Support NeoGAF

[Korigama]

If you didn't like the true ending, you should try Steins;Gate 0. I know it's weird, but it's a good game for people that didn't enjoy that particular ending.

I had been considering it at one point, but I was questioning the idea before finishing the original since the consensus was that it wasn't as good, and that assessment has me even more wary now. Based on what I know of 0 (I waited until I was finished before reading up on its scenario and have some idea where it's supposed to lead) and what bothered me about that ending in the original, it doesn't seem like it would help.

EDIT: It might help if I elaborate...

Spoiler

My issue wasn't with the fact that Okabe actually succeeded in saving Kurisu and averting WWIII, although one could argue that it seems improbable that he managed to somehow fight against convergence with a change in plan in spite of attempting to stay one step ahead never working whenever he tried to save Mayuri (when fate wanted her dead, it didn't matter what he did, it was going to happen). I wanted both Kurisu and Mayuri to live in the end. No, other things bothered me personally.

Honestly, I didn't care for the decision to actually have there be an official couple in the story, and this is coming from someone who quite liked Kurisu. Given the atypical approach to multiple endings in a VN, where instead of having multiple bad endings there were multiple bittersweet, romantic endings, the idea of there being one "right" answer tied in with the true ending invalidated every other possibility. Not leaving things ambiguous after all was said and done made it abundantly clear that the players' interpretations were of no consequence. I can also add that even with Kurisu's support throughout the course of the story, such a turn felt like even more of a swerve given all of the pain and suffering that Okabe had inflicted upon himself and everyone else for Mayuri's sake (in fact, she would've made far more sense to me if they absolutely had to insist upon a canonical pairing, regardless of the typical "she's like a little sister to me" protests coming from Okabe).

Then there's the epilogue on the Steins Gate worldline. Even after all of that, the promises of it being an ideal unobserved worldline, neither Luka nor Faris were allowed to have their wishes back. Luka would've had to come to terms with Okabe's heart belonging to someone else, but still could've been born as she wished she had been instead of being stuck with having to change back. Meanwhile, Faris' father was still dead and gone, yet another sacrifice made for Okabe's objective. I was willing to be somewhat forgiving toward Moeka following the events of Chapter 9, insofar as hoping that she would have a chance at a normal life and not be in any position where she felt compelled to hurt anyone to cling to the place she felt that she belonged, but honestly wouldn't have wanted her anywhere near the other lab mems again. Naturally, Okabe preparing a pin for her and inviting her back to the lab rubbed me the wrong way. Didn't think much of the idea of the lab still staying above the likes of Tennouji either, whom I didn't forgive at all. In fact, upon meeting with that trio outside of the Braun Tube Workshop, Nae was the only one I was willing to completely forgive after all that had happened.

Yet for everything that Luka and Faris had lost, Okabe ultimately had to sacrifice nothing. He had gotten everything he wanted, including reuniting with Kurisu after her memories of their time together had returned once they were triggered. Each and every one of those character-specific endings (with the exception of the one for Kurisu, since it was just a cut-off version of the true ending anyway) felt more meaningful because unlike the true ending, he had to lose something too in exchange for what he had gained.

This is why I don't see diving into 0 fixing any of that.

 

[JulianImp]

Finished the common route of Dies Irae, and I'd say it was okay but still pretty standard as far as shonen+harem stories go. I'm definitely going to wait for a sale before purchasing any of the other routes, since there're many other VNs I've already purchased but haven't even played yet.

The voiceovers were pretty nice, but the background music was a bit weird with how it'd usually not loop right on top of being pretty forgettable, which was quite a shame. On the other hand, I thought the feature that automatically lowered the BGM volume whenever a character was speaking was pretty nifty.

 

[The n00b Avenger]

Really? Dies Irae actually has one of my favorite VN soundtracks. Einherjar Rubedo, Thrud Walkure, Rozen Vamp, Lohengrin, Mephistopheles etc. So many rockin' tracks. Also while I don't like the song that much, stuff like Einherjar Nigredo does a good job of establishing a certain mood and matching the character.

Don't remember what plays on the common route though but I would guess it at least has Deus Vult which is alright. The title screen music (Letzte Bataillon) was also something that really stuck in my memory.

 

[Sciel]

I'm reading Dies irae Common Route atm as well.

So far its above average. Not really a fan of some of the over the top / complex exposition heavy bits (I'm told this is a very typical of the writer?)

 

[JulianImp]

Regarding some of the exposition dumps, I'd say my biggest problem with them is that I don't know German at all, so most of the terms thrown about end up going over my head. The worst part is I think the Japanese VOs sometimes use Japanese words, which I actually understand better than the gratuitious German of the localized version. Add in the gratuitious Latin, and there're lots of walls of text that are mostly unintelligible to me (and with Latin I can at least get some words due Spanish being derived from it).

