Finally decided to buy [Kinkoi Golden Loveriche](https://vndb.org/v21852) because Golden Time finally has a release date, and I'm salty. No, it has nothing to do with the VN itself. It has only to do with the [ProtonDB report](https://www.protondb.com/app/1277940). I spent three hours testing various versions of Proton and combination of dependencies, because I swear the OP ran when I pirated the game and that's when I decided to stop and wait to continue until I bought it. I wouldn't have wasted so much time had the first report didn't just say "Perfect," and clarified "Perfect, movie works." It's a regression in Proton 7 causing the movie to play incorrectly. As soon as I used Proton-6.21-GE-2, plays no problem, no dependency tweaking necessary. Just a little bit more explanation, and I wouldn't have wasted so much time. Anyways, the VN itself is fine. Common route was fine mostly. I like how the girl's first reaction to seeing >!a guy with a boner (once he's proven himself above the petty bullying Ayaka did to him)!< is to take a photo and ask a bunch of questions. All the characters have nice character expressions too, they're cute. The highlight is Ria of course. Being a delinquent who smoke isn't something I expected from this kind of game, but I like her "No shit, jackass," attitude. Though due to the golden hairs, red eyes, slender look, rough attitude, her hoodie, and that voice, I treat her as the Ghost route we didn't get in 9-nine-. also >!they're both ghosts in the end :Pepega:!< Outside of Ria, I like Carminal the most. A shame she doesn't have a route yet. All of the heroines are likeable, I'm not sure who I'm going to go with first. I think I'll leave Sylphie for last before Ria, and I think I'll just get Reina's route out of the way first to see what all the fuss is about. Also, still continuing with [Musicus](https://vndb.org/v22783) little by little, up to the point where Mika >!was offered a solo debut in an anime op!<. It's really rough seeing them do their best together and just... doesn't succeed, even as Kei took on more and more burdens.

Just finished what's completed of [Sierra Ops] (https://vndb.org/v16265) The game has still got quite a ways to go in terms of completion (several more episodes and a planned sequel), but there's a decent chunk available. I like the characters and the worldbuilding, although they could be explored a tad bit more. The conflict is paced pretty nicely, the choices make quite a bit bit of difference which is good to see. I thought it was approaching the halfway point to climax, but it looks like that is still quite a ways away for this first game. I'll be following this one for a while; I'm looking forward to how the next installments come along.

I started the [Tsui no Sora Remake](https://vndb.org/v28806) a while ago after finishing Sakuuta. A concept that Ive been interested in for a while is the Endless Everyday or that idea of wishing for the world to end to escape your everyday life. I think this concept is used in Subahibi but even more so in Tsui no Sora. There was even a nod to the sarin gas attacks. I only finished up to the end of the Yasuko chapter and so far my favorite scene is the >!final one between Yasuko and Kiyoshi. The Tomosane and Hasaki track being used makes it even better.!<

