Visual Novels

[ElkinFencer10]

Steam reviews can be amazing or incredibly cringe. That one falls into the latter category,

its nut a review post i thouht i wuld be reading a review but nope its a post abot Stem reviews hich is fine if u want that but i dn't i want review. so no i cant recomand this post if u can call it evan that.

10/10 most helpful review of a review of a review I've ever read.

[ElkinFencer10]

I think I'll finish Muv-Luv: Alternative - Total Eclipse tomorrow. Really good VN, but not as good as Alternative or The Day After. Still, though, a definite recommendation after you finish Extra, Unlimited, and Alternative.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I bought it playa.

[ElkinFencer10]

I bought it playa.

Now play it, n00b

[BoneSnapDeez]

Corpse Factory is done. Technically speaking, it's one of the better Western-developed VNs.... and it's still not that good. The writing takes a massive dump about halfway through the game, when the narrative is inexplicably shifted from the deviously likeable antihero lead to the exponentially less interesting side characters.

Great art and soundtrack though. There is English voice acting throughout, which is surreal as my brain feels like it should be in Japanese.

Anyway, I don't typically hop from VN to VN but I'm gonna fire up the newest Muv-Luv soon. Elkin is lonely.

[ElkinFencer10]

MUV-LUV NOW

[ElkinFencer10]

Finished Total Eclipse

[BoneSnapDeez]

Okay I finished Total Eclipse.

Random dump of thots:

-- This is surely the worst Muv-Luv game. Still entertaining but feels fan fictiony in parts and is clearly riding the coattails of the mainline games.
-- The lead characters are solid; a lot of the secondary ones feel interchangeable.
-- The "info dumps" kinda blow. I just don't get hyped about mecha stuff and this story is deep into that.
-- The character art is great, but there are too many scenes with one-off characters that lack sprites. There are conversations where the player is staring at a blank wall.
-- Wish the soundtrack was better. There are few notable tracks, which is in stark contrast to the mainline games. The voice actors did a good job, though the audio seems to be mixed rather poorly.
-- The final "bonus" chapter was awesome and made me wish there were more alien battles in the game. Oh, and I love how the ending connects to Alternative.
-- The game's two "choices" were utterly pointless. This should be a kinetic VN.
-- There are 195 CGs. That's cool.
-- The UI isn't great and there's no fullscreen??
-- The number of times the term 我々(wareware) is included in the script is insane. I'll be hearing that in my sleep for weeks.

Overall, fun but certainly not one of the better VNs. I think The Day After will be more up my alley.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I was enjoying this doujin mystery/horror novel on Steam.... up to a point. It commits a VN cardinal sin.

There are bad ending dead ends. This isn't problem in itself (I like these, in theory). The issue is that there's often a decent chunk of time between a bad end and a choice that precedes it. This gives the player an opportunity to save in an unwinnable situation. This is what happened to me, and I was even juggling multiple saves as a back-up. There's no quick way to restart a chapter, no flowchart to leap back into a specific spot. Why not just start the game over and fast-forward text? I would, but in addition to the standard "choices" there are many point-and-click segments that would slow the whole process down.

So yeah, it was a cool lil mystery while it lasted. I'll give it another go sometime later one, this time with a walkthrough in tow.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yuge news at VNDB as time-travelling mystery story Steins;Gate mercilessly cucks time-travelling alien invasion story Muv-Luv Alternative to take the #1 spot in ratings. MLA had previously occupied the spot for many years. It's over for sumikacels.