Really? Dies Irae actually has one of my favorite VN soundtracks. Einherjar Rubedo, Thrud Walkure, Rozen Vamp, Lohengrin, Mephistopheles etc. So many rockin' tracks. Also while I don't like the song that much, stuff like Einherjar Nigredo does a good job of establishing a certain mood and matching the character.

Don't remember what plays on the common route though but I would guess it at least has Deus Vult which is alright. The title screen music (Letzte Bataillon) was also something that really stuck in my memory.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about music to explain why I wasn't really feeling most of the songs, but if I had to try and put it into words, I'd say that my biggest issue is that the melody played by the lead instruments is often pretty flat and short/repetitive, and also that there are times when the energetic drums and electric guitars playing on top of ominous choirs and orchestra instruments kind of muddles the soundscape into something that's just loud. I mean, Deus Vult was good, but having a single verse that's about thirty seconds long plays over and over with very slight variations got boring for me over time.

As for the title music I'd say I like it as well, but it also reminds me that I still haven't found a way to skip the transition before I can load my game, and that had gotten a bit vexing after starting the game up multiple times or going back to the title screen.

 

[The n00b Avenger]

The worst part is I think the Japanese VOs sometimes use Japanese words, which I actually understand better than the gratuitious German of the localized version.

It's not really gratuitous, it's just that with the way Japanese works, you can write Japanese with foreign ruby-text over it so you get 'two words/phrases in one' to speak. Even if you don't know what X German word means, the Japanese translation for the word is right under it so there's never any feeling of being lost(and ruby text itself is also an important aspect of establishing that chuu2 aura imo). Sometimes the characters voice the Japanese version, sometimes they voice the foreign version, but either way both are going to be on the screen in some form.

Obviously with English you have to make some compromises and well, not much you can do about that.

 

[jonjonaug]

I finished Dies Irae last night.

Great game, easy 9/10. The TTGL levels of escalation in the Marie and Rea routes was ridiculously awesome and the level of complexity afforded to some of the characters was a pleasant surprise. Trifa and Ruskala in particular are two of the most interesting villains I've ever seen in a VN and Shirou is one of the best "best friend" type characters ever.

I'll probably make a longer write up on the game tonight.

 

[JulianImp]

Slightly over five hours into Root Double, I'd say the set-up in terms of how the characters got trapped and what they've got to do to survive is really interesting, but the characters so far have been getting along too well. I was expecting more situations where I'd have to take sides between characters in a similar standing (ie: two civilians arguing with each other), but most of what I remember was Tachibana vs others, and of course she'd always win in my mind because she was the one with the most experience in emergency rescue situations by far (at least as long as the MC doesn't remember things). For now, even the teacher, the scientist and even the little girl have been helpful in their own way, and the teacher in special got a lot more bearable after a somewhat rough start.

I'm betting all these scenes were littered with stuff that will be read in a whole new light though, because there're too many things that the cast's handwaving or not paying enough attention to due to having no time to stop and think. The people who were shot and crushed to death will probably be important clues later on (I honestly don't think they could end up being nothing more than a red herring, and that means whoever or whatever did that to them must still be around), all but one of the staircases that led to the bulkheads being conveniently blown up by "random" explosions was too (in)convenient to be true, and the scientist staying behind on his own in two separate ocassions could lead to all sorts of complicated stuff (even more so because both times he was left interacting with vital equipment such as the facility's computer or sprinkler systems). Then there's the whole thing about the MC hearing a voice and having reality shatter around him at inconvenient times, the missing school kids, and also learning what the heck a teacher and special little girl were even doing at the innermost parts of a nuclear facility in the first place. As far as the schoolkids go, I guess the MC finding only two ampules in a reserve box before coming across five ampules in the next means the missing ones were taken by the three kids, so the other two might still be alive and kicking somewhere (even then, why take only three ampules instead of getting them all, since they'd need even more to last through the lockdown?

I'm obviously still in the early-game, but I'd say it's a nice change of pace from the almost-kinetic Dies Irae.

 

[Buzzi]

Still on common route of Dies (chap 6 tho), something bothers me...I only watched the anime series (all of them) but doesn't this resemble A LOT the Fate series?
I mean:

Spoiler

the perpetual war in a city trope, the history based weapons, magic, the mixture of philosophic and fantasy tone, the villains which target the school, and (if I took an hint properly) also the ex-friend-now-foe thing.

Nothing to be displeased of, but it seems so thrown in the face as of now but no one pointed that for what I saw.

That said, I'm enjoying it, it's not a genre I love but the setting is interesting and the main chara is unexpectedly rendered nicely, I was prepared for the usual harem+1 protagonist. The fact of it taking 50+ hours could be a problem with my reading speed though.

