General Eroge Impressions & Discussion

[Mahou]

Originally Posted by hyl

"crying to exaggerate it" in a good or bad way?

I am playing the game for the silly plot, voice acting (which is really funny at some times) and for the laughs though.

edit: most of the stupid looking expressions are for the comedic moments, especially the expressions that Nokia makes.

edit: the silly plot overall wouldn't have worked if the main character was not so dense

More in the bad way as it is meant towards the main character . I agree with you on the most points. It's kinda funny how every time I think "This MC has to be the densest ever", at least that's at that point in time, the next VN proves me wrong. I see the point of a MC being more or less oblivious towards the "Maiden's heart", but some cases are expressing it too extreme ... at some times.

Anyway, so far I dislike Hana and how she usually behaves/acts. For that the twin sisters Misaki and Sakuya are great . I'll use this VN to "recharge" my energy before I venture on Mashiro-iro's Miu route (I'm afraid, that Sana on Sakuno's route gave quite a lot of times the urge to punch my laptop X_X Fortunately I could resist)

[hyl]

For mashiphony: Sana is overall nicer in Miu's story, so play it

In the mean time i am going for the Hana route (after ending up in the Nokia route for some reason in my first playthrough) in Renai 0 km. I somehow like Hana a little because she reminds me of both Sana and Sakuno (both talking slow) a little from Mashiphony. In fact Hana has the same seiyuu as Sana.

[Balzac]

Spoiler for off the top of my head, twist, Flyable Heart:

I remember the student council president, the brother of another heroine, saying something along the lines of the DNA testing showing them being too different from each other or something. Someone feel free to point out evidence to the contrary. I was genuinely surprised (and pleased--guilty pleasure) to read the twist happening, especially the reactions of the heroine after the revelation. And yes, I do subscribe to the impression that they are displaced interdimensional twins, or maybe even genderbent versions of the other,etc.

As an aside regarding the rest of the game, the black-haired girl's route was too, dare I call it, short?

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

Sorry to bring this up again, but I'm more surprised the Japanese hadn't already make something like this. Like, a VN where all philosophers and scientists of old and new gets niji-fied. To be honest I'm interested with the idea .

Spoiler for NSFW:

http://tenco.cc/products/eiyusenki/#/top

If there's one thing I've learnt about the Japanese, it's that nothing is sacre to them. Not even their own dearest Emperor, if given the chance.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

If there's one thing I've learnt about the Japanese, it's that nothing is sacre to them. Not even their own dearest Emperor, if given the chance.

What are you talking about? It's their way of expressing their love! Isn't love a wonderful thing...


OK, so I just finished Yutsuki's route in Mashifoni. It was cute, but personally the impact wasn't as strong as Airi's. I plan to play Sana's route next, but I missed the branching point, do I need to get to Miu's route first? Might try to finish Miu's route first then...

[johnishida]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

What are you talking about? It's their way of expressing their love! Isn't love a wonderful thing...


OK, so I just finished Yutsuki's route in Mashifoni. It was cute, but personally the impact wasn't as strong as Airi's. I plan to play Sana's route next, but I missed the branching point, do I need to get to Miu's route first? Might try to finish Miu's route first then...

IIRC, first you need to enter Miu's route then, you will be prompted to choose between Miu or Sana one or two times. Just pick the Sana options to enter her route.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by johnishida

IIRC, first you need to enter Miu's route then, you will be prompted to choose between Miu or Sana one or two times. Just pick the Sana options to enter her route.

Yes, that's correct. You don't need to finish Miu's route first, but it branches off of Miu's route (for obvious reasons).

[Flying Dagger]

Spoiler for Flyable Heart: girls suspect main character to be a panty thief:

Sakurako in her cute voice:
"You want pantsu? Can't you buy them at the store?"
"Ah! it must be embarrassing to go to those places alone!"
"So I will accompany you!"
"Please return the pantsu. At the end it is better to wear your own...."

Can't stop laughing!
Reading this VN also makes me hungry whenever they talk about food.

[Mahou]

Finished Koikishi. Not too bad overall, but Yuu's route was the weak part of it while Elsia's was the best imho. Akari and Mana's were both okay.
Done with Miu's route in Mashiphony: Overall greatly done, but I still prefer Airi's (partly also due to my genre preference). Now I just need to order the PSP version, even though my bank account will cry, so that it will arrive when I return home from Denmark during winter break
I started playing Hatsukoi Sacrament and uhm ... it started quite confusing I may try out Akaneiro at some point after noticing it on a blog. The CGs look well enough, but I need to check the VNDB tags for any too obvious drama indications (or check the anime) >_<.

