General Eroge Impressions & Discussion

[Newprimus]

Playing Kokoro Function's trial, and this is great!

This is the first game I've seen that seems to take seriously the implications and possibilities of a world that's become more and more interconnected as our today's smartphones and social networks show us. It presents a serious look at a future where people are so interconnected with their smart devices that it leads to conundrums like the one our protagonist faces, which is that everything he's thinking gets broadcast to everyone else.

It also helps that the writing, characters, pacing, humor, art, music, and everything else in this game is well above the average crowd. Now my most anticipated game!

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Achiuakuna

I already finished SubaHibi. I liked it a lot.

Wonder if Nitro+'s Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi falls into the same category. Anyone read that yet?

Yep. I highly recommend it. Best to go into it knowing as little about its quirks as possible.

[KanbeKotori]

Originally Posted by achiuakuna

i already finished subahibi. I liked it a lot.

Wonder if nitro+'s kimi to kanojo to kanojo no koi falls into the same category. Anyone read that yet?

THAT. VN. IS. AWESOME i

[Achiuakuna]

Started it today. Looks interesting so far. Thanks guys.

[Leon_Lelouch]

Originally Posted by Mystic_Vegetto

Just finished Tsujidou-san no Virgin Road. I gotta say, I really enjoyed it. For me, it's probably the most enjoyable VN I've played this year so far. One question though...

Spoiler:

So why was Hiroshi playing the part of "Shou"? Was he spying on Benten for Tsujidou's group without her knowing? And what did Mito have to do with it? I couldn't really understand these parts, so I'm hoping someone can explain.

Spoiler for :

Nope he didn't do the spying, he never told Tsujidou's group anything about benten and actually Hiroshi himself were using Tsujidou's group to make a false rumor about him being equal to Tsujidou and such....

Hiroshi know about Mito's desire to have many subordinate and expand benten and at that time there are many delinquents going rampage here and there so he thought by joining up with Mito, he can at least lower the rampage by making Hasyu Renmei and become one of the leader... Well its Hiroshi's nature to avoid fighting, so by becoming the leader and accepted by most delinquents he can at least give order especially order not to rampage around

haven't really found VN with this much lovely icha2

[Newprimus]

Tsujidou-san also has amazing side characters. It's rare for a VN to make me wish for a game dedicated solely to the side cast. This one totally does.

[Achiuakuna]

Originally Posted by Dagger

Yep. I highly recommend it. Best to go into it knowing as little about its quirks as possible.

For maximum effect, you're probably right. But I don't think my heart can take it anymore This is the exact kind of thing that fuels my nightmares.

[Mahou]

A few half-way-in impressions of Gears of Dragoon, which has been already released for a few month.
Spoiler as I'll mention a few late aspects

Spoiler for Gears of Dragoon: Rambling, Impressions and stuff:

I like most of the characters, even though you learn only the veeery basic information about them during the common route -> Filia, Ellen, Conrad (I think). You learn important stuff about Sheeta, Stella, Rady, Falco later on, which is needed and done quite decently. But Filia? As the "osananajimi"-esque person of the group and her affection towards Rady (and vice versa depending on route), it's strange that you only get to know that she got treated badly and discriminated during her past. And a major secret during chaos route.
Lucee's super-strong hatred towards Bestia was a huge "WTF" during the events of choosing between law and chaos route.
As for Rady: hot-blooded, yet quite weak-willed as he can't protect his "family" during common route. And for someone who apparently has already sexual experience, he lacks at times the understanding of women (even if his prior encounters were one-night-stands).

Battle: Random battles can become quite annoying due to their frequency after a while, yet you need them in order to build up your Limit Gauge for boss battles. Fortunately, the creators included an easy mode with an integrated win-button that lets you - true to its name - win any battle. Of course, you won't earn the exp. and possible item drops.
If you have bad luck, finding 3+-slot-items will be a pain and they are must-have to gain the much needed status resistance (anti-instant-death >_<).