 

[R_thanatos]

Slightly over five hours into Root Double, I'd say the set-up in terms of how the characters got trapped and what they've got to do to survive is really interesting, but the characters so far have been getting along too well. I was expecting more situations where I'd have to take sides between characters in a similar standing (ie: two civilians arguing with each other), but most of what I remember was Tachibana vs others, and of course she'd always win in my mind because she was the one with the most experience in emergency rescue situations by far (at least as long as the MC doesn't remember things). For now, even the teacher, the scientist and even the little girl have been helpful in their own way, and the teacher in special got a lot more bearable after a somewhat rough start.

I'm betting all these scenes were littered with stuff that will be read in a whole new light though, because there're too many things that the cast's handwaving or not paying enough attention to due to having no time to stop and think. The people who were shot and crushed to death will probably be important clues later on (I honestly don't think they could end up being nothing more than a red herring, and that means whoever or whatever did that to them must still be around), all but one of the staircases that led to the bulkheads being conveniently blown up by "random" explosions was too (in)convenient to be true, and the scientist staying behind on his own in two separate ocassions could lead to all sorts of complicated stuff (even more so because both times he was left interacting with vital equipment such as the facility's computer or sprinkler systems). Then there's the whole thing about the MC hearing a voice and having reality shatter around him at inconvenient times, the missing school kids, and also learning what the heck a teacher and special little girl were even doing at the innermost parts of a nuclear facility in the first place. As far as the schoolkids go, I guess the MC finding only two ampules in a reserve box before coming across five ampules in the next means the missing ones were taken by the three kids, so the other two might still be alive and kicking somewhere (even then, why take only three ampules instead of getting them all, since they'd need even more to last through the lockdown?

I'm obviously still in the early-game, but I'd say it's a nice change of pace from the almost-kinetic Dies Irae.

Intresting what you're saying... but you've said it . you're too early to have answers to your questions at the time.

 

[Korigama]

Finding myself somewhat curious as to what Steins;Gate Elite is supposed to offer when it releases, but given the fact that I was actually enjoying the original before the true ending reared its head (made worse by

Spoiler

the revelation that one character ending was just the cut off version of it because they just had to dispel any and all ambiguity previously afforded by every other ending on the subject of a romantic ideal by making one of those count more than everything else, regardless of whether the choice even made sense

), along with not knowing what they're supposed to be changing with the revisions and expansions, I see plenty reason to be wary of it.

All of that shit that Okabe went through, all that he made everyone else go through, and then they find an excuse to throw in a line where he actually admits

Spoiler

that the girl he was doing it all for wasn't as important to him as we were led to believe (in addition to having been worn down to the point of feeling NOTHING when she died anymore) in order to set up the big confession scene for the canonical pairing that the developers chose for everyone

...God, the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off.

 

[Sciel]

Dies Irae

Kei is bae. I got so bored/fed up of Kasumi's route i just decided to restart and skip to Kei's instead. Oh i really hate

Spoiler

Schreiber

btw. the exact character archetype i dislike (shota, manic, annoying).

p.s: I find it hard to believe that

Spoiler

Shirou

can actually participate in some of this fights since he's....

Spoiler

human

.

Finding myself somewhat curious as to what Steins;Gate Elite is supposed to offer when it releases, but given the fact that I was actually enjoying the original before the true ending reared its head (made worse by

Spoiler

the revelation that one character ending was just the cut off version of it because they just had to dispel any and all ambiguity previously afforded by every other ending on the subject of a romantic ideal by making one of those count more than everything else, regardless of whether the choice even made sense

), along with not knowing what they're supposed to be changing with the revisions and expansions, I see plenty reason to be wary of it.

All of that shit that Okabe went through, all that he made everyone else go through, and then they find an excuse to throw in a line where he actually admits

Spoiler

that the girl he was doing it all for wasn't as important to him as we were led to believe (in addition to having been worn down to the point of feeling NOTHING when she died anymore) in order to set up the big confession scene for the canonical pairing that the developers chose for everyone

...God, the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off.

I honestly wish they would just stop milking the franchise already. Did not really like 0 at all either.

 

[JulianImp]

Intresting what you're saying... but you've said it . you're too early to have answers to your questions at the time.

I've really got to thank Umineko for that, because it called me out on my lazy passive reading habits and got me a lot more involved into VNs, and even books (man, I shudder at thinking how many mystery novels I wasted by just reading them). Even on kinetic novels or those with limited choices, I find that there's a lot of "gameplay" to be had if you think about where the story is and where it might go rather than just being taken along for the ride.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

with regards Dies Irae, how exactly are the different routes set up?

Is each of the 4 routes 13 chapters, yeah?
If so, how does one know when the new content is on each route without reading the entire thing all over again? Does the game have auto pause on new content while skipping?