[hyl]

Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka, kinda nostalgic to read that name again.
Akasaka had a nice main story, music and character designs and cg's (half of the characters were drawn by Tsubasu Izumi, who later designed the characters from Mashiro iro Symphony), but too bad i didn't like most of the characters
Some of the stories are wierd (Nagomi) or a little boring (Mikoto) but that's my opinion. I did like Yuuhi's story though.
For me the anime was not a good adaption, also it uses the seiyuu cast from the ps2 version (Kugimiya Rie, Hirano Aya etc) and not the eroge seiyuus. Some people think that the anime seiyuus are better, but i don't think they are that much more convincing or better than the original.

edit: Why do most eroge have such a nice OST and sometimes a vey catchy opening or ending as well? I personally think that some eroge have better OST's than most anime soundtracks.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by hyl

edit: Why do most eroge have such a nice OST and sometimes a vey catchy opening or ending as well? I personally think that some eroge have better OST's than most anime soundtracks.

When you're talking about the major productions at least, a lot of these are actually produced at least in part by Lantis, Geneon, or some of the other major music players in the "otaku" music industry (which are of course all parts of much larger entertainment companies). A number of the composers are probably also operating under pseudonyms but have a fair bit of other experience doing other game/anime/music work. And I also think some composers may see this as a good experience-building opportunity, since a soundtrack for an eroge tends to allow for a variety of styles/genres/moods, and is a bit less constrained than anime/TV/movie work. In general, I would personally say that I find most anime OSTs to be a bit better-produced and higher budget (most eroge soundtracks are snyth-only, where anime budget can afford some additional orchestration), but composition-wise I think there's definitely good stuff in both media.

[hyl]

I agree that the anime industry has very nice composers and some scores are marvelious (Yuki Kujiura and Yoko Kano are among my favorites) The eroge music will not hold out against high quality anime compositions , but i am starting to see that some (or even most of the) eroge soundtracks that i have heard are better than an anime with a medium budget.
Even with more limited budget, i have heard very nice themes using classical instruments and some synthesized are were also nicely done.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by hyl

I agree that the anime industry has very nice composers and some scores are marvelious (Yuki Kujiura and Yoko Kano are among my favorites) The eroge music will not hold out against high quality anime compositions , but i am starting to see that some (or even most of the) eroge soundtracks that i have heard are better than an anime with a medium budget.
Even with more limited budget, i have heard very nice themes using classical instruments and some synthesized are were also nicely done.

Well, of interest of course is that a number of the "medium budget" anime productions are actually using composers from groups like Elements Garden who actually do compose for a lot of eroge too, so there's certainly a lot of overlap. And yes, even with limited budgets, today's technology allows you to do a fair bit -- tools like VSL can provide some pretty-decent instrument sounds that can be fairly convincing.

One of my top picks for outstanding soundtrack in an eroge (and I'm sure I've mentioned it before) would be Phi-âge's Owarinaki Natsu, Towanaru Shirabe, which (appropriate to its theme) uses a real string quartet for most of its compositions. It's a game where I'd often stop reading to just sit there and listen to the music for a while; beautiful stuff. Amazingly enough, perhaps due to rights issues and other concerns, the game's OST was never released separately, and there isn't even a Music Mode in the game's Omake section (which is crazy for a game about music! ). The game itself isn't without its weak points, but gets really high marks from me from an aesthetic and conceptual point of view, and I'd say it's worth playing for the musical experience alone. But that's just me...

[Nikkan]

Anyone here read Kajiri Kamui Kagura? It's getting pretty good score at erogamescape and seems kinda interesting.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Yumii-chan

Anyone here read Kajiri Kamui Kagura? It's getting pretty good score at erogamescape and seems kinda interesting.

YES....Play it....and don't regret. Helps if you have played Dies Irae but it stands well enough alone

[Aaerul]

Just one more week until Hareten comes out!!! ...cannot wait

Here is the title screen:


☆─(ノﾟДﾟ)八(ﾟДﾟ )ノｲｴ─ｲ

[hyl]

I have been waiting for it quite some time, because it was supposed to come out last month.

edit:
So far it seems better than Palette's previous game Steal my heart, Rhapsody of moonlight.

[Soviet]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

YES....Play it....and don't regret. Helps if you have played Dies Irae but it stands well enough alone

Well, I don't know about that. Hard to imagine that the story would make any sense without the Dies Irae background.
But yeah, KKK is great. Masada's writing is still insane and the production values are through the roof. I mean, this has to be one of the prettiest VNs ever.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Soviet

Well, I don't know about that. Hard to imagine that the story would make any sense without the Dies Irae background.
But yeah, KKK is great. Masada's writing is still insane and the production values are through the roof. I mean, this has to be one of the prettiest VNs ever.

Well you won't understand the background of the characters or the storyline but it's not to the point that you are scratching your head every 5 seconds....especially in the former portions of the story.

[Mahou]

Finished Hatsukoi Sacrament. And wow, it was for me quite confusing at some points. Heck, I cannot even say I know now what has been the "timeline" of it .
Of course it had its share of deus ex machina moments on the "True route" ...
Although I can see that some people may hate/hated it, I found most of the drama quite good and powerful ignoring that both of Hikari's routes had more of them available. And the OST was very fitting (Original Sin is an awesome piece of music).
Though, my inital thought of what the game would be about was, well ..., impressively wrong . One might argue that I ignore purposefully any bad parts, but I leave this to each own's interpretation :3.