Chaos route: The first route I'm playing. From what I've read, the many rape-ish scences will be a main turn-off and ninetails thought it would be wise to use the "Prostitute system" to unlock skills for chaos Rady. I'll miss many skills, but I don't care as long as I can avoid much of that bullcrap. I'll play this route only for Sheeta's true route. Dark-ish route or not, losing many of the playable characters is a choice, which a few jp. reviewers found unfortunate and together with raepfail was more dualtail-ish than ninetails atmosphere according to them.
The first h-scene with Sheeta was a bit stupid due to Rady's "I don't sleep with you to become stronger (plot-reason), but because I love you". When and where did this become clear? Either that was lazy or I missed the hint(s)

[erneiz_hyde]

I didn't play Gears of Dragoon. I unlocked the save and just view all the scences in sequence. Call me weak

But I think you should've played Order route first. Sheeta true end is like the whole game's true end despite (or because?) it being darker, and if you play Order after you cleared Chaos, it could reduce the enjoyment of the route.

Also, Chaos route H scenes being rapish was actually a major turn on for me also because there is one glorified bad end route I like in there.

[Mahou]

Well, Law route is mainly for Filia .
Anyway:

Spoiler for Impression, rambling II:

I'm in Chapter 6 after the "forceful" skill-panel change to Chaos-Rady. Honestly, so far I can't neither see nor understand the praises of him being a "dark hero". Sure, he's at last past his hesitations, but turned on the other hand into an even worse hot-blooded, beyond any reasoning-idiot. Although he was still somewhat bound to keep his promise to protect his family, it seems at many times more like a poor reason to rage-and-kill (and rape). I hated his attitude towards Alma, Jill and Jasmine. It's not that I don't understand his built-up mistrust and anger, but overall it made me want to punch my screen more than once. One of the few redeeming parts so far, is obviously Sheeta. Their dialogue after the battle against Alma was relaxing and made them actually look like a couple (which outside of Sheeta's strong trust has hardly been mentioned nor further developed). A soothing, albeit short lived, change of pace.

[Dark Faith]

So after reading about Ever 17 on another thread I've decided to give it a try. So far I'm pleasantly surprised, even if I feel the routes (well, only completed one so far :P) are a bit short.
Most of my theories went under (Har har) once I started my second playthrough, but there's two things so far that have piqued my interest.

Spoiler:

So far I've completed You's route and going for Sora's on my second playthrough. So far I'm thinking that...
One, is that I'm somehow dealing with two different timelines. Takeshi mentions that the year is 2017 when talking to Kid about his amnesia. But during You's route, it's revealed that her mother died in 2019...15 years ago. Not to mention Tsugumi (who's shady as ****) blatantly stating she's lived through the events before.

Two, is that Yubiseiakikana (aka, You from Kid's POV) is a clone of Yubiseiharukana (aka, You from Takeshi's POV). This could help explaining the discrepancies with her parents' deaths, and also explains why You's mother won't admit to being her mother, but confirms that she was born out of her body...
...but it also doesn't seem to fit in with the alternate timeline theory. Hmmm... needs more playing!

Needless to say, I've only played one out of...five (I think?) routes, so I'm probably wrong in many aspects, but I'm loving it. And I love coming up with theories anyway.

[Mahou]

I'm finally done with Gears of Dragoon's chaos route and obviously Sheeta's ending. Because enemies with 100k+ hp are a pain and bad luck with high-level 5+-slot equipment, I used the victory button for the last 3 battles.
Without spoiling anything: The last two chapters were much, much better especially as far as it concerns Chaos-Radi's character. The ending itself was satisfactory. Charle's was probably one of the most annoying villains ever and pretty much the Aizen of the VN (except not the true mastermind); too bad he didn't get what he deserved, ultimately.
And although I love Filia, Sheeta feels a bit more true as the "final girl". While she's star of chaos route, from the scene recollection Geist left a very strong impression in a similar way on law route .

On to Magical Marriage Lunatics and Natsu no Osananajimi, Fuyu no Kanojo.

[hyl]

Managed to marathon through Karumaruka Circle.
While i lowered my expectations after i have read that Niijima Yuu didn't wrote this, i was stunned how good it was.

While most of the normal routes were fairly good , the true route was simply amazing. Definitely as good as the finale of Hatsuyki Sakura or Natsuyume Nagisa and in some aspects , it's even better.
Also don't start with Natsuki's route, because i did and thought that the entire game was going to be slightly above average. Then i read Nicol's route and the game captured me.

