Dondake

Spent the entire night 'till morning playing "Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition" after I bought it for four bucks, though that doesn't necessarily indicate that I'm obsessed with it. Since it's an open-world game, that means once I've explored all the locations and side quests, I'd be pretty bored with it. Actually, I'm starting to get bored of the routine of the game already, going around completing missions for both the cops and the triads. It's pretty much GTA IV/Yakuza 0 but with Chinese triads. You can pretty much just interchange these labels between the three games and it would generally feel like the same gameplay. Well, except you actually get more choices in how you want to complete certain important story missions in GTA IV. I'd probably be bored of this game in a few days, much faster than Two Point Hospital. At least it's cheap.

Needed an 'angry' game to vent out my frustration, and I remembered this edgy title called "Hatred". The title explains itself. It's pretty much a game designed for angry 12 year olds living in their momma's basement trolling the Internet. And here I am. Playing it. Still, were it not for its ridiculous self-aware dark humor amping up how violent the protagonist is trying to be, this game definitely wouldn't have seen the light of day, I think, especially with shootings being as rampant as they are in America. And it's not something like "Manhunt" or "Hitman" either, where the people you kill are pretty much scumbags who deserve it. Instead, you're shooting innocent bystanders here as part of some "cleansing", mixed in with the occasional cops you have to survive against. There are side-quests at times that give the game some variety, like burning down stores or blowing up gas stations. The game also has a top-down view, so the combat can be a bit awkward. I really loathe these kinds of games where it's more convenient with a controller. Thankfully, "sprint" and "crouch" can be toggled, so you can leave them on if you want. However, sprint can only be toggled for a few seconds before the main character runs normally again. The awkward combat mechanic is made more difficult when the only healing available is by performing "executions" on victims that are nearly dead, but not completely dead. Yeah. Anyway, it's amusing for what it is, and it does serve the purpose of numbing my brain and killing my boredom. But when it comes down to it, it's pretty formulaic, just running around shooting people. The execution cinematic is amusing enough, since there are various violent and brutal ways the killer pull them off, but there's not enough variety to keep me entertained for long. God, who knew playing a psychopath can be so... boring?

I remember when there was a time when I would do something similar like the OP, read one route then move on to another VN, before coming back to that first VN when I finished another route for the second VN. Nowadays, I just read six VNs at the same time, not really caring which route I finish first. Nowadays, I'm just trying to find anything to kill my boredom.

Personally, I prefer drama and horror. I don't really enjoy romance or mystery visual novels, even if I happen to run into a lot of the latter genre because many of them are considered to be kamige. Mystery stories are fine, but I find that a number of them tend to have a boring story and characters, like Ever17 and Root Double. I also don't like happy endings that are wrapped up neatly with a bow on top. I prefer more realistic endings that address the kind of conflict the characters had to go through. Above all else, I guess I prefer tragedies over happy stories. I find them literally more stimulating than peaceful and relaxing stories. Tragic stories literally trigger your senses and emotions far more than relaxing stories would. I like that emotional stimulation. I like it when a VN gets me to feel such intense feelings.

Already talked about it in both intro threads (in the main forum and the intro thread for this club), so here we go again! lol Swan Song Kara no Shoujo Fate/hollow ataraxia Aoishiro Root Double Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ That is all. Might talk about them in details in the future.

Heyo. Already talked about the kind of VNs I'm reading right now in my intro thread, so I'm feeling kinda lazy to repeat all that again, but... whatever. Swan Song Aoishiro Root Double Kara no Shoujo Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ Fate/hollow ataraxia I'm from Singapore, currently 28 years old. I like movies and anime, but I'm currently spending more time with visual novels than anime. Haven't seen an anime for months, not counting the adaptation of "The Labyrinth of Grisaia". That is all. Nice to meet yall.

Rain and shine. That is all.

Ticked off. First thing in the morning I woke up to is my Reddit post that I worked hard in writing got downvoted to 0. I f***ing hate Reddit.

Haven't watched cartoons for a long time. I had a mix viewing between Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon cartoons; Kim Possible Teen Titans Totally Spies American Dragon: Jake Long Phineas and Ferb Rugrats and Rugrats: All Grown Up Recess Lilo & Stitch: The Series The Powerpuff Girls My Life as a Teenage Robot Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius Spider-Man: The Animated Series The Fairly Odd Parents The Mask: The Animated Series Spongebob Squarepants Courage the Cowardly Dog KND: Kids Next Door Oh, and there's a cartoon I haven't watched much, but I consider it to be criminally underrated: Fillmore, Disney's parody of '70s cop drama set in an elementary school. If that intriguing premise doesn't grab you, I don't know what will. It's a hardcore series with amazing character writing and compelling emotional drama. My only problem is that, as a non-American, the dialogue often escapes my comprehension, so I really need subtitles to watch that show.

