General Eroge Impressions & Discussion

[Hemisphere]

Hahaha, I know, I noticed that earlier on in the demo. I was laughing so hard when I saw that background CG!

[LoSs]

Oh god, i cant wait form my G-sen no Maou anymore.

[Kresnik]

Originally Posted by johnishida

Next: Chaos;Head!

I hope you're ready for some mental trauma for completing this game. Half-completing this game is the best way to play. Prepare to send curses to whoever making the scenario for B Route. I haven't tried the underwear patch, but considering its size (400+ MB), it better have something else added for the scenario itself to fix B route.

Originally Posted by HashiriyaR32

It's time to play........SPOT THE ANIME REFERENCES!!!!!!

Take a look at this background CG from 11eyes. List EVERY single item you recognize.

Man, that's a LOT!. Takumi's room from Chaos;Head also had some direct anime/game references, and didn't even got a censor! I think they managed to ask for permission for each thing they showed.

[relentlessflame]

Because the Chaos;Head discussion was already approaching 10 posts (and they were all basically talking about game endings), I split off that discussion to a new Chaos;Head thread. I would encourage everyone to continue the more detailed discussion of that game over there. Thanks!

[DarkWarrior]

There's already a Chaos;Head thread relentlessflame, so you might want to merge those two together.

Anyways, tried out the Natsuzora Kanata trial, and it seemed pretty interesting. Not fond of the whole memory loss thing though (ef a tale of memories comes to mind), but we'll see how it plays out.

[Kresnik]

Originally Posted by DarkWarrior

There's already a Chaos;Head thread relentlessflame, so you might want to merge those two together.

Anyways, tried out the Natsuzora Kanata trial, and it seemed pretty interesting. Not fond of the whole memory loss thing though (ef a tale of memories comes to mind), but we'll see how it plays out.

@relentlessflame: Yes, I thought it should be merged too.

But it seems Chihaya in Natsuzora Kanata is a little different from Chihiro from ef in terms of their memory loss condition. Chihaya able to remember several days of her memories without losing it, then losing them altogether. While Chihiro will be able to remember as long as she keeps on remembering it, then if she skips the schedule she lose all of them. I don't know which one is more miserable than the other, but Chihiro might be worse off.

[relentlessflame]

You're both right about there already being a thread, but that makes the whole thing even more perplexing. If there was already a thread for it, why was everypme discussing the ending routes here? I thought "surely, they must be doing this because they don't know whether it warrants a topic of its own", but apparently I was wrong...

In general, I've found that this thread sometimes feels like it's becoming almost a chatroom/twitter collection for anything ero-game related, and that really isn't the point of this thread...

[Dagger]

Yeah, it does kind of feel like this is a "favorite eroge" thread and an "eroge news" thread and a "what eroge are you currently playing" thread all mashed up into one.

[relentlessflame]

Well, in the spirit of the thread, the latest game that has my attention is Fizz's Asanagi no Aquanauts. Only played through one route so far (that of the titular heroine, Mio), but I've been quite pleased with it on the whole.

Useless without pics, so...

Spoiler for Box Cover Art (Slightly NSFW):

Spoiler for LE/Pre-Order Goodies (Illustration Book, Bonus Disc Cover, and Telecard) (More NSFW than above):

(By the way, the School Swimsuit disc is a patch disc that simply converts all of the normal in-game swimsuits into school swimsuits, if that's your preference... It doesn't actually change any game files, though, so you can turn it on or off by just renaming the patch install folder.)

Shinova already posted a summary of the trial version, which is basically the first hour or so of the game, so I guess there's no need to repeat the basic premise. So I'll jump straight to impressions (I'll use two levels of spoiler tags -- one for mild spoilers/the first few hours-ish, and the another for comments about the end-game scenario/overall).

Spoiler for General Impressions of Premise and Characters (Light Spoilers only):

Really, like Shinova said in the trial summary, the game has a lot of fun and interesting elements all packed together in a bit of a jarring way, but my overall impression of the game, at least after completing the first and titular story scenario, is quite good.