My route ranking
True route >>> Nicol >>Shin>Koyomi>>Yukiha>Natsuki

My minor issues were that the music is good, but i find it overall less catchy than Hatsuyuki Sakura's. Both OP's were fairly decent (2nd OP "find a piece" was very good, but i don't recommend youtubing the song because that OP contains a huge amount of spoilers) but i didn't like the ending "I wish" that much because i am not a fan of "White Lips"

Slightly more detailed route impressions in order that i have read

Spoiler for really short and half assed summary of the prologue and common route:

The overall story is that there is a school club (when the story started 5 people) who are all cursed called maka. Every person has some kind of curse related to the 7 deadly sins (like falling randomly alseep with Sloth, overeating way too much with Gluttony, being able to unwillingly charm a whole horde of females with Lust etc.) The main character Mikage Kaito, who is afflicted with the Maka wrath (it gives him incredible strength when he gets angered), is recruited in the club and the purpose of the club is to perform a ritual/ceremony at Tanbata to get rid of the maka.
Later they find the 7th person (Natsuki) and with all the 7 people gathered the group can hold the ritual (and in the mean time some group bonding and festival preperations)
But on the night of the ritual, the school director forbids them for unknown reasons from entering the room for the ceremony, so they decided to hold it somewhere else and it doesn't come as a surprise that they fail it.

end of the common route and prologue

Some route spoilers and minor comments about them

Spoiler for Natsuki:

imo this was the weakest route, because it is full of bad cliches. Kaito and Natsuki were osananajimi's without the either of them knowing about it , Natsuki having a slight trauma of the past when on the day her mother died from an accident, she had a fight with her etc.
Also I am not interested in astronomy, so I didn't like most of Natsuki's explanations of the stars.

Basically her route was about Natsuki remembering her love for astronomy because she repressed it because would remind her of her mother, who was an astronomer who Natsuki looked up to.
Kaito knew Natsuki as children because they had some kind of rivalry for astronomy and ended being friends. Kaito was hurt by the "astronomer girl" for unable to keep a promise that he sent as a letter, which she never received because on that day her mother got killed in an accident.

Everything goes well untill Natsuki was called by her father to come back again to him, because the reason why Natsuki transferred was to support Natsuki's grandfather after he injured himself but her grandfather has now almost fully recovered.
The dillema for Natsuki is that she conflicted to stay with Kaito or go back to her father.

Spoiler for Nicol:

For me this was one of the better routes, because i didn't expect the story to turn 180. I was expecting a carefree, slice of life story but instead i read a fairly good darker story with lots of suspense.

Nicol seemed like a the normal genki kouhai but she turned out be very different than i expected
She is someone (at the end of the route, it's revealed she is actually the princess but w/e) from a small and poor foreign country that is in war and she wanted to obtain "Karumaruka" to save her country. She was "using" her "friends" to achieve her goals, but when the story goes on she actually got befriended the group and later on fell in love with Kaito and she couldn't live with those lies.
But the drama in her route was better than Natsuki's, eventhough it did get a little ridiculous when after her reveal she was immediately chased down by some people in black (not exactly sure, but i think it was some people from the country where she was in war with) who wanted her dead.
His maka proved to be usefull in this route against the armed and trained agents. At the end of the story Nicol has to back to her country, because of her duties. The epilogue shows that 3 years has passed and Nicol is fullfilling her responsibilities as the ruler and then Kaito shows up as an international oceanography student and meeting Nicol again

Spoiler for Yukiha:

A shorter route, because she is just a sub-heroine. Not bad route overall and despite being a sub-heroine's route, you still have to finish it to get to the true route

The mischievous senpai who also happens to have extremely rich parents. Her Maka happens to be greed, in which she uncontrollably buys random things. Because she has no use for the things she bought and she feels sorry for reyurning all the bought goods, she occasionally anonymously donates all the things to the orphanage under the allias Dandylion. Yukiha also happens to be someone Kaito knew when he was kid, similar cliche as in Natsuki's route.
The problem in Yukiha's route is that she feels that she has no freedom and has no role in life because her father has done and planned everything for her (including a fiance, but Yukiha ends up loving Kaito), but she is also afraid of opposing and betraying her father's expectations.
She decides to run away from her father and brother and stays mostly at Kaito's place. Eventually Yukiha's 2 elder brother find Kaito and after a fight, Yukiha shows up to stop it.
Yukiha wants to run away from her problems again but she gets lectured by Koyomi that running away won't solve her problems and she learns from Kaito that there are some things in life that she can decide for her own

