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Cy~

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anime adaptations of visual novels can sometimes execute emotional music much more effectively than the VN counterpart, simply because the timing of when the music plays is controlled by the director of the anime, not the player of the VN.

 

Well, I think that it's also worth noting that the anime benefits strongly from the hindsight of the visual novel authors. Usually there's a bit of time that has passed between when a VN is written and an anime adaption. I'd imagine that this time allows the original vision to mature like a fine wine. When the anime adaption is being directed, all of these "lessons learned" can be channeled into it.

 

A perfect example is Muv-Luv... but it's something I'm not in a good position to talk about because I've never actually played Muv-Luv.

 

I'm sadly not in a good position to talk about Muv-Luv, either. The only thing that I know about it is that the translation made an absolute killing on kickstarter. It's clearly popular. Nothing about it really draws me in, though. I think that I'm more interested in the slowly growing English VN market.

 

Speaking of which, there was a pretty cool shout out to Visual Novels in a recent Steam announcement.

 

Right from the early days and throughout the life of Greenlight, we have been continually surprised by the hits coming through. In just the first year we saw titles such as War For The Overworld, Evoland, Rogue Legacy, and Verdun move through Greenlight and go on to become hugely successful. We found it was easy to explain afterwards why some titles turned out to be big hits, but when we forced ourselves to predict beforehand, we weren't nearly as accurate as we thought we were going to be.
Those early years also saw huge growth in some categories of games that we had previously considered extremely niche, like visual novels.
Whether you love or hate visual novels (In which case you can customize your preferences here!), they have gone on to form a huge following on Steam.

 

Emphasis added by me. :o

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I'm sadly not in a good position to talk about Muv-Luv, either. The only thing that I know about it is that the translation made an absolute killing on kickstarter. It's clearly popular. Nothing about it really draws me in, though.

Personally, I wasn't interested in Muv-Luv at first either after seeing that it's just another harem romance like Clannad and School Days (without the tears and violence). There's a reason why I said "its much more beloved sequel" in my previous post. :P But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me explain a few things about Muv-Luv so that you can get a better idea why it's so popular in spite of its seemingly generic harem romance story:

 

The first Muv-Luv, or "Muv-Luv Extra", is a generic high school romance story. There's no hidden gem, no hidden depths, nothing. It's a straightforward harem anime kind of story, albeit not a terrible one compared to other harem. So why is it so popular? Well...

 

The second Muv-Luv game, "Muv-Luv Unlimited", is when the story finally gets deconstructed. What was once a peaceful high school life is threatened by the dangers of war. This part is purely conjecture at this point since I haven't played it, but I'd assume that signs of war are breaking out, and you could feel the tension rising and the stakes becoming more real.

 

And then... da da da! Muv-Luv Alternative! The third and most popular one of all! Remember how you took Muv-Luv Extra for granted, dismissing those peaceful happy moments as mere generic harem fluff? Well, Alternative takes all that happy moments away and replace it with heavy amounts of angst and despair!

 

That is the genius of Muv-Luv, because it deconstructs the whole idea of the stereotypical harem romance in your typical anime. It's one massive troll by the writer to make you miss the good times when the bad times/despair of Alternative falls upon you. It's also the reason why every Muv-Luv fan strongly recommends playing Extra and Unlimited before you get to Alternative. Otherwise, you'll miss the whole point of the story - don't take your happiness for granted! In that sense, it's a lot like Clannad After Story. It asks, "What happens after the "happily ever after" in a romance story?"

 

Ohhh, I can't wait. It's a shame Alternative has not been officially translated yet (there's only a fan patch), but since Extra and Unlimited were already released on Steam, and there's promise of Alternative coming soon too, I'd say it's not long now. :D

 

Edit

This trailer can explain a lot more how epic is it:

[spoiler=Muv-Luv Trailer]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSiL2Q9Kp3I

 

"Until one day... when everything changes."

 

Oh god, the chills!

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I never really played Muv-Luv, I am currently waiting on Fault Milestone 2 side:below. I might try it if I get enough money, but I need to finish Narcissus Sumire first.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since it's pretty much dead for weeks now, guess I'll be posting all my visual novel updates in this thread from now on instead of "What Game Are You Currently Playing?".

 

Finally finishing up on the three VNs listed in my sig, going through the "True" and final routes on all of them (except for Book of Shadows, which merely has a "final chapter" rather than a "true route"). Gotta say, most of these three VNs I've played this round are quite disappointing in one way or another. Let's start with Steins;Gate 0. I'll try to avoid spoiling anything as much as possible.