 

[jonjonaug]

with regards Dies Irae, how exactly are the different routes set up?

Is each of the 4 routes 13 chapters, yeah?
If so, how does one know when the new content is on each route without reading the entire thing all over again? Does the game have auto pause on new content while skipping?

There is a "skip unread text" option that's off by default. Right clicking and pressing the skip button will quickly skip to new content. Note that there are some scenes with repeated text for a little while until something different happens.

The common route is the first six chapters. Kasumi and Kei's routes share a good portion of chapters seven and eight with some differences (they even have the same chapter names), while Marie and Rea only share a bit of chapter seven before breaking off.

The routes are meant to be played in a certain order, Kasumi->Kei->Marie->Rea. Playing them out of this order is possible, but is an extremely bad idea and will ruin the story. Each successive route, when playing in this order, will build on the characters and answer questions set up in previous routes. The battles also become more and more incredible with each route, with ever escalating stakes and increasingly incredible action.

I'd also suggest playing side story 1 after Kasumi's route and saving side story 2 until after Kei's route, even though side story 2 unlocks after clearing the Kasumi route. Play side story 3 after Kei's route and side stories 4/5 after unlocking them.

 

[JulianImp]

So, more Root Double stuff now that I've reached After Chapter 5. Will be using a large spoiler text block just in case, since I guess I'm a third to halfway into the game by now:

Spoiler

So, I just experienced a scene where the MC was locked with the teacher into a staircase as they were chasing after the blonde schoolgirl, he discovered explosives hidden underneath the fire extinguisher and the situation forced Ena to reveal she had a pistol on her, which she used to escape... and then the bomb didn't go off.

This is a huge scene for me, because of the contrived and overly specific set-up that had to be carried out in order to make it happen:
1- Plant a fire extiguisher at a staircase and set fire to the place to attract the MC's attention
2- Have the MC and Tachibana go there, spot the extinguisher and witness a dangerous explosion
3- Set up another rigged fire extinguisher in a second staircase
4- Wait for the MC to coincidentally walk into Ena and the blonde girl discussing stuff in a way that was unbefitting of who they were supposed to be
5- Make some noise as the MC and Ena were together in order to have them chase after the blonde girl, even leaving a blood trail using a blood bag in order to help them find their way to the staircase room
6- Trap the MC and Ena inside the staircase room
7- Have the MC notice the extinguisher, think back to the previous explosion and spot the explosives
8- Start the explosive's countdown as soon as the characters found them
9- Have them panic to the point Ena would be forced to reveal her handgun and use it to escape in time
10- Have the bomb not even go off in the end

Basically, this whole set-up allowed whoever was behind it to oust Ena's "secret", and the MC and fire extinguishers were vital parts of that plot because he needed to form a pattern in his head (fire extinguisher = explosive trap) in order to think the second one would also explode (which it didn't), which in turn would make Ena think she had no other choice but to take out her gun in order to survive.

One issue for me right here is there's too much "darkness" surrounding the cast (in Umineko terms). What I mean with that is that there were three characters that remained unnacounted for (the three schoolchildren), and now Yuuri as well. Tachibana and Jun were both taken out of commision and were alone at the time, and even the scientist was on his own (unless he staid back with Jun), so basically any of them could've been orchestrating the whole thing. Tachibana and Jun were injured, making it hard for them to be the ones running around. Then, Tachibana was left at the security room where she might've been able to supply information to an accomplice or even remotely open doors up, but she was always with the MC before that, making it impossible for her to have planted the blood in advance AFAIK. She could've been the one triggering the second bomb's timer by using camera footage though, but then again somebody might've been listening from the other side of the door in order to produce a similar outcome (or even used telepathy)

Regarding a tenth survivor showing up, I'll gladly take Knox's decalogue up and declare that there's no such character since we're already pretty deep into the story. On the other hand this story has telepathy in it, which makes it a lot more likely that some of the kids might've been able to access "private" information about each character that the player isn't aware of, and could even set weird stuff up such as the "conversation" the blond girl had with the teacher if she could somehow detect the MC's presence, read his thoughts and spew a handful of lies to misdirect him further. Telepathy as a whole is the biggest problem here, since it adds many more variables to the crime and situation at hand that aren't exactly easy to infer because of how much they deviate from deductions grounded in reality.

Then there's the MC's amnesia, which is the perfect way to have the rescue team's captain be both a reliable narrator in the present and an unreliable one in the past, so the writers can just conveniently wring memories out as the plot demands. That part at Sector 6 where the MC suddenly remembered everything that had happened since he had woken up in excruciating detail (which wasn't actually shown to us players) felt like an awful cop out, since it made me think that such a convenient sudden burst of inspiration (and/or memory, in the amnesiac MC's case) might be used to give us answers that would require a wild leap of logic without those extra bits of information. I'm erring to think the voice the MC's been listening to so far is the shoolboy's, but then that'd mean they're being closely monitored by the three children, which makes things even more complicated... but would also explain how they've been managing to escape from the rescue team all this time.