Spoiler for Koyomi:

Also not a bad route, but i felt it was trying to tell too much at the same time. We have the plot of Koyomi's "teacher", Junpei from the orphanage, Koyomi's own history of being an orphan raised in an orphanage, part time working at a cosplay cafe, some kind of contest that lead eventually to her invitation to MIT etc.

Koyomi is the genius club president and she also happens to be an extreme ramen lover. She as the hardest working person ,has ironically the maka of sloth. Koyomi was an orphan from a very young age and at the orphanage she a volunteer whom she called "teacher" , who was a huge inspiration for her. Koyomi was troubled with her disappearance and was still puzzled by what she meant when she gave Koyomi her final assignment.
Koyomi and Kaito also met an orphan called Junpei, whom they befriended, but Junpei is more or less character for Koyomi to relate to because the both of them are orphans.
At the end of her route (after Kaito and Koyomi have become lovers) because of Koyomi's talents, she invited to study at MIT in the USA. Because this is something that would greatly increase the reputation of the school, the school director forces Koyomi into taking it with the blackmail of punishing the other members of the group for the things that they have done before. Koyomi's dillema is that she herself isn't sure what is the right thing to do, because she hasn't thought of her own future yet. Eventhough she doesn't really want to go, she logically thinks that MIT is an unique opportunity.

Eventually she decided not go , but she did that in front of all the media and other important people to embarrass the school director and to make other people ponder what they would have done in her stead.

In her epilogue Koyomi receives a mail from the person in MIT who recommended Koyomi and it turned out to be her "teacher" from the orphanage. While Koyomi is a little sad for not seeing her and relieved that her "teacher" is still alive, she doesn't regret the choices she made and finally understands what her "teacher" meant

Spoiler for Shin:

The "man-hater"(which is not strongly shown in any route) , who often skips classes and has the maka gluttony.
A good route and some parts reminded me a little of Hatsuyuki Sakura

The main problem of her route is that Shin is living with issue that her father seems to be responsible for an accident 7 years ago at the school in which 1 girl was killed by a defect in the school building. She want to believe in her father's innocence, but her father doesn't even want try to deny his involvement in this affaire and Shin wants to know the truth. She occasionally gets bullied for being the daughter of a "murderer" and it got worse after her father is going to get convicted this time because some people claimed to have more proof on this case
Everyone in the club tried their best to help Shin to find out more about this incident from 7 years ago, but with no succes. It gets worse for Shin after they find her father telling her and Kaito not to dig for the truth, but Kaito managed to cheer her up.
The club gets help from someone unexpected and they get one more chance to perform another ritual to Karumaruka to find what really happened 7 years ago. One the night of the ceremony Shin decides to ruin it , because she no longer needs the truth because she believes that her father is innocent. And coincidently her father shows up at the end to tell the whole truth and why he hid it

I am not going to spoil anything about the true route, because imo it was really that good: the mystery about Karumaruka, many surprises and plot twists, how most of the routes are connected to the true route were done excellently. My only problem with the true route was that the romance was really weak but if you want romance then you can read the normal routes.

[NoemiChan]

Just a question. I'm currently playing an eroge that is Eroge! S** and Games make Sexy Games. It seems I can't find the option to Save before each selections. I pressed "C" and all I got are settings. Can you help me?

[erneiz_hyde]

What happens when you right click? It usually takes you to the menu selections where you can choose to save.

[InternHertz]

Originally Posted by hyl

Managed to marathon through Karumaruka Circle.
While i lowered my expectations after i have read that Niijima Yuu didn't wrote this, i was stunned how good it was.

While most of the normal routes were fairly good , the true route was simply amazing. Definitely as good as the finale of Hatsuyki Sakura or Natsuyume Nagisa and in some aspects , it's even better.