 

Steins;Gate 0

It's a really well-written story that tells of a "What If" scenario which happens around the end of the first Steins;Gate. It's quite a bleak dystopian scenario at that. You get to see WWIII break out, people dying everywhere, depressing stuff. Some have felt that this was an unnecessary part of the universe we didn't need to find out, that the original Steins;Gate wrapped up perfectly already. I would disagree, because I felt it gave us certain fresh perspectives of the characters we didn't see before.

 

For example, what I love especially is how it deals with Okabe's PTSD, because I feel that we don't really see enough of that in anime (which this VN is going to be adapted into anyway) or just mainstream media in general. You get to see how Okabe struggles with his decision in the 'What If' scenario. You get to explore a deeper relationship between Suzuha and Daru, something the original never had, leading to a respectable side of Daru you'll never see otherwise. And you also get a bunch of new characters like Maho and Kagari, which is where the flaws of the game start to seep in.

 

I like the whole "Mozart and Salieri" relationship between Kurisu and Maho (respectively). I could personally relate to Maho's inferior complex a lot. I think she gave Okabe the push that was necessary, being another individual who has constantly failed. The problem with Maho's character, however, is the same problem with a lot of elements in Steins;Gate 0 - I feel she doesn't add anything meaningful to the main story. Even if she has a large presence as a main character, if you take her away, the story will still largely be the same. Furthermore, I wanted to see more of Kurisu than this new character who popped outta nowhere, and unfortunately, Kurisu's presence is very little, if at all. I know, I know, we've already seen enough of her in the first game (and the anime movie), but still. Compared to the more interesting young genius who tried to live up to her father's standards, Maho was just... kinda there. There wasn't even any comparison between Maho's inferiority and Kurisu's inferiority (towards her father), since we never really learned if Maho knew that Kurisu felt like a Salieri to someone else too, her own father. It's like, why is she even a character if such an obvious parallel isn't going to be brought up? It makes Maho feel like just another insecure character we're supposed to sympathize instead of seeing an otherwise interesting character relationship between Maho, Kurisu, and her father.

 

Then there's Kagari. To be fair, Kagari at least brought something meaningful to the story - it gave Mayuri character growth, making her more than just some cliched Mary-Sue moe-blob. She's kind-hearted, seemingly can do no wrong... yay? Where's the interesting side to that? It's boring. I don't know why Okabe would bother to save such a boring character! lol But Steins;Gate 0 gave Mayuri more things to do and turned her from a hollow plot-device into a more respectable person, and Kagari plays a big role in this. That said, Kagari becomes the new plot-device of the story, serving as a tool to progress Mayuri's character, just as how Mayuri did in the first game to progress Okabe. What's worst about her character is that god-awful twist at the end that came out of the left field, when we finally learn who is under that motorcycle helmet. It was convoluted and utterly pointless.

 

Finally, there's a quite a large amount of filler fanservice content that distracts from the story, though not nearly as much as the first game (I'd say it makes up at most 30% of the story). A lot of comedy, a lot of pointless dialogue, especially during Maho's route which felt more like "The Adventure of Maho and Moeka!" than Steins;Gate. So for a dark dystopian story, it's not all doom and gloom either, which should be a good thing on paper. The occasional humor is important when you have such a depressing story (especially if you went for the Bad End on your first playthrough), but too much of it can take away the stakes and tension. The humor worked for the first game because it created a mood whiplash when the twist happened, when the comedy slice of life turned into a depressing thriller. But in this second game, we're already informed in the prologue that Steins;Gate 0 is going to be depressing, so there's an audience expectation of a gripping story that's going to rip our heart out. There's no need to build up any humor just to surprise us later. Get to the meat of the story already.

 

But like I said, most of the filler content exists within Maho's route. This is to supposedly make us care more about Moeka as a likable person, but unfortunately, I feel it didn't really add any interesting perspective about Moeka we didn't already know. Furthermore, whatever it is done here to make Moeka likable is kinda undone in the True Route, when she returns to her roots again, back to the way she was in the first game.

 

Finally, in spite of Okabe's PTSD condition, he still comes off as kinda whiny. The whole story does ended up feeling just a little bit pointless by the end because we're back to where the first Steins;Gate left off at episode 23/Chapter 11, when Okabe finally gets his s*** together. It's like waiting for Daniel Craig's Bond to finally become the true Bond after the prequel, Casino Royale. It's exhausting.