The game combines a lot of things you've almost definitely seen before if you're at all familiar with the anime/manga/bishoujo-game culture of the last few years: the tsundere ojou-sama with a secret that only you (the protagonist) know, the kouhai with obvious feelings that just can't seem to get across, the boisetrous and doting onee-san who's more than a little protective of her younger brother, and the mysterious quasi-loli beauty of few (and very slowly-spoken) words. I mean I guarantee that you'll recognize every single one of these characters pretty much instantly, even if you can't quite place them exactly. For people looking primarily for originality, this might be a strong negative, but I personally felt the familiarity helped me get into the game's story more quickly. It felt pretty much just like an anime, so it didn't take long to get into it.

In addition to all that, though, the game offers a number of other fun little quirks that, while again not entirely original, build a pretty good dynamic between the cast pretty quickly. I won't ruin them all, but a few of my favourites were...

• The whole mermaid premise itself; it's pretty cute and pretty well played-out. It seems at first to be a bit close to Seto no Hanayome, but in the end it's a fair bit different too (more about that below).
• The on-going joke about Mio's conspicuous "no-pan" situation -- because, after all, mermaids don't wear them, so why should she be inconvenienced by something so troublesome?
• The immediate and obvious friction between Mio and Yuriko from the moment they first meet (at Aki's house). Sparks flying, tensions rising, "fish vs. cat: round 1 -- fight!" As they say, "epic".
• Yuriko's almost Haruhi-Suzumiya-like tendancy to make decisions that implicate others, inform them after the fact, and use her own very persuasive methods to get her way (without ever seeming like any sort of bad person, deep down).
• Mariel (pictured in the telecard above) -- the star-crossed foreigner who's lived in Japan all her life. Her parents are English, but she totally sucks at it, and her small stature and child-like mannerisms make her the brunt of every joke. It's really hard not to feel sorry for her.
• Miyuki (often pictured next to Mio in promo art, such as above) -- a blend of the kouhai and childhood friend archetypes. The shy, kind-hearted, soft-spoken beauty, popular among the guys, who always goes out of her way to offer you lunch. Envy of the school? You bet! But there's always a catch, and it involves a lot of "gomen nasai! gomen nasai!"

If there are any flaws in the content, it's not so much for the elements of the story itself -- like I said, there are just a ton of fun ideas packed in there -- it's more the way they're executed that feels a bit disjointed throughout the whole story. It's sort of like they couldn't quite figure out how to tie everything together perfectly, so it often feels like the story's changing gears -- "okay, now we're doing this!" "oh yeah, and we should probably mention this!". Maybe some of the revelations just needed a bit stronger foreshadowing to tie things together? For example (and I'll keep this vague and nondescript), you go about 1/4 of the way through the story, and all of a sudden Yuriko brings up "by the way, I'm in charge of this event and you're all helping" -- I said before that's sort of a good thing about her personality, but it's a bit weird for the story. Also, you go at least half-way through Mio's story, and then all of a sudden they bring up the fact that, actually, she's been looking for someone important to her all this while. It's totally obvious that these things are to help move the plot forward, but it sort of gives the impression that they didn't really know entirely what they were doing when they started writing the story. And that sort of continues through the entire story -- it's like they had all these really good ideas, but couldn't quite figure out how to put them together in this format. I actually think the way it's structured would work a lot better in a manga or an anime, but it's presented more like a traditional visual novel with day seperators. Maybe they should take a cue from feng or someone in this regard.

Spoiler for Mio end-game impressions/comments (mild-to-moderate spoiler, but I won't give away the end. Still, don't read if you want to play the game yourself and don't want to be spoiled/pre-biased.):

The trend I was talking about just above sort of continued all the way to the end of Mio's scenario and, again, it sort of felt like they couldn't really figure out what they wanted to do. Mostly this was because they kept teasing you with a certain ending over and over, but then took it away at the last minute. And each time they did that, they'd again shift gears, and go on another bout -- sometimes a very interesting one -- but then they'd shift gears again and start on something else. There are a number of revelations that come out of the Mio end-game scenario, but they're not really fully fleshed-out or developed. Sort of more like they're "toyed with", but then set aside. But this could be because they'll play a larger role in the stories involving other characters, so I should be careful not to assume too much after only going through one path.