Not a single answer appears to be in sight yet, but I'll keep on going and see where this leads...

And talking about gameplay, I find it kind of annoying that the empathy system is a bit too simple (want to agree with <character>? swing it all the way to the right), and that "dangerous" decissions always come with a second confirmation in red which makes them pretty easy to avoid when there's only one or two characters involved (ie: "did you distrust someone at a yellow branch and got into a red? swing it the other way and you'll be fine")... I was expecting the system to present me more complicated choices with no easily discernible "good" outcome, but I don't think I have yet experienced anything like that so far.

Edit: Okay, so I reached my first ending. Hoo boy, did things get frantic right after what happened in my latest post... I guess earlier choices were more of a tutorial and a way to accumulate character points for later flag checks, since choices were a lot less transparent, which I felt was pretty good. Here're my spoiler-laden impressions:

Spoiler

I got way too used to the melancholic "someone died" music playing over and over as I apparently ended up taking too long to save the kids, so people started dying one after the other until only the MC was alive. First I had the teacher, scientist and Jun split the parts of the gun, then Yuuri disappeared, the MC found her dead, and everyone checked recordings that proved he didn't find her corpse like he had though. Thanks to that revelation, the scientist and Jun developed the Hinamizawa syndrome and cornered the MC, Ena ran away with him, and then she somehow decided to go back on her own, basically delivering the last part of the gun to two people who had gone crazy and dying herself...

It was after that that the MC said "fuck it" and decided to check the main room... and god damn it all. The fact that the main room was neither in fire nor a nuclear reactor proves in my eyes that the people from the facility played the rescue team (and myself) like a damn fiddle with the serum and the geiger counters, which were probably fake, or even had some kind of negative effect. The reason the three kids walked around freely and didn't care about radiation might've had to do with there not being any kind of actual radiation per se, and that the ampules might even have helped create the negative effects rather than preventing them such as somehow subduing the telepathic powers that were being researched in the facility or something, which could explain why Yuuri was so against taking them.

Also, the final text explained that someone in the rescue team was also a test subject, and I'd be inclined to guess it was referring to the MC, but I was denied information due to having taken the wrong turns at innoportune times, so I guess I'll have to try other choices in another playthrough to see things through.

Still, I'd say one thing I don't like about these kind of branching games is that they really encourage fast-skipping through sections you've already read, which can also be a double-edged sword unless you've been taking notes, since you're more likely to not be following what's going on when decissions do come up and the skipping halts. It kind of makes repeat playthroughs more of a chore with all the trial-and-error (even worse if you didn't write your previous choices down as you took them), with your reward being veiled behind really opaque flag checks that are probably done way later in the game...

Edit2: So I started replaying and skipping through stuff I had previously read looking for another way out, and I managed to get

Spoiler

the after route's good ending, which unlocked the answer mode. From what I got, it looks like the MC was the one who fought with and shot the esper boy for some reason, the kid was stuck inside the central room the whole time, the water system was being used for a coolant system for the thing that amplified the deadly radiation, and in the end the red-haired girl bled to death with no help, the MC and the boy stood in the central room, the scientist, Jun and Tachibana lost their minds and the blonde girl also bled to death.. way to go, good ending!</s>

Guess I'll start Before now, but I still think this choice system is kind of dumb when

Spoiler

most of the answers presented by the answer mode reveal that your best outcome is often really trusting someone to get extra loyalty points from them, and you're always given control over character choices that will matter for that particular flag check, meaning the system is better used as a tool you need to game in order to make everybody like you, rather than a way to actually roleplay as the MC and try to reflect how he should feel about the rest of the cast as things happen and people act. Most of the time (except when choosing teams), you're basically given the targets' trust values to tweak, and despite a couple of opaque ones, it isn't all that hard to game your way through most of them by basically telling people what they want to hear, which I feel makes them into more of a min-maxable game-y element than a way to truly flesh out the player's choices and the narrative implications such a thing entrails. My other issue with the After route is that it felt like the first half of the story was really slow-paced, and then as soon as Yuuri died everybody started to drop like flies, to the point everybody was either dead, missing or on a Higurashi-level paranoia burst... I almost began laughing when I realized the sad "someone is dead" song nearly started playing every other scene, because there were just so many despair-inducing situations rapid firing all over the place that I didn't even have time to actually get upset or restless. I get that it all happened because the characters ended up breaking down due to all the stress they had accumulated, but I couldn't really wrap my head around someone going mad or dying before it'd be happening again. Like, the scenes I got for the good ending had the MC be on really good terms with Tachibana, only for her to doubt him and try to kill him one scene later when the blonde girl came back to her senses and said he was the one who had started the whole mess... even though I did agree with the little girl, seeing Tachibana doubt her partner (and ex-boyfriend, even) over a single statement spoken by a girl she just met was pretty weird.