 

In conclusion, Steins;Gate 0 isn't utterly terrible, and is the best visual novel out of the three I've played. There's still a lot of valuable character development that lets you learn more about the cast, there's still a lot of 'feels' (though not as much as the first game), and there's still a lot of interesting sciencey stuff about causality, artificial intelligence, and the workings of human memory. It's a solid story especially if you're a S;G fan... but also an unpolished and flawed one.

 

★★★½

 

P.S. Despite my last point about Okabe, I would still recommend playing this before playing Chapter 11 in the first game. Stop reading at the part where Okabe returns from his failed mission in the time machine, as that's where Steins;Gate 0's story starts. After you complete Steins;Gate 0, return to Steins;Gate. Reap in the sheer awesomeness of Hououin Kyouma. It's much more satisfying that way.

 

Corpse Party: Book of Shadows

Everytime I play this, it only reminds me how I'm unable to play the real sequel, Corpse Party: Blood Drive. That game's expensive af. I couldn't find a cheap copy of Blood Drive online, so I have to wait a long while before I could get the proper closure I need for the Corpse Party universe.

 

And yes, there isn't closure in Book of Shadows. This isn't technically a sequel to the first Corpse Party, and more like an anthology of short stories to highlight minor characters from the first game. It's not terrible, and I do enjoy getting to learn more about these side characters. But I feel it's just such a downer to the bittersweet ending of the first game. It's like, we're reminded all over again what a terrible fate these kids went through. It's really depressing, much more than Steins;Gate 0. The point of the game is really to just see cute characters go through a lot of suffering (emotional or otherwise) all over again. Some chapters are especially cruel since you're tricked into thinking that you can save certain characters you love from the first game, only to find out they suffer a much more agonizing death. Not a pleasant tale to read if you're prefer your stories with rainbows and sunshine.

 

What happens in Book of Shadows is an alternate universe, another "What If" scenario that picks up from one of the bad ends during the first game's Chapter 5, the one where all the characters were sent to the beginning of the story, forced to relive their fate all over again. Yikes.

 

Book of Shadows features a different kind of gameplay that I initially really didn't like (but eventually got used to). You can no longer control your character's movement like in an RPG. Instead, you have to pick from a map screen which room you want to go to. It's clunky and awkward. Unfortunately, from what I've learned about Blood Drive, it will probably get worse, as Blood Drive incorporates the 'chibi' style into the character design. Cute chibi in a horror game... Sigh.

 

There's not much else to say about Book of Shadows. It's a good story worth reading with great characters, even if it's really depressing. You get more insight into what happened with certain dead characters in the first game, so that's a plus. For fans of Corpse Party, I would definitely recommend playing it at least once.

 

★★★★

 

The reason I rated this higher than S;G 0 (even though I said S;G 0 is the best of the three) is because, while S;G 0's story is the most interesting of them all, Book of Shadows' story is just done much better, more polished and well-written than the cluttered mess S;G 0 can sometimes be, even though Book of Shadows is kinda just repeating the same doom and gloom of the first game.

 

Virtue's Last Reward

Oh boy. Here we go. The worst of the lot. I had a really boring time playing Virtue's Last Reward. The first game was decent enough, nothing amazing, but this one was really a stinker. Many of the "routes" are repetitive or aren't even about the characters they're named after. For example, Tenmyouji's route is about Quark, not Tenmyouji, and Quark's route (the shortest and most underwhelming route of all that lasted, and I'm not kidding you, FIFTEEN MINUTES) is about Alice. Confusing and annoying.

 

Once again, a group of people are trapped somewhere and are forced to play some dumb game to get out. In stories like this, it's important that you have characters you can root for, so that you would care if they die or not. Unfortunately, Virtue's Last Reward is made up of some of the most selfish people you'll ever meet... with the exception of ONE character, and only one, Luna, but even she has a reason that explains away why she's so saintly among all those selfish people. It's incredibly frustrating to read the story because nobody is likable (except Luna), and even the character you're playing, Sigma, can be a jerk as well if you choose to.

 

An added element to this second game is something called the "Secret Files". When solving the puzzles on Hard Mode (which is the default mode), you can get an extra password that unlocks secret files. They are pointless. Aside from some filler content made for sheer comic effect, they also spoil certain plot elements that you're going to find out later anyway. It's a ridiculous slap to the face. Unlocking these files does unlock an extra ending, which I haven't played, but the process of it is just so tedious and stupid.

 

There's not much to say about VLR either. Like I said, most of the routes are repetitive. You'll be hearing the same exposition dialogues again and again in different routes under different context. They do lead to you discovering different important information about each character's backstory, but the journey to discover these interesting backstories is tedious and painfully dull. Most of the story is just about these people acting like jerks to one another, that's it.