Pretty much most adaptations of visual novels, i.e.: The Fruit of Grisaia. The Eden of Grisaia, the third entry in the series, however, had a vast improvement though, so I can't complain. Much.

Played some Yakuza 0 last night, but got annoyed by two things: 1. The game plays smoother with a controller, and I recently sold away my PS4 dualshock controller... On KBM, I sucked hard playing the rhythm mini-game. Sigh. I hate playing rhythm games on KBM. 2. The game is basically GTA IV with yakuza. It's a massive game with 24gb, but I don't really like open-world games. It's just not my cup of tea. But the really disappointing thing is that I had presumed from reviews I read that the game can be played in any way you want, kinda like a visual novel with choices. But really, when it comes down to it, it's pretty much a false illusion of choice, and rather than "playing it your way," it's more like you're ticking off a series of checkboxes after every side-quest or location you've visited. I mean, I guess you could play those side-quests in any order you want... but does the order you play them in really matter in the end? Would there be any consequence to what kind of side-quest you complete at all? I doubt it. Which is why I don't like open-world games, because they feel like you're a tourist on a bus tour going down a list of locations you want to visit set for you by the tour guide, rather than picking the kind of experience you want to have... if that makes sense. Anyway, that's why I don't like linear games, because they lack that sense of personality. Every person playing the same game would have the same kind of experience because they would essentially be taking the same path you're taking. It's boring that way. Even open-world games have this problem. You're still visiting the same location every completionist out there who visit every location would be visiting. There's no difference if you simply visit every location too like a completionist. But anyway, I uninstalled Yakuza 0 just after a few hours. Waste of money and waste of time. Steam's refund policy triumphs again.

Tired, after a long day of trolling people on the Internet, baiting them to resent me and argue with me over trivial matters. All in a day's work, as they say.

Oh boy. This is going to be hard to talk about... ...or that's what I thought at the beginning, before I watched the first five seconds of this episode. It pretty much spoiled the main gimmick of what made this episode 'special'. In short: it's an interactive movie. That being said, it's a nice gimmick that's sure to get thousands, perhaps millions of people to finally subscribe to Netflix, right? Right? Whoopsie! One month free trial. Whoopsie! Cancelled immediately after finishing watching the episode. Whoopsie! So much for the piracy-aversion countermeasure, AKA PAC(man) [an acronym that's surely going to be important during the interactive episode]. Whoopsie! But jokes aside, it's not a bad story. However, you could definitely feel that Black Mirror has lost its shine ever since season 3, especially when they had to incorporate such a "socially relevant" gimmick to get with the times, when games with choices are all the rage. Being an interactive movie, its central theme is naturally... can anyone guess? That's right - fate and destiny! Definitely wouldn't have seen that coming! But to be fair, aside from one ending focusing on such a theme (and feeling like something outta that mediocre "Butterfly Effect" movie, a guilty pleasure of mine), it's also mixed with a few other themes as well. Because of our ability to control the actions of the protagonist, the story even goes meta a little bit and delve into parallel realities, and even delusion and insanity. So there's quite a bit of a mash-up of themes here that can feel oddly unsatisfying depending on the ending you reach. Personally, the most satisfying "ending" I reached was the aforementioned one that deals with fate. In the terms of a visual novel, you could even call it "the true ending" since it feels like it's the one that bears the most "closure". Furthermore, it's also the ending that feels the most like an ordinary Black Mirror cynical ending. So what's my verdict on this? 7/10. Nice gimmick, and a good attempt to improve on the future of streaming services. I do feel tempted to encourage more interactive movies like this in the future, but at the same time, I can also see that it's a very problematic way of writing a story, and can leave the viewer unsatisfied depending on the kind of ending they reached, or the amount of time they spent to reach it. I spent at least four hours just rewinding the episode, hoping to get a happier ending. Alas, such is not the nature of the twisted world that is Black Mirror. Footnote: Hype for season 5 regardless! I'm still excited for the new episodes!