 

[R_thanatos]

Quite a big block of text , JulianImp.

I found the choice system of root double fine , even if simplistic
Because it's hard to get lost with it.
it's only annoying if you want to go after every alternate ending ( only for those who can't get more )

Ps: and yeah it's a GOOD ending /s ..look it's way better than the bad ones /s

 

[JulianImp]

Quite a big block of text , JulianImp.

I found the choice system of root double fine , even if simplistic
Because it's hard to get lost with it.
it's only annoying if you want to go after every alternate ending ( only for those who can't get more )

Ps: and yeah it's a GOOD ending /s ..look it's way better than the bad ones /s

I had to edit the multiple playthroughs in to avoid double-posting, so yeah, it ended up being quite the wall of text.

My issue with the choice system is that I expected it to do way more than what it ended up doing. I was expecting more situations where two or more parties were arguing and the best choice wasn't clear-cut (ie: don't fan the flames so that people began suspecting each other), but I guess it was kept relatively easy to game for the sake of not frustrating people at the cost of depth.

And regarding the endings, what makes it weird is that it looks like there're lots and lots of bad ones, and only one or two that are good. This kind of defeats the purpose of choices for me, because it looks like there's a single desireable path, and the rest are just short diversions that lead to traps and dead ends. So far I haven't been able to experience

Spoiler

a story line where different characters end up surviving so far

,so that leads me to believe that most of this story is set in stone, and I'm just being taken along for the ride. Since trust is more and more important as the survivors begin getting desperate, it looks like you should never doubt anyone regardless of how shady they might appear, because not accumulating enough trust with them eventually gets you killed otherwise.

 

[R_thanatos]

I had to edit the multiple playthroughs in to avoid double-posting, so yeah, it ended up being quite the wall of text.

My issue with the choice system is that I expected it to do way more than what it ended up doing. I was expecting more situations where two or more parties were arguing and the best choice wasn't clear-cut (ie: don't fan the flames so that people began suspecting each other), but I guess it was kept relatively easy to game for the sake of not frustrating people at the cost of depth.

And regarding the endings, what makes it weird is that it looks like there're lots and lots of bad ones, and only one or two that are good. This kind of defeats the purpose of choices for me, because it looks like there's a single desireable path, and the rest are just short diversions that lead to traps and dead ends. So far I haven't been able to experience

Spoiler

a story line where different characters end up surviving so far

,so that leads me to believe that most of this story is set in stone, and I'm just being taken along for the ride. Since trust is more and more important as the survivors begin getting desperate, it looks like you should never doubt anyone regardless of how shady they might appear, because not accumulating enough trust with them eventually gets you killed otherwise.

Lol @ the bolded , because i think that's definitely one of the lesson this game wanted to hammer it out.

 

[Basileus777]

The HD release of Symphonic Rain is out on Steam. It's a good game, people should play it.

 

[Shizuka]

Where was Sekai Project during E3?

 

[takoyaki]

Hey VisualNovelGAF, thought some of you might be interested in the GAF LRG VOTE going on right now in the Limited Run Games Thread

LRG are actively looking for games to localize, have shown interest in VNs and asked for feedback&suggestions.

This could be a rare opportunity to get more VNs and niche games localized so make your voice heard!

Vote ends tomorrow!

GAFfer and professional localizer Aokage who got the ball rolling with his passion for Fata Morgana Vita is in and back on photoshop duty.

-source

-source

-source (Doug from Limited Run Games)

 

[JulianImp]

Lol @ the bolded , because i think that's definitely one of the lesson this game wanted to hammer it out.

I think that's even worse here than in romance VNs, where you eventually want to favor one of the characters over the rest in order to end up with them. Here you're basically a yes-man that never really has to make a choice, which IMO defeats the whole purpose of such choices even being presented to the player. It wasn't about being the captain of a rescue team who had some kind of overly convenient amnesia, but rather about being the most generic and gullible protagonist ever.

Such events didn't even really make me think about how the extraordinary circumstances the characters where involved in required blind and absolute truth in each other, but rather about how I was constantly being forced to game the system for personal gain, which has really let me down so far. Here's to hoping things get more interesting during the Before route, at least.

 

[Funyarinpa]

Hasn't it been a year since Subahibi's localization was stuck at 98% QC?

 

[SpeedBeatz]

Hasn't it been a year since Subahibi's localization was stuck at 98% QC?

We'll have more info in a couple weeks.

 

[Basileus777]

Hasn't it been a year since Subahibi's localization was stuck at 98% QC?