All that being said, I did still like the scenario, especially including the epilogue, which actually did tie pretty well to at least a big chunk of the story. I would say they pretty much saved it, and it definitely worked. If it ever got adapated to an anime, and they decided to stay true to the game's story, I could see it easily being cleaned up and perfected without much trouble. Just forcing them to re-tell the story in a shorter timespan, and so concentrating on the important things, would probably be enough to fix all my concerns. (Not that the game needed to be shorter -- the scenario was only maybe 10-15 hours. In fact, maybe that's the problem -- maybe they felt they had to pad the story for length? Anyway, enough about this issue...)

Incidentally, the biggest difference between this and Seto no Hanayome really comes down to Mio. Although Mio and Sun are both mermaids who've had their identity revealed to a guy and need to keep their identity mostly a secret from others, that's basically where the similarities end in terms of their characters. Mio, being a tsundere, brings a totally different dynamic to the story; deep down she's distant, resigned to her fate, and lonely. Her first instincts are to run away and face her problems on her own. So, in this story, she, rather than fate/family/other characters, is basically the main "enemy" of the romance. That's the tsundere way -- you have to break through the shell to get them to stop putting up their barriers. And, I have to admit, that was one of the things I found a bit frustrating about Mio as a character and in the way they portrayed that in the game. In the end, it's always about having them run out of excuses. But that's a tsundere for you, and it sort of goes with the territory. At first I considered this a more major flaw, but after giving it some thought, I think it's just part what it took to stay true to the character.

Anyway, so now that my ramblings have turned into this mammoth post, maybe I'd better wrap things up by giving my impressions about the technical aspects of the game (from what I've seen so far, at least). As Shinova said in his review of the trial, the in-game graphics are okay, but it's in the CGs (and certain ones in particular) where the game artists really shine; some of the art is just really, really well done. When I say that, though, I'm not necessarily referring to the CGs that "everyone's thinking of". All in all, for the most part, this is one of those games (like so many) that doesn't really benefit much from the sex scenes, or certainly need as many (there were 5 in Mio's scenario). The integration into the rest of the story (at least in Mio's scenario) ranges from decent to pretty bad; some of them are really just pandering throw-aways that don't really tie into the plot that much, and so stick out in not such a great way. It doesn't help that the sex scenes feature what has to be probably the single worse piece of sex-scene BGM I've heard in an ero-game... possibly ever. Other than that, though, the music in the game ranges from decent to very good, I'd say. The biggest highlight is the OP/ED pieces, which of course feature the voice of Mio, Yui Sakakibara. Speaking of which, the voice acting is definitely one of the other big draws to the game; all of the main heroines are very well-acted, with Yui Sakakibara being the obvious major highlight (and, really, you can see why they built a lot of the game's marketing around her as a main character -- it's a role she plays very well).

So, what's next? I think I'm going to try for Yuriko's scenario, followed by Miyuki. I'm not sure if I'll get to Kanaka because, to be honest, I'm just not sure if her slow-speaking dead-pan quiet-type persona is really for me (though she does get a fair bit more interesting and involved once she warms up to everyone - I guess that also goes with the territory too).

Anyway, from where I stand so far, I wouldn't have any problem recommending the full game to anyone who enjoyed the trial. I didn't feel it was necessarily quite as solid as a romantic comedy as something like Tsunagaru Bangle (which was a riot), and it doesn't quite have the writing chops of a big-name production, but it brings a lot of fun (if not entirely original) ideas to the table and combines them in a pretty decent way. Worth a look, anyway.

[Vash002]

I just started this game: Chrono Belt.
It's a crossover between Ayakashibito and Bullet Butlers (Propeller's best games), and I must say, it's pretty cool. OST is awesome and the art is beautiful (Chuuouhigashiguchi is the designer, hell yeah).
Gameplay is simple, end the two paths you can select, and then you unlock the main and third route. The voice acting is superb.


Too bad I still don't know how to save the game (Probably because I need to install it and I'm just playing directly from the DVD); anyway, I recommend this novel, it has comedy (Really funny), mistery, action, etc.

[Dagger]

Just finished Propeller's Chrono Belt (the crossover sequel to Ayakashibito and Bullet Butlers). It was really damn good, not to mention full of surprises. I cried a lot. However, I definitely wouldn't recommend playing it without knowledge of both the previous games.

EDIT: Dammit!! Beaten by a few seconds. XD

[MeganeShounen]

How should I put this... wasn't Marmalade supposed to release a fandisc of sorts for their recent games like Lyrical Lyric?