I'm pretty okay with it, as you can see from one of my latest profile posts. We all have financial issues of some kind. Call it "stealing" if you want, but as long as the law can't catch me, I don't give a damn. Sorry, but that's just reality of the world for you. Maybe invent better anti-piracy methods if you want to starve off piracy. I do understand the sentiment that "piracy hurts developers", however. It's not like I never buy my games, ever. But I only pay money for games I deem worthy of my purchase. Sometimes, even such a commitment only punished me instead of rewarding me. Take for example, Hitman 2. I bought the game - Gold Edition even, so it cost extra - but the game lagged like hell, and I couldn't refund it because by the time I discovered the levels that do "lag", which is like the 2nd or 3rd level, I've already clocked in more than two hours, meaning that I couldn't refund the thing and I'm stuck with a piece of shit that's unplayable. But I digress. The point I really want to make is that, I do give good money to good developers that truly deserve my hard-earned cash. Piracy helps to give that "free trial" so that you could test it out and see if you want to support the developer or not (I didn't get the chance to do so with Hitman 2 and got punished for it). Many piracy websites and even the pirated game itself have messages to encourage players to buy the game if they like it.

Can't sleep tonight. Too many angry thoughts floating around my head. In fact, I've been feeling pretty pissed off for no real reason over the past week. Feels like it's only a matter of time before I blow up.

Played lots of VNs over the past week, as usual. I'm trying not to talk too much about that over here though since I'm not sure if there are that many people out here who read VNs and are therefore interested to read this sort of thing, so I'm trying to keep my posting to mainstream gaming, But occasionally, I guess I'll just drop one or two comment here and there out of boredom. Let's see... got a VN I ordered online delivered today. It's an otome game, meaning that it's catered for female gamers, but I've read that it can be enjoyed by males too, unlike something that's considered "girly" in America like "Barbie's funhouse" or something. Unless you're a male who's into Barbie. No judgement. So far, the notion that otome games can be enjoyable for males holds true. It just comes off as your average anime harem, except with males. And well-written ones like that ones I bought don't really focus that much on sex anyway, even if some of the implications is still problematic, as far as Japanese stories go (like suggesting that a guy who talks openly about having sex with you makes him just a "lovable goofball" instead of a dangerous creep who should be locked up). God, as a guy playing as a female, I'm honestly creeped out, having finally understanding how a woman feels towards men like that. Japan seriously needs a #MeToo. Anyway, other than that, I'm also playing five other VNs at the moment, including Kara no Shoujo and Fate/hollow no ataraxia, the latter of which being a sequel to Fate/Stay Night (though it's more like a fandisc than a sequel, meaning it's more like DLC material). Might go into more details talking about them in the future, should I notice any interest in VNs around here.

https://kotaku.com/sony-ends-production-of-physical-vita-games-1826060406 Old news from May this year, but thought I would bring it up since 1) we're fast-approaching that time when the production of Vita physical games is stopped, and 2) because there wasn't any thread for this, and I'm just interested if anyone else is affected by this issue. Firstly, I just want to say I've never been a big fan of Nintendo. I sold my 3DS because I needed to make some money back from buying Hitman 2 and I didn't cry over it. I won't bother buying Switch either because it's so expensive. So I just couldn't relate to this whole "Vita is outdated because Ninten-do" mentality, especially with the huge amount of visual novels that are released exclusively on the platform. For those who don't usually read VNs - which I'd assume makes up a large population of this forum - this probably doesn't raise your attention much. But for someone like me, someone whose local PS store has a very limited range of Vita indie games that are in the English language, including English visual novels, this spells big trouble because I got my two latest Vita VNs from buying second-hand copies, meaning physical copies. This means that if production is stopped, any VN released in the future won't be accessible by me anymore unless I Japanese or improve my Chinese. I guess I could try and bypass the PS store's detection system and bluff that I'm from America or something, but I don't even know how to pull that off, since my debit card is probably recognized as non-American. I hate that this problem is explained away with "digital copies is the wave of the future" when there's so many problems that come with digital copies, not the least of which being all your purchases are controlled by a corporation with agendas. Reselling your games is also impossible unless you sell your entire account, which will warrant a ban from the respective game company (be it Valve or Sony). Such a cheap and lazy way to excuse themselves from making physical copies anymore. If you want to make money off digital copies, don't pass it off like you're revolutionizing video gaming or standing on some pretentious moral high ground. You're not. You're just making money, that is all. State that plain as day please. Anyway, that is all I want to rant about. Just want to see if anyone else is annoyed by this problem.