It was picked up for official localization and now Frontwing is publishing it.

 

[Funyarinpa]

It was picked up for official localization and now Frontwing is publishing it.

I know but we still received absolutely no info after that. Seems really weird.

 

[Knurek]

You know what, Dies irae would be so, so much more amazing if they somehow got Norio Wakamoto to narrate the game.
The game is just made for his voice.

 

[jonjonaug]

MangaGamer's AX panel teaser is up. 4 new announcements, one new partner, Fata Morgana's author will be there.

 

[Funyarinpa]

MangaGamer's AX panel teaser is up. 4 new announcements, one new partner, Fata Morgana's author will be there.

Just a Q&A perhaps? Or Erasmus localization? Update on Requiem?

Spoiler

my soul cannot handle the possibility of a Vita port localization being announced and I know it's too early for that

It probably isn't any of these, but if anyone from GAF goes there please thank the author on behalf of all of us. =w=

Hope at least one of those announcements pertains to Higurashi, the remaining 3 arcs were all out of translation and editing, so I hope they start to pick up the slack now. "Tsumihoroboshi-hen out now!" or something along those lines would be incredible! Not expecting that much, though.

Is Frontwing attending AX?
...Was ISLAND ever announced for localization or did I just make that up?

 

[Yuuichi]

...Was ISLAND ever announced for localization or did I just make that up?

Supposedly coming around the same time as the anime in fall.

 

[Basileus777]

I'd be hyped for a Fata Morgana hardcopy.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Anyone finished Dies Irae here yet?

I've just reached the first ending, Kasumi, and I have so many questions. This VN really does not like to explain things, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know certain things or not at this point =/

So before I even bother asking such questions, should I just get the other endings first, and has anyone else playing this felt as lost as I have with this plot?

 

[jonjonaug]

Anyone finished Dies Irae here yet?

I've just reached the first ending, Kasumi, and I have so many questions. This VN really does not like to explain things, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know certain things or not at this point =/

So before I even bother asking such questions, should I just get the other endings first, and has anyone else playing this felt as lost as I have with this plot?

I'm finished with it.

More stuff is answered as you go along. Kasumi's route ends without any of the real major players in the plot ever really doing anything, so just keep going. Remember, Kasumi->Kei->Marie->Rea is the proper route order.

 

[JulianImp]

I kind of wish the DLC packs were in reading order, since having to purchase both of them to read Kei's route after Kasumi's is the main thing that's putting me off from getting any DLC at all, at least until it ends up going on sale or something.

 

[jonjonaug]

I kind of wish the DLC packs were in reading order, since having to purchase both of them to read Kei's route after Kasumi's is the main thing that's putting me off from getting any DLC at all, at least until it ends up going on sale or something.

The reason for this is that Dies Irae has a really troubled release history.

From what I understand: Originally the game was only supposed to have one route (Marie's), but fan demand for additional routes caused them to add Kasumi's route to the original release. This also caused the game to run up against the deadline, so the story was unedited and had parts not written by the main writer. Everything I've heard about the old version of the game makes it sound pretty bad. About a year and a half later a heavily revised edition of the original game was released. Half a year after that was the original release of the Kei and Rea routes. About two years after that the all-ages version of the game was released with even more content (the side stories, after stories, and an additional ending on Rea's route), which is what we got and is the definitive version of the game.

The obvious way to split things into two would be to have the Kasumi/Kei routes as one DLC pack and Marie/Rea as the other, since that's the intended order to read things in. But they followed the way the game was originally split up instead.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

I'm finished with it.

More stuff is answered as you go along. Kasumi's route ends without any of the real major players in the plot ever really doing anything, so just keep going. Remember, Kasumi->Kei->Marie->Rea is the proper route order.

Ok, thanks, I'll wait until I'm finished before asking questions then.
Just felt rather odd that so many questions on characters/backstory etc hadn't been answered after the first ending :/

Guess it's a bit like Nier Automata after just ending A then.

 

[afreaknamedpete]

Finally finished Dies Irae and there's alot to say about it, but the best way to summarize it without spoilers is that's it way too fucking long, but it knows how to pull off an emotional climax and make you care about its characters.

I guess it's part of the "charm" of the story but there are countless times where the plot just plain stops and there's pages of pointless descriptive text or ruminating. Although the navel-gazing was funny the first dozen times they did it but at a certain point it just becomes purple prose for the hell of it. I super-skimmed alot of the non-spoken dialogue and felt that it didn't detract from the story. There four-route structure is some weird combination of traditional romance routes, FSN style totally different plot routes, and a linear story where the stakes and power-levels escalate in each route, but I'm honestly not all that convinced it needed to be four routes. Hell I can even reasonably see how they could've shoved almost all the climaxes together with the exception of Kei's route which actually feels different from the other ones. With rare exceptions the characters don't really change all that much between the different routes; the vast majority of the characters play the same roles, fight the same people, act the same way despite being on different routes. Everyone's two-dimensional; which isn't bad, but gets rather grating since you spend so much time with the same very small cast. Luckily when the game DOES re-contextualize some characters in the final route it does it really, really well. The biggest reason the story drags, however, is the main character. It's plot-relevant but the MC being unchanging in his convictions and behaviors really makes him boring to read about since he doesn't seem to be any different between the routes with the exception of power-level. You'll find the conflicts between the villain characters much more interesting.