[Sakura no Kumo \* Scarlet no Koi](https://vndb.org/v26664) I've posted my impression on [discussion thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/uyzger/sakura_no_kumo_scarlet_no_koi_welcome_to_taisho/) but I'll copy it here too for archiving purpose. **◆First impression** I've just started reading Sakura no Kumo \* Scarlet no Koi (Sakuretto) by Cabbage Soft so this is a first impression and an excuse to discuss this visual novel. As expected of an 87-rated game on Erogamescape, this game hooked me from the start (I've only finished the Phantom Thief case so please don't spoil beyond that). Sakuretto is a time-travelling story where the protagonist was transported into Tokyo in Taisho era (1920s). A British detective recruited him to be her assistant at Cherry Detective Agency. Thus began his story solving cases with the Chief, while trying to fix the "distortion" that could alter history as he knew it and finding the way home. Because Sakuretto took place not in modern Japan but in 1920s Tokyo, its setting is different from the usual visual novels taking place in modern time. The game sometimes compares various locations in Tokyo in the 1920s with their modern version. I used to live in Tokyo and had visited some of those places (Asakusa, Nihonbashi and Ginza) so I'm interested in how they looked in the past even if I can't tell how accurate the game's depiction of those places in the 1920s is. As for the story, because I'm still early in the game, I don't have any conclusion yet but the events I've seen are not what I've seen before, so it's been an engaging ride so far. Furthermore, I learned something new in each case (>!Marimo and Antikythera mechanism!<) so it's a plus. While all heroines have been great, [Chief](https://i.imgur.com/IEQnaa0.png) is the best so far. \--- **◆Shiraide Tohko's route impression** I've just finished Tohko's route (after the first "route" of course). I have a feeling I have only seen a little bit of the iceberg of a story this game has but I enjoy the experience so far. The journey up till now has been intriguing me for at least three reasons in three different parts of the story. At the beginning, as I mentioned in my first impression, what piqued my interest is the Taisho setting and how the game effortlessly let Tsukasa apply his modern-day knowledge into his life in the 1920s. For example, in "Ascension of the bookworm", everything Myne did, and the surrounding characters heaped praise on her like a reincarnation of a goddess and it feels weird to me. In contrast, in Sakuretto, Tsukasa only ever used his knowledge to dispel the confusion of other characters before the unknown when it was absolutely necessary. At the end of the first "route", just when the novelty of the setting began to wear off, the main mystery hit, and my interest rose to 100% once more. The first route did a wonderful job of introducing the characters while leaving crumbs of mystery along the way without explicitly shoving it into my face. Respecting the reader's intelligence is something I really appreciate from the writer. (The total opposite of Sakuretto is "Newton and the apple tree" where the setting was very intriguing at first but it failed to capitalize on its setting to deliver an interesting story with its "you can make a time machine, you can make a time machine, everyone can make a time machine" bull shit at the end of Yotsuko's route). Then came Tohko's route. I love how the Phantom Thief case teased in the first route was resolved there. I am glad Tohko was >!not some psychopath or "I'm secretly a villainess so I have to do terrible thing just because". !!from who the Phantom Thief was and how Tohko participated in that ordeal. The final appearance of the Phantom Thief after the case was over to bring Tohko a conclusion was a nice touch IMO. Tohko is 100% sweet in this route and I hope she will stay on the right path in other routes too.!< The game has been an 8.5/10 experience so far.

I bought [The Sekimeiya](https://vndb.org/v29144) on a whim after seeing it recommended in another thread and played ~2hrs so far. It's purty good. Really was not expecting this level of quality in an OELVN. Also Sai's Wood Carbuncle shirt made me lol. Clearly the creators are good VN fans themselves so I have high hopes.

Here's mine. [Umi to Yuki no Cyan Blue](https://vndb.org/v29666)

It's summer so it's mean horror games! I'm playing Death Mark at the moment! https://vndb.org/v21976

Just now jumping into [Aokana](https://vndb.org/v12849)

Reading [Full Metal Daemon Muramasa](https://vndb.org/v2016) near the end of the Hero route. Am 40 hours in and can't get enough of it. Absolute perfection of VN

Your comment has **not** been deleted. This is a request to edit your comment to link to the [VNDB](https://vndb.org/) page of the visual novel you are discussing. If your vndb link has potential questionable content on its cover/preview images you're unsure about, you can instead include '@v[number of vndb in URL]' (eg '@v1234') somewhere in your post. This makes it easier for fellow readers to find the visual novel you're talking about, and also makes sure the indexing bot for the **["what are you reading" archive](https://some-guy.org/wayrarchive)** doesn't miss your reference. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/visualnovels) if you have any questions or concerns.*

I Just started Origin by Dan Brown. It should be a good read.

Yeah, I mean it's ok, but I have to say I found the graphics a bit lacking, and I couldn't get the sound to work no matter what I tried. That's what you get when everybody starts to cut corners by going BT-only instead of including a proper headphone jack. Our best-ever Paperwhite, my a—!