Just posting a blogpost link about said game.

Good thing it's just an advertisement for the real game, since I don't think they'd allow ero content on consoles and all.

Erhjegel would also be hot on the trail of this game, I suppose.

[MeganeShounen]

Tentacle-genre... huh? ^_^;

My pick would go to Inyouchuu (淫妖蟲). I think it's the most hardcore tentacle game I've seen so far. Then again, I'm no expert at these things...

[Dagger]

Just got my copy of ef - the latter tale.

Will be interesting to see how much Chihiro's story follows the anime. I just started, but I already get the sense that the ratio of regular standing drawings is higher here than in the first tale... could be just me, though; it's been a while.

[MeganeShounen]

Seems like the Oretsuba ~Prelude~ was leaked.
OP, in the spoiler link.

Spoiler for the OP:

Link to Youtube video.
The OP's not bad... even if this Prelude serves as something to tide the fans over for 4 months.
Wow. What's with the delay...?

Before anyone would ask, the song's "Sky Sanctuary" and sung by Hashimoto Miyuki.

PS: I liked the scene with the blushing Kobato.

EDIT: The Youtube tag won't work properly, for some reason...

[johnishida]

Today, I finished Yuzu Soft's latest game: Natsuzora Kanata!

There are no words that can express how much I loved this game! The story, the visuals, the music, the characters! It was worth waiting all this time for this game! Yuzu Soft didn't let me down this time either! In fact, it was better than I had expected!

My only dissatisfaction is would be:

Spoiler for Chihaya's Route Spoiler:

Chihaya didn't have a definitive Good or Happy ending >_<

The first one brought her back just to slowly kill her again >_< While the second one managed to save her from her sad destiny but, as a compensation, they were forced to start from ZERO though, from the small talk they had the same Fate that pulled then apart will, once again, unite them.

[Dagger]

Got delayed a bit, but finally finished ef - the latter tale. It was beautiful, of course. Mizuki's story was by far my favorite in either game (unsurprising, since she's my favorite of the female characters, and Kuze ended up being my favorite of the guys).

TBH, the only thing keeping ef from being way high up in my top ten is the fact that I actually didn't like Yuuko's chapter very much. As a story and as the framework for the rest of the game, it was fantastic... this is especially apparent in the present-day epilogue. Some aspects of her character just didn't hang together very well for me, though.

Also, it's kind of obnoxious that--as was the case with the first tale--such a cinematic game doesn't have a proper scene replay list, but that's purely a gripe with the system.

Still, Mizuki makes everything better. Not to mention the powerful direction and great music and so forth. I was delighted that Shaft did a bit of animation at the end there.

[Newprimus]

http://www.getchu.com/soft.phtml?id=533245
http://www.a-kaguya.com/products_BY/prima/index.html

(NSFW for above links)


Played the trial of Prima Stella which is by Atelier Kaguya Berkshire Yorkshire. Here's what I have to say about the trial:

Spoiler for space:

Prima Stella takes place in the typical modern day Japan that most high-school romance ero-games take place in, so I don't need to get into that very much.

Both fortunately and unfortunately the trial was pretty short so summarizing it won't be hard. You are Sakaki Kousuke, a high school student who is aspiring to be a champion swimmer, and is due to participate in an important competition tomorrow. On the way home he and his friend and swim club president (name escapes me, sorry) wait at an intersection. The light turns red but there's a car that's not stopping. At the same time a boy and a girl are starting to cross the road from Kousuke's side, and an unrelated teacher nearby tries to get them to get back onto the sidewalk but her warning comes too late as the car comes barreling towards the two.

By sheer impulse, Kousuke rushes forwards and pushes the two out of harm's way, only to be hit by the car instead, landing him in the hospital and in a coma for two months.

Fast forward a couple of months, and our hero regains his consciousness to everyone's relief. He is expected to fully recover in time and is suffering no serious physical or mental damages, but his time in bed has taken a toll on his physical condition, and now he has a massive uphill battle to regain his former strength and get back onto his road to becoming a swimmer.

