple, looking out of place against the detailed and shaded backgrounds. Most CGs are rush jobs (and the faceless protagonist trope was annoying, he is his own character not a stand-in). Story-wise, there's some leftover conflict between its early idea of being horror, and the iyashikei mood it mostly ended with.

The premise of a man becoming a teenager in a Soviet pioneer camp causes two problems. One is the creepy factor of an adult romancing teenagers. The other is that our protagonist is constantly searching for clues and feeling afraid of what is happening, while the reader knows there is no real answer and just wants him to settle down. I would have much preferred an actual teenage lead, especially since he oftenacts like one, with perhaps the Framing Device of an adult recalling his youth.

It is just barely above a Random Events Plot, jumping from one incident to another with no direction, varying from the mundane to the silly to the slightly weird. There was one arc played for horror, which was somewhat effective, but right afterwards it was naked shenanigans. The prose was lacking, though that might be the translation. Alisa and Lena showed some depth, the rest were one-note. Choices felt arbitrary; I ended up on the Alisa route with no idea how, and got her bad ending feeling "wait, that was bad?".

I will say that despite the wish-fulfilment premise, the protagonist never felt like an adult among children like in some VNs (ironically...), and unlike the current wave of isekai, the ending emphasised finding purpose and happiness in your own life. And for all its flaws, it was far more readable than much of Katawa Shoujo, probably because most arcs were quite short and I had some curiosity about how it turned out in the end. It's interesting as an amateur project, but it's not something I would pay much for.

So, between The Committee of 300 and Junko Enoshima, which would over throw the other?

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Nov 13th 2019 at 8:53:15 AM

Just picked up DR1 again... whose FTEs should I do next? Mondo, Chihiro, Taka or someone else? I don't know whether I want to continue the trend of doing victims' FTEs or start doing those of the killers... or just go in any random direction. And I put Taka here because you can't talk to him in chapter 3 before he dies.

Edited by ReikoKazama on Nov 15th 2019 at 6:12:18 AM

Are there any V Ns that are kid-friendly and/or made for all ages? I was thinking about the genre and came up surprisingly empty.

I’d like help expanding the Higurashi Referenced by page i recently started

Nekojishi: Is that a Taiwanese game, with a Japanese / Romanji, Foreign Language Title-type Market-Based Title?

"家有大貓" is its Taiwanese / Chinese name?

Edited by Malady on Jun 25th 2021 at 8:12:15 AM

Yesterday, it finally happened. The first complete English translation patch for Tokimeki Memorial (Super Famicom) was released.

(If you're curious, Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side got an unofficial translation in December 2010. The second Girl's Side game received one in May 2011. The third game got two patches in June 2015, for the DS and PSP versions.)

Edited by dorkatlarge on Mar 7th 2022 at 9:14:00 AM

Well this is cute and funny. A game where you get a Yuri harem but you only want to single and be friends with them.

So, I decided to get DDLC for the switch today. I've actually played it during its peak popularity and man, playing it now, its pretty nostalgic.

So is this basically the Chatterbox thread for VNs?

Okay, because apparently, there is a very recent VN on Steam that actually helps you fill out your taxes. No, I'm dead serious.

Or rather, there was a very recent VN on Steam, but Steam pulled it. No official reason yet, but I'll bet it might be because of the game's dodginess, like asking for your SSN.

In any case, never before has this Dan Vs. clip been more relevant until now.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Mar 23rd 2023 at 11:20:42 AM

Paranormasight is apparently super good, need to find time to play it

So has anyone here played these visual novel series?:

Jake Hunter

Sound Novel

Tokimeki Memorial

EVE

Sakura Wars

This EVE? We don't got a page on it, at least.

https://vndb.org/v1441

So are there any opinions on Berrywitched and Cherrywitched?

Electricmastro asked, "So has anyone here played these visual novel series? ... Tokimeki Memorial ..."

I enjoyed the three Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side games on DS, and the third on PSP. Each one started with ten minutes of story. Then it abruptly shifted to schedule and stat management gameplay, with no hints or tutorial. Fortunately, these three games do not start off difficult. There's only a couple of characters until the protagonist improves her stats, joins a club, and/or chooses a part time job. As the game progresses, the protagonist can get a tangled web of friends and possible love interests. Either you'll like the constant statistic changes or you won't. I found the games to be relaxing or stressful, all depending on what actions I chose. It was sort of like learning how not to over-commit to daily tasks in Stardew Valley.

I've only played the Super Famicom version of Tokimeki Memorial for an hour. Experiencing it after the three Girl's Side games was kind of like playing Dragon Quest 8, and then attempting to get into Dragon Quest 2. There were small things which I missed, such as knowing when the protagonist can ask out love interests,

Electricmastro also asked about Sakura Wars. I haven't played the fan translated 1996 Sega Saturn game or the 2019 Playstation 4 reboot. That said, I liked the Playstation 2 / Wii game Sakura Wars: So Long My Love, which is the fifth entry in the series. As far as I know, it's a soft reboot after the first four games, since it features a new setting and only a couple of cameo appearances from characters in games 1-4. So Long My Love had three distinct modes: walking around town, interacting with characters, and fighting strategy RPG battles. Walking through steampunk New York wasn't bad, though I was often guessing where to go next. Talking with people was fine, though I was a bit annoyed by the constant timed choices (borderline quick time events). Finally, I liked the battles as a change of pace, even though I'm not good at strategy role playing games. Each chapter of Sakura Wars 5 was an hour or two of interaction followed by an hour or two of back-to-back combat. The game's tone was about as absurd as Nadesico or Gokudo: Swordsman Extraordinaire. Most events were played for comedy, but every now and then, there's a genuine moment.

Leaf's classic Visual Novel "White Album" to get an english release on Q3 2023.