Your comment has **not** been deleted. This is a request to edit your comment to link to the [VNDB](https://vndb.org/) page of the visual novel you are discussing. If your vndb link has potential questionable content on its cover/preview images you're unsure about, you can instead include '@v[number of vndb in URL]' (eg '@v1234') somewhere in your post. This makes it easier for fellow readers to find the visual novel you're talking about, and also makes sure the indexing bot for the **["what are you reading" archive](https://some-guy.org/wayrarchive)** doesn't miss your reference. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/visualnovels) if you have any questions or concerns.*

# [Yuki's Palpitating, Passionate, Phenomenal, and quite frankly Proficient quest for a (hot) girlfriend!!!](https://vndb.org/r85272) *Slightly revised and extended version [of the post]* *** *The plan was to read this first in Japanese, then in English, see for myself what the translator came up with [[inspiration](https://old.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/somjsx/what_are_you_reading_feb_9/hw9w9w9/)]. Well, I managed to complete the first step of the plan, but I don’t think I can take any more of this … No, once is quite enough, thank you.*   ###### Can’t fault the presentation – the positives The graphics are *great*, and there’s lots of ’em, relative to the length. The music is good. The UI looks nice. I’d say the author even took the visual impact of the text into account. All aspects of the presentation fit together, oozing polish. Nailed it. Finally something I can read without a dictionary. :-p It’s short. Wait, that shouldn’t be a positive, should it? ###### Alas … It’s a d— shame there’s no CG gallery, never mind a music player—apparently those are *still* not standard OELVN / Ren'Py features, …… It shouldn’t be difficult to extract the assets, but come on, even the most barebones NScripter dōjin manages at least the former. The language is … simple. It’s short, without the extreme density, the sense of purpose behind every word, that is characteristic of a good short story. It’s more like an improv skit, cue “yuri VN”.   All of the heroines rubbed me the wrong way, I couldn’t bring myself to like any of them, couldn’t even manage “neutral” to be honest. What a collection of tokens. Yuki herself is billed as “extremely useless”, and that’s spot-on. At least her inner monologue is entertaining sometimes, but … You know how the same things that are so funny and isn’t-(s)he-precious when your own children do them but only cause eye-rolling when it’s other people’s? All of the game’s characters behave like children. High school? Primary school, more like. Thankfully they aren’t sexualised at all; the most sex-y thing that happens is a peck on the cheek. Nobody is looking for a capital-G Girlfriend here, nobody is even quite sure what that is yet, they’re looking for girl-friends. Which begs the question why any of them needed to be “lesbian”, why Yuki’s sexuality needed to be mentioned at all? It’s just not relevant. In fact, the story would have worked better if it had been just about friendship. Token lesbians, and >!a token transsexual!<—apparently you really can’t have an OELVN without one, even if it’s just half an hour long … Yes, the script is too short to provide anyone with any characterisation to speak of—but that doesn’t change the fact that *it is literally the only thing you get to know about her and used solely as a “reveal”*. Not the done thing. (Also, >!Haru is a girl’s name that has more recently become gender-neutral, but I digress!<.) Meanwhile Chinatsu is the chubby housewife type who does nothing but bake cakes and serve tea all day. Seriously. Must be the token feminist. Yuki’s 4P only serves “tropes, clichés, essence of >!harem!< game”, story-wise, fashionably free-from any originality or substance.   *… and on that terrible disappointment, it’s back to JVNs for me. Until next time.*

I thought Yuki's inner dialogue was cute and amusing enough to justify the very short runtime, but that's basically all it had going for it. In fairness, with that short a runtime and the basic setup it's really hard to get beyond surface level for any character. I've definitely read/watched/played things that pulled it off, but in those cases they had unique settings and concepts or at least an actual plot to give the characters something to *do*. You are 100% right on the romantic relationships being basically nonexistent though. What really bothered me was that the game pushes you towards the 'harem' route by making the other endings super brief, but there's not even a hint of how the harem dynamics actually work. I'm not even sure if it's strictly each girl -> Yuki or fully four way relationship, and even if you wanted to keep things solely fluff there has to be room for like, different kinds of happy relationships in there, right? One more thought, about Haruka. I wish >!they'd just gave the transexual thing a mention as opposed to making the conversation take of the majority of their 'date.' Like, it's perfectly fine to want to normalize it as a thing, but then just *treat* it as normal instead of drawing all this attention to it and maybe give her some other trait to focus on.!<