 

I can't wait to see how much more terrible the final game in the series will be, the notorious, highly-hated Zero Time Dilemma. What a waste of money.

 

★★

 

All that being said, I am looking forward to playing the next three visual novels:

- Muv-Luv Extra

- Umineko no Naku Koro ni, the final two episodes

- Euphoria

 

Look forward to a sig-change in the future.

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I completely forgot about visual novels! I do like them but I don't play them very often (I did play the heck out of Hatoful boyfriend). It would be awesome to have one fully voiced and animated. Are there any visual novels that have gotten to that point yet?

 

I think that a lot of visual novels are fully voiced, but the animation is not a thing yet. It turns out that animation is actually jaw-droppingly expensive, even if you're using a sweat shop.

 

Actually, I'm working on my own visual novel right now, hahaha. I had a moment of sheer terror when I first saw the cost to develop high quality music and non-animated art for a novel sized visual novel. When I calculated it out for the millions of words that some visual novels had, it was actually insane. Voice stuff? That's also pretty expensive. Animation? Oh god, it's ridiculous.

 

With THAT said, there are actually a few VN series that might count -

  • Danganronpa
  • Ace Attorney (does this count?)
  • Tokyo Dark (current in development, but shaping up to possibly be one of my fave games)

I feel like I'm missing a few, but these are a start?

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I completely forgot about visual novels! I do like them but I don't play them very often (I did play the heck out of Hatoful boyfriend). It would be awesome to have one fully voiced and animated. Are there any visual novels that have gotten to that point yet?

Actually, there is one visual novel that was fully voiced and animated - School Days. Unfortunately, its story and setting might not be for everyone, since it's a harem romance with some really disturbing (and gory) bad ends. I love its game design though. It has massive story branches with over 20 endings, so the dialogue choices you make can lead to so many possibilities. Unfortunately, this kind of visual novel is incredibly difficult to make, so School Days is the only one of its kind - fully voice and animated while having such nonlinearity.

 

Honestly I wish there was a "choose your own adventure" anime - similar to a TellTale Games series. I suppose that would be nearly impossible to do but it would be so cool to have different chapters depending on what you want the main character to do and each person watching could have a bit more of a customized experience.

And not to badmouth Telltale or anything - okay, I'm totally badmouthing Telltale, but whatever. I think they're overrated. Their games can hardly be called CYOAs since their choices are meaningless and lead to very few or subtle differences. Most of their story branches combine together into a single ending at the end anyway (like the first Walking Dead). A real CYOA would have multiple endings because your choices matter, leading you to exciting possibilities where anything could happen depending on what you choose. THAT is the true customized experience, not whatever Telltale is doing. Telltale gives CYOA a bad name.

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My first exposure to VNs was via 999 and Katawa Shoujo. I tried a number of other VNs that, like Katawa Shoujo, were free. Then, I found Umineko and fell in love with it. I'll add that, in addition to an interesting story, it has an amaing soundtrack. However, readers should avoid Ryushiki's original sprites. He's a good writer, but his art skills really do not come close. After that, there was Danganronpa and Virtue's Last Reward. While it's only been mentioned here negatively, I'm personally very fond of the Zero Escape series. I've played a few parts of Higurashi, but I switched my OS and now it hates Higurashi. Trying to run it via steam just gets a black box, which closes immediately. Plus, I doubt that Iwaihime's planned PS4 port will get an english translation, as much as some people(including myself) hope it would. Well, I've still got Umineko and Higanbana. Plus, there's Steins Gate 0 to read. As for that series, I watched the anime adaptation of Steins Gate a number of years ago, though only got around to reading the VN at the end of last year.

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Umineko and fell in love with it.

 

I've been debating getting this actually. I watched and sorta enjoyed the anime, but haven't purchased the VN, yet.

 

Would you say that it's really worth it?

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I'd say so. But I would add that, since it has such a large cast and lots of plot elements for the mystery, episode 1 has quite a large initial period for setting everything up. Also, some details of the mystery aren't explained clearly in the VN, instead relying on the reader having put everything together. These do get covered in the manga, but that isn't much help unless you are willing to spoil yourself or read the manga after.

 

I'll add that, while I've not watched the anime, I've heard that it is a very trimmed down version of the first half of Umineko, with a lot of clues and details missing. If I recall correctly, one crucial detail in regards to solving all the mysteries is completely messed up, making it impossible for an anime viewer to figure out the culprit. From what bits I've seen, it also handled good moments in an underwhelming manner. Certainly, seeing the Beatrice/Virgilia fight on youtube was an amazingly dull experience compared to how the VN version felt.

