Key Visual Arts

Tomoyo After is out on Steam.

Harmonia was better than I thought. Finally finished it.

The usual Key idyllic tone matches well with the fact that everyone is a robot.

Why else would a girl be living on her own safely after being abandoned by her parents? Because robots?

If anything I'm rather saddened by the possibility that the two girls won't regain their memories (Because I feel their memories are what made them who they were) but at least the dialogue implies it's a temporary state of affairs.

I found the twist with the main character obvious from early on if you know what to look for.

I think the ending works too.

Little Busters is planned for release in February-May and there's a Kud Wafter anime planned.

I'd post the link but NSFW ads.

It's about time.

Soooo, speaking of Little Busters!...

I've been playing the fan-translation. Am I the only one who's uninterested in most of the female cast? Aside from Kurugawa, Saigusa, & Mio, they're mostly boring moeblobs. (I REALLY can't stand Kud.)

I really wish you could date Kyousuke. Yeah, I know, impossible wish for a male-oriented visual novel (one released in 2007, at that!), but he & Riki actually have a lot of chemistry - they've been friends forever; he's always helping Riki out. And yet, their relationship can't blossom into something more. What a shame.

Kud is cute enough. The one I loathe is Komari. In any case, no, you aren't alone. Most people consider the best part of Little Busters to be Refrain, which could be called the friendship route focusing on the original Little Busters rather than the cute girls they just recruited.

Haruka is interesting to me, though I don't particularly like or dislike her. Have you read her route yet? I don't want to say why unless you have.

It's been a while, but the only routes I remember particularly liking are Rin's and Refrain.

Refrain is amazing, and worth the entire time spent with the other non-amazing routes.

Any word on Angel Beats! yet? I saw mention of it being localized in the thread.

Nothing as been said since the localization announcement if I recall correctly.

Little Busters! is on Steam Greenlight.

Man, Little Busters really wussed out when it came to Kanata. It goes on about how bad the scars on her arms are but since that would make her look less pretty they never actually show it.

Anyway, her route was pretty boring. Sasami's was actually fairly good despite the silly premise. It reminded me a little of Komari's route where a cat is randomly killed off to start the plot and I cared about it way more than the actual route heroine. Now the drama and sad thing in the story is about a dying cat and I'm much sadder about it dying than most characters that can actually speak.

Just starting on Saya's route. Can't say I'm impressed yet but I'm not very far into it.

I see there's still no word on the Angel Beats! translation. Pity.

Okay, I give up on Saya's route. This is really boring.

Hmm. For some reason I assumed you already played the VN.

I did, but this release has the EX routes in it, which I hadn't read.

I remember reading a bit of Saya's route in Japanese. It was pretty dumb TBH

Summer Pockets is out on steam, I hadn't even heard of an English release announcement.

Ryukishi07 is writing a short kinetic novel for Key.

I'm very intrigued.

Bumping because I've been playing Little Busters! recently and I just finished Kud's good ending earlier and I have a question: does Clannad have any routes as dark as the last portion of hers? I'm interested in it but I prefer happier stuff and Kud's route is the darkest so far (For reference I've played through Rin's bad ending, both of Mio's endings, Kurugaya's standard ending, and the good endings for Komari, Haruka, and Kud so far.) so I'm wondering how dark it Clannad is/can get. It'll be awhile before I decide either way but still.

Edited by Chariot on Jan 31st 2022 at 4:11:08 AM

Hmm. I was about to say something about Little Busters' routes but then I realized you haven't finished it so I shouldn't make that comment.

Um, lessee. Going over the routes in my head, not really? They can be melodramatic but nothing that serious really happens apart from the first part of Afterstory. And the event in question is a kind of 'sad, but life moves on' type thing if you ask me. There's a kind of hiccup in the middle that you may consider dark. I hated it because I felt it ruined a good story in order to set up the finale, which I did not care for.

I tried to dance around spoilers as best as I could.

Honestly? Clannad has aged really badly and while I can appreciate the ambition that went into it, it just tries to do too much stuff. And I think in general Key VNs are really not as sad as people make them out to be. The writing feels manipulative.

Edited by Arha on Jan 31st 2022 at 9:26:25 AM