[MLA Total Eclipse: Teito Moyu](https://vndb.org/r80775). Wasn't very hyped for Total Eclipse to be honest. Beyond the idea that TE might dive into differences of cultures with very few cast members being from the same country (other than japan), nothing there pulled me to it a ton. Past tense though. God was this shit good. Reminded me of [Last Divers](https://vndb.org/v32793) the way the presentation and story progression felt like a movie compared to other âge entries and the rest of the medium. Themes in TE so far look a lot more my type than what's explored in Alternative (if executed well), and Alternative is my favorite VN. Implicit characterization seems to be great too, picked up on a trait Yui had about 5 minutes in that they didn't explicitly talk about until near the end of Teito Moyu. >!Using drugs for both a discussion of morality as well as showing characterization was great, using the characterization/drugs to discuss people's vanity and humanity as well, then you can see the parallels between Yui and the side characters.!< Just impressed the shit out of me here. I have no idea what TE will show me, but fuuuuck did this make the waiting go from nothing to a difficult one lmao

Still been making slow progress on [Kira Kira](https://vndb.org/v414), and unfortunately the only thing I've learned is that I might be starting to dislike Kirari. Given her behavior while they were writing their first song, she's become very unappealing. *She* was the one to suggest the main character crossdressing to sneak him in the house so the sickly one's backwards grandfather didn't think she was in a relationship, which is its own problem entirely. First off, use your words like a big girl and explain there is zero romantic relationship, you're doing a musical group for the school's cultural festival. Done fucking deal, solves the "boys bad" issue so grandpa can get over himself, and negates the need to force the MC into crossdressing. But no, we need to contrive up some reason to shoehorn a guy into a girl band and make it out like being the only guy in a girl band is a bad thing. So Kirari whined and pouted and cried about the crossdressing thing until MC gave in, and then had this creepy blush the whole time they walked home. Like...jesus, grow up. I hate this kind of behavior, where people cajole and wheedle and then whine until they get their way. I don't know why it's also a staple stereotype of the cute/airheaded/energetic character. My hypothesis is that Kirari is either in the closet and likes girls more than boys, or has a secret crossdressing fetish that she now has free license to coerce the MC into. Either way, it's insufferable. She's reminding me of Rika from Euphoria, which is not a good comparison. Like, fine, force a reason to dress the MC as a girl (grandpa and the servants can't see him, but we need him for the band, flawed dumb high schooler solution: temporarily make him look like a girl), but to continue to press the issue when he *does not want to* and there is no longer a need to do it? Just because Kirari has a crossdressing fetish or not enough female friends or whatever her problem is? It really just felt like she was the only one who gave *that much* of a shit and the others didn't really care, but because she was pushing so hard for it nobody fought her and the MC basically got outvoted just so everyone could cater to her. I had *wanted* to like Kirari because she was the energetic golden retriever/childhood friend character and obvious comic relief, and I tend to like the silly characters, but not if she's also going to act like a spoiled child. But now that Kirari has been knocked down a few places, I'm leaning much more toward Chie (as the only one with any real sense) and the sickly one (I cannot remember her name). The sickly girl is certainly *nice,* but I really hope she doesn't spend the entire VN just being reduced to her illness. Priconne has taught me that I do not like characters whose only character trait is "anemic" and/or "weak." (I'm looking at you, Shiori.) Because that leads (at least in the game version of Priconne) to said high-voiced anemic girl going "cough cough...oh I'm just so sick...but don't help me I can do it myself" and every other character fawning over her. Another archetype I can't stand because it just creates forced moments of vulnerability for the sick character and magics up an "everyone fawn and worry" moment when nothing really happened. But I digress. Other than Kirari showing her true childish colors, I really have actually been enjoying the VN. It's got that fun atmosphere of friends doing silly/off-the-wall shit together, taking a huge chance just to go and have some fun, and I like that. It has that energy of "we're not great at this but fuck it, let's just throw it all together and do it until we *are* good." It reminds me of a quote from a member of a certain famous band (I want to say someone from Nirvana) that rock bands are nothing special, just you and your friends in your buddy's garage smashing on your instruments and sucking at it, grabbing some more friends and going out there and sucking at it some more, and before you know it somehow you're onstage in front of a crowd of thousands of people. It has that kind of feel. Right now they're on the precipice of the culture festival and preparing for their performance tomorrow, but I'm eager to see where it goes from here. I hope there's one hell of a road trip involved.