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Certainly, seeing the Beatrice/Virgilia fight on youtube was an amazingly dull experience compared to how the VN version felt.

 

Hmmm? Then, that's definitely something for me to look forward to! Hahaha.

 

I can confirm that everything felt truncated in the anime.

 

Thank you for this response! :angel:

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does shadows of mordor count lol^_^

 

Not really. There are many visual novels are just reading and/or making choices through the menu, but results come up as labeling it an RPG.

 

Text adventures do seem to be the ancestors of them though.

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Hmmm? Then, that's definitely something for me to look forward to! Hahaha.

 

I can confirm that everything felt truncated in the anime.

 

Thank you for this response! :angel:

 

I'm not surprised. I heard it was a problem with Higurashi's anime adaptation too, though the source VN was relatively less dense and reliant on a ton of connections, so compressing it had less of an effect. Even then, I've seen plenty of Higurashi fans who are dissatisfied with it, though not to the degree that UMineko VN fans tends to be dissatisfied with the Umineko anime. Then there's the whole red/blue text thing.

 

I hope you try it and enjoy it.

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For me, Visual Novel's are an interesting beast. My introduction to them was a demo for a game that was constantly acting like it was going to get into a fighting game's style of combat and never got there, so I found myself annoyed because I really didn't understand what VN's were and I ended up feeling like I wasted my time. A while later I picked up a game for the DS that I had seen no marketing for called Zero Escape: 9 hours, 9 persons, 9 doors and found myself instantly hooked on the characters. Eventually I got so immersed in the game that I kind of forgot that there wasn't any combat in it. When the second one came out for 3DS and Vita, I had to continue it, and I liked it, just not as much. About a year later, I found out about Danganronpa, and I became hooked. That said, I've had a hard time finding a visual novel outside of either of those series that I can enjoy. I get, these are pretty much the two biggest of the lot of them, but I just don't like how a whole bunch of them try to rely on fan service over quality like a lot that I've seen. It defeats the purpose of telling a playable story in the form if people remember more about the TNA sections than the story itself. So, I do like visual novels, it's just hard to find ones that I'll enjoy.

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I just don't like how a whole bunch of them try to rely on fan service over quality like a lot that I've seen.

 

Yeah, I don't tend to do well with those sorts.

 

Maybe Planetarian would be to your liking? It's a fairly short one, and should be absurdly cheap on Steam right now. It doesn't really have any fan service to speak of, and in my opinion is a very pleasant bit of light sci-fi.

 

It's fairly simple in terms of presentation though - there aren't a huge number of sprites or backgrounds.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, I've continued my playthrough of Virtue's Last Reward. I'd stopped roughly at the start of an escape section (security room), though it was easy enough once I'd realised my occasional ineptitude with touch controls had been the cause of my failure to activate the password monitors. It's good to get through a puzzle section, especially when I'm in a glum mood in regards to certain things. Plus, I like Phi and her interactions with Sigma. Anyway, I've gotten up to a password section that requires info from one of the other time lines and, since it was late (1 AM), I've stopped for now. But I'm in a position to easily continue it.

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So, I've continued my playthrough of Virtue's Last Reward. I'd stopped roughly at the start of an escape section (security room), though it was easy enough once I'd realised my occasional ineptitude with touch controls had been the cause of my failure to activate the password monitors. It's good to get through a puzzle section, especially when I'm in a glum mood in regards to certain things. Plus, I like Phi and her interactions with Sigma. Anyway, I've gotten up to a password section that requires info from one of the other time lines and, since it was late (1 AM), I've stopped for now. But I'm in a position to easily continue it.

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Ahh, Visual Novels. Honestly, I feel in love with them, and they might as well be my favorite medium at the moment. It's like a perfect fusion between anime and manga. My favorite one is Dies Irae. My first one was Saya no Uta. I didn't know anything about Visual Novels back then, so the sexual content caught me QUITE off guard. Was pretty messed up stuff, but I liked it nonetheless. I thought the characters were a bit meh, but it was some serious edge-of-my-seat-stuff nonetheless. A few months later, I bought Higurashi on Steam. Loved it. Well, and now I'm here.

 

I'm currently reading Zombie no Afureta Sekai de Ore Dake ga Osowarenai and Zanjibaru. Although it's anything but bad, I put the latter on-hold for now. After finishing Zombie no blahblah, I'm probably going to start the motherf*cker I've been dying to read for almost a year now - Subarashiki Hibi.

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