Going into spoilers regarding each route:

Spoiler

This game treats its heroines in some pretty odd ways.

Poor Kasumi gets pretty much shafted in every single route in this game, and the one where she's the main heroine is pretty much the BAD END with literally everybody but Kasumi and Ren dead. It's also very anti-climactic, the main villain fulfills his goal and then proceeds to act crazy-evil for the hell of it too.

Kei is the only character with actual romantic chemistry with the main lead. She has a really interesting central conflict, the entire subplot with Beatrice/Cain is amazing, and her route also has a great climax. She has show stealing scenes in both her own route and Marie's route, serves as a great foil in Kasumi's route, but is just thrown onto a proverbial bus and then promptly forgotten about. For the final penultimate sequence of Dies Irae the best heroine has about as much narrative impetus as fucking Spinne. Random death, followed by a token appearance in the epilogue that isn't even deserved, considering how nobody from the main cast has any reason to remember her in the final route.

Marie is boring but unoffensive, and if I didn't know about Rea's route I would label it as the true-end route. Everybody has a good scene, if the anime's gonna adapt any route it'd probably be this one.

Rea's route romance is pretty weak and is kinda hijacked by Rusalka... the entire Lotus subplot kinda comes from left field but Rusalka/Lotus is probably the most adorable pairing the story has. They should've just went all in on a Rusalka route. Hell the final epilogue that wraps up the whole story is Rusalka's happy ending.

Ren in general is a really shitty protagonist. He doesn't feel like he has any agency, all of his victories are according to the plans of his e

nemies, his fights are all kinda boring... all underdog until he pulls a superpower out of his ass or random coincidence gives him the win. On the flip side Shirou steals just about every scene he's in and all his fights are the best in the whole game.

All in all, enjoyable but some real pacing issues. High highs, not many lows, but plenty of boring periods. I'm actually really excited that it's getting an anime; it's a story with really good climaxes, strong characters and action scenes that seem easy to adapt. A well edited anime series can cut away all the fat and leave the juicy parts of the story intact.

 

[Buzzi]

MangaGamer's AX panel teaser is up. 4 new announcements, one new partner, Fata Morgana's author will be there.

It's been ages since a new announcement from MG made me happy, probably since the Rance announcement. Hoping at least one of those four can do that, Rose Guns Days for example since their 07th titles are doing really well (speaking of, Umi Chiru when, it has been 3000 years since part 1...).

 

[Jazz573]

Translation Status Update June 18 from /r/visualnovels

Originally from /jp/ on 4chan

Fuwanovel version

 

[FDC1]

Nurse Love Addiction is releasing on Vita this Thursday in Europe.

 

[iceblade997]

Root Letter is coming to Steam at some point this year.

 

[Shizuka]

Root Letter is coming to Steam at some point this year.

It's a good game, I had a lot of fun.

 

[Marche90]

Root Letter is coming to Steam at some point this year.

Nice. Couldn't get around buying on PS4 but I'll be sure to give it a shot on PC. I'll be forever grateful for regional pricing lol

 

[purseowner]

Root Letter is coming to Steam at some point this year.

*&#8730;Letter - Root Letter -

Spoiler

Why title it like that on Steam?
Terrible.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Hey got a quick question. After finishing that horrible machine translation of Kimi no Nagori wa Shizuka ni Yurete (strangely enough, I enjoyed it a lot despite the terrible engrish) and searching around the internet, there appears to be a 3rd translation of Flyable Hearts? I couldn't find much out besides a reddit post leading me back to gaf. Anyone know whatever happen to it? Is it dead?

Thanks.

 

[iceblade997]

Ignore

 

[Funyarinpa]

*&#8730;Letter - Root Letter -

Spoiler

Why title it like that on Steam?
Terrible.

Perhaps it's something like N++ being titled "N++ (NPLUSPLUS)", apparently mathematical symbols are omitted in Steam's searching algorithm. So for ease of access, probably, if nothing else.

 

[PantsuJo]

Official

http://gematsu.com/2017/06/root-letter-coming-pc-via-steam-2017

 

[Knurek]

Official

http://gematsu.com/2017/06/root-letter-coming-pc-via-steam-2017

How is that more official than a Steam store profile?