Some time later, he is brought to the principal's office where Kobayakawa Miyuki, a representative from St. Etoile's School for Girls, is waiting to meet him. St. Etoile is an elite girls' school for the super rich and prestigious. It is located near Kousuke's school but it is enclosed inside its own little city-like community and compound, practically sealing it off from the outside. Girls from the upper levels of society attend their in relative isolation from the rest of society.

It turns out that the girl Kousuke saved on that fateful day is a student from that school, and as a show of gratitude (initially proposed by the girl's parents) the school has offered Kousuke an opportunity to become an exchange student and attend St. Etoile's School for Girls.

Needless to say, Kousuke's kinda flabbergasted. He points out there are a number of exams one has to take and basically be an ace student in order to become chosen for the exchange program, but the biggest problem of all..... he's a guy.

Kousuke expresses his gratitude, but insists that he can't possibly take the offer. Kobayakawa explains that when she first heard of the idea she opposed it, but took the opportunity to come in person to see what kind of person Kousuke is, and she states that he has impressed her and is a decent and worthy human being, and re-states the offer. Plus, St. Etoile's has top-notch swimming and PE equipment which Kousuke can utilize to bring himself back to shape, so he would benefit immeasurably from this. Again she asks that Kousuke accept St. Etoile's gratitude and become their exchange student.

Eventually Kousuke relents and accepts the offer in a dignified manner.

The big day arrives and Kousuke at St. Etoile's own train station (I think) waiting for someone to arrive to show him into the school. Someone does arrive, and it turns out to be the girl he rescued months earlier, Tohouin Shizuka. She first takes him aside to a secluded park and then proceeds to shower Kousuke with apologies. Kousuke says it's no big deal and eventually the two get over it and Shizuka takes him to their dorm.

And what a dorm too. It's huge, like a hotel, and each student's room is basically a luxury suite. As expected of a school for the super rich and prestigious. She offers to escort him to dinner later on, and Kousuke agrees.

Kousuke now starts getting situated to his new "room" when he notices he has forgotten to bring his textbooks. Just then the buzzer sounds and he goes to the door to see who it is.

It's a girl he's never seen before......... not really. It's Onoshima Kusumi, or Kusu-nee, his cousin who's older than him. Kusumi suffocates Kousuke with her chest, goes all "Kou-chan, Kou-chaaaaaaaaan!!!~" and etc.

They have a long talk to catch up for the years they were separated. Kousuke's surprised initially to see Kusumi at St. Etoile's, until he remembers that her family's rich and prestigious too. Turns out though that she's also St. Etoile's student council president.

Kousuke: WTF

(basically)

He's all "How can a tennen-boke like you be student council president!?" and Kusumi goes "Waaaaah, you called me a tennen-boke" and gets all depressed.

Anyway, they keep talking until it's dinner time and Kousuke notices it's time to meet Shizuka, and so he apologizes to Kusumi once they're out in the hallway and runs away toward the dining hall, but comes back cause he doesn't know where it is.

After he separates from Kusumi, who has an appointment with friends, he finds Shizuka who takes him into the dining hall. More like a five-star restaurant, really. Along the way he hears girls around them referring to Shizuka as "princess" which he ignores for now. He meets two of Shizuka's friends.

One of them is Takasu Miyabi, who's a rising star in the entertainment industry. Kousuke realizes who she is after remembering a ham commercial he heard her perform in at one time. The other is Hibiri Tomoe, a student one year below Kousuke, and Miyabi's imouto, in a upper-lowerclassmen pair St. Etoile calls a "conduct" or something (maybe I'm getting it wrong).

They get acquainted and start looking through the menu. Kousuke, being a lowly commoner thrust into the world of the upper class, has no idea what's on the menu. Tomoe comes to the rescue by giving them tonights recommendation. Dinner is ordered.

As they wait, they talk about stuff and they come to the fact that it's customary in St. Etoile's to refer to everyone by their first name. Everyone's equal here. And so Kousuke gets used to it and calls Miyabi and Shizuk by their first names. Shizuka goes fire engine red and is muttering under her breath, "He called me by my first name!" and such.

Dinner arrives at last!.............. but Kousuke has no idea how to eat it. Everyone sweat-drops.

Later in the evening he reads a bunch of printouts he finds in his room (the dorm has daily room service, for crying out loud, goodness sakes!!) and one of them speaks of schedule changes for the dorm bath, now that they have a male living with them. Kousuke decides to have a go at the bath, and sets off once the time arrives.