My minor issues were that the music is good, but i find it overall less catchy than Hatsuyuki Sakura's. Both OP's were fairly decent (2nd OP "find a piece" was very good, but i don't recommend youtubing the song because that OP contains a huge amount of spoilers) but i didn't like the ending "I wish" that much because i am not a fan of "White Lips"

Damn, this is really good news!
I LOVED past Saga Planets games and especially Hatsuyuki Sakura, so I'm glad to know it's at least as good as those storywise.

I won't read any spoilers about it so I can go into it fresh and be amazed.

Can you just tell me if the overall tone of the game is as grabbing as HS? I really really liked the mystery surrounding everything from the beginning, and how good it felt seeing the reveals happen in the true end.

A bit bummed about the music but then again, it might be personal taste. I just know some of HS were awesome and moody and wish there are at least 1 or 2 like that.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by InternHertz

Damn, this is really good news!
I LOVED past Saga Planets games and especially Hatsuyuki Sakura, so I'm glad to know it's at least as good as those storywise.

I won't read any spoilers about it so I can go into it fresh and be amazed.

Can you just tell me if the overall tone of the game is as grabbing as HS? I really really liked the mystery surrounding everything from the beginning, and how good it felt seeing the reveals happen in the true end.

It has an overall lighter tone (far less depressing than Hatsuyuki Sakura, but it still has a fair amount of drama ). The regular routes were imo weaker than Hatsuyuki Sakura's, but you have to read all of them to enjoy the most out of the true route.
The main mystery of Karumaruka doesn't play much of a role in any other regular routes, but it was done very well in the final route.

[Mahou]

Mahou's usual impressions:

Magical Marriage Lunatics (MML): I'm still on the common route, though. Anyways, the start aka the scenes of heroine introductions felt a bit slow. As in, there were hardly any coherent dialogues, but more stammering and surprise-reactions. Otherwise, the colorful mix of non-human financées are quite cute. You must love Julia the shy succubus, who's character is kinda the exact opposite of her brethern . Honestly, I have hardly encountered any succubi in VNs - other than pure nukige maybe. And while the cliché of MC forgetting about the "contracts", it's at least explained in-game in an okay-ish way. But, we're talking about moonstone so I expect drama, also drama that possibly won't sit well with me (based on my experience with Princess Evangile =/). I'll let "surprise" myself.

Natsu no Osananajimi, Fuyu no Kanojo: Karin is lovely . And it's a nice suprise to have the best buddy with a girlfriend, instead of idiot-friend or pervert-friend. A normal sounding title? There's surely some drama in the routes*. I can guess it for Seika and mayhaps Yume-chan.

KoixKoi Infinity: I just took a savegamed glace of the "true route". A first approach of peasoft, imho. Anyway, usually peasoft's MC are either too average or denser than dense. But, the title sounds just like my taste and their drama were - based on my memory - also reasonable in reason and length.

Spoiler for true route:

Seems similar to HareTen's true route

*Normally, my way of perception is: IF the title sounds beyond cute (aka suki shite, suki shite takusan suki shite) or the brand is smee, I'm sure there's no or hardly drama. On normal-sounding titles? Better expect everything.

[erneiz_hyde]

Been playing Love Lab (らぶらぼ). Even though it's an SM breeding game, the largely comical atmosphere (so far at least) is really a huge relief.

Saki and Ibuki's rivalry is an interesting side plot, both pretending to be the more sexually active person while both being virgins . However, since their VA is Tammy and Maki Izumi, it kinda sends the wrong image of Rin and Komari

[NoemiChan]

I just finished playing MLE and I find it fun to play, followed by MLU which I find kinda I the same level of enjoyment as the first but finding the main heroine missing.

Luckily after getting MLA an hour later, broke my enjoyment meter sky high... the MC was badass from the beginning until that WTF scene... After returning back, seeing my main heroine again got me emotional.... I felt tears like falling from my eye....

Finishing the later half was more emotional and action pack. My heart was racing, my eyes was on the monitor, not blinking... Every scene was awesome. Though the ending was not that great but it left me in tears....I wanna scream my most dear beloved heroine... I was tormented....that I had to play MLE again get my self back together again, to be able to meet her, to love her again, hug her again, kiss her again and see the irritating yet sweet smile of her's that I thought was forever a dream back in MLU and MLA.

It may take months but I'll go to MLAF after..