As expected, the bath is huge. He takes a jump into it, profusely enjoying how wide it is and how he's the only one inside. He starts some backstrokes.... and finds out there's someone else in the bath with him.

It's Shizuka. Kousuke freaks out and starts getting out, but notices Shizuka's not moving. He tries to get a reaction from her and eventually he gets one: she faints.

He carries her out to the dressing room and she eventually wakes up and realizes her mistake at having walked into the bath at the wrong hour. Shizuka starts apologizing profusely again and offers to wash Kousuke's back. Kousuke resists at first, but afterwards gives in.

Back-washing, and he asks her why everyone seems to refer to as princess, and she tells him that it's because her family has been connected to St. Etoile's for a long time and had made many contributions to the school. She feels that she's inadequate for such a distinction. Kousuke says that he thought she was a princess when he first saw her at the station, so it doesn't matter what her station is or whatever; she'll still be like a princess to him. Shizuka thanks him for that, saying that it's the first time anyone's said such things about her.

He goes to take a dip in the bath, and Shizuka tries to follow but Kousuke opposes it on the grounds that she already had her time in the bath and taking another won't be good for her health (that and it'd be really bad if someone walked in and saw them ). She then offers to escort him to class the next morning, to which he agrees.

After bath he goes to bed, anxious to see what tomorrow and his first day in class would bring.


I said the summary should be pretty short, and I was wrong!!!



The cast of characters are as follows:


Sakaki Kousuke

Our hero. His dream is to be a swimming champion. A person with a gentle and dignified character. He's more stable than most male protagonists: I haven't seen him burst a nosebleed or react too strongly to the presence of women, so he's a really stable and likeable character. Very honorable.


Tohouin Shizuka

The girl that Kousuke saves from a car accident. Called "Princess" at St. Etoile's due to her family's reputation and connections with the school. She's in the same class as Kousuka. Her personality is gentle and dignified, but she's inconfident in her self-worth and feels really guilty about the accident. She tries her best to make Kousuke's life at St. Etoile as pleasant as possible.


Onoshima Kusumi

The daughter of a family that owns some kind of production company, and Kousuke's older cousin and St. Etoile's student council president. Energetic, dotes on Kousuke, and can seem unreliable, which makes her sad, such as when Kousuke calls her a tennen-boke. Sees herself as Kousuke's "onee-san".


Takasu Miyabi

A rising star in the entertainment industry. Expertly juggles work along with student life. Mature, dignified, and with good style. Looked up to by many, and is the "onee-sama" of the pair between herself and Tomoe.


Hibiri Tomoe

Kousuke's energetic lowerclassman at St. Etoile's, and the imouto of the pair between herself and Miyabi. Not much else known about her yet.


There's also Kobayakawa, who's also the adviser to St. Etoile's swim club. A beautiful nun/sister at St. Etoile. There's also Kousuke's friend and swim club captain of his original school but I don't how often he's going to reappear in the game.



Anyway, fascinating concept. One guy at a girls' school. And this isn't some covert op like in Otoboku or Koitate where the hero dresses as a girl. No, in this game he's himself and everyone else knows full well he's a guy. So what will happen to our intrepid hero in a school filled with beautiful and rich girls?

I liked the trial more than I though I would. All the characters are great, and none of them are annoying in anyway. Tomoe's not too energetic, Shizuka's not too easily-frightened, and so on. The game's production values aren't high, so that's a bit of a bummer, but shouldn't be too much of a problem. There's no fantastical catch to the story so far it seems; no magic or whatever, just a high school romance of some kind, so I don't know if the full game can give us an interesting twist to the story or not.

Plus, you can't possibly resist this CG: http://www.a-kaguya.com/products_BY/...sample5_2.html



This game debuts the 27th of June, so look forward to it!

[HashiriyaR32]

Kobayakawa Miyuki

STOP!! HAMMERZEIT!!!!!

What are the chances that an eroge character would share a name with a You're Under Arrest! character!?!

[johnishida]

I finished Chaos;Head recently but, instead of playing G線上の魔王 I decided to play 11eyes and Princess Frontier first.

So far, 11eyes been pretty good... Misuzu-senpai :3