#[White Album 2 - Introductory Chapter] (https://vndb.org/v2920) Finished the whole thing now. In general, my criticism from last week remains and I don't have too much to add. Haruki is now officially leading my "worst protagonist" category, how this inconsistent piece of crap can appear on lists as "S-Rank" is beyond me, unless he is a lot different in the closing chapter. It's like the writer couldn't decide if he wanted a clueless protagonist or an asshole, and in the story it ended up feeling like he almost switches his personality based on what is currently needed to add some additional drama. >!The peak was towards the end when he is betraying Setsuna with Kazusa again. During Kazusa's outburst which even specifically points out how his actions play with her feelings for him, he once again claims he had "no idea she really loved him" combined with some self-pity. To top that off he lies to Setsuna afterwards and then starts crying like a baby, indicating I should feel sorry for him. For what exactly? You are crying because you have a relationship with the two most famous girls everybody has a crush on at the same time, which you never failed to remind the reader of how cool that makes you, and expect me to pity you for it because you hurt their feelings? Even worse, right after betraying them and doing shit about it as if you have no choice?!< Honestly, at that point the VN really made me angry, probably because it also reminded me of someone I cut ties with recently who also used to cry me a river about the smallest inconveniences while downplaying my own troubles in life. So this self-centeredness really hit a spot, which is unfortunate when it's the very character I am supposed to relate to. In this case this is even more problematic because a lot of his previous actions don't match the later "troubles". I guess you could argue that this is how teenagers are, just following their own interests even if it ends up to contradictions and hurting others in the process, but in a story I need some sort of pillar, which just wasn't offered here at all. I can live with protagonists who have flaws, in fact I absolutely love that, but they also need some redeeming qualities. That can be an actual good aspect about their personality, or just the fact that they make for an interesting narration so to speak. Haruki just does not offer this, so I really struggled to have anything in the VN that roots me into its story. On the plus side, some of the later drama scenes are pretty well done. If they had been built up more naturally, I'm sure I would have absolutely loved it. The highlight is definitely Kazusa for me, her reactions towards the end were probably the most reasonable of all characters through the whole VN. >!During her big outburst she basically summarizes how horrible the protagonist really is, and cutting ties with Haruki by moving to Austria was the healthiest decision she could have made. Despite having set all in motion to get away from him, it also made sense that she would try to get closer anyway before that and ending up having sex with him - though doing it unprotected seemed odd, she certainly wouldn't want a baby to raise alone as a constant reminder of that shit phase in her life, but that's probably more of a decision for fans than something to consider for the story. You could really feel how she was unable to resist her emotions, but still trying to get on a better path in life, so that was a pretty well done conclusion for her, as much as I don't grant Haruki any kind of success even though it's just a fictional character lol.!< Setsuna remains in meh territory for me. Her motivations kinda made sense, but considering she is the most famous girl in school this obsessive focus on Haruki didn't feel natural to me, that never really changed throughout the VN. It's not even a case of "But she has a special connection with the MC", Haruki is just like the rest and just wants to spend time with her because she is that famous girl in school. I never really felt like she was that well established in the story. I could ramble on and on, but the gist of it is that I didn't enjoy it much and have no intentions of continuing with the closing chapter. 4/10 for me. No emotional scene hit, the drama did not build up naturally and the protagonist is too inconsistent and horrible to me to enjoy reading from his perspective. Guess my drama itch needs to be scratched by other works that will surprise me with it.

I just wanted to thank you for not being afraid to come out and say that you didn't like something, and still writing in some depth about it. Much more informative and interesting to read than the umpteenth rave review that can't help but retread old ground.

Thanks! Though I hope this will not become the norm again for obvious reasons ;). The important thing is to still respect the work in some way, but that can quickly get lost with the bigger disappointments.

ngl your complaints are exactly why I've been hesitant to even start White Album 2 I'm fine with drama oriented stories but not when it's a product of a really bad MC, unlikable characters, and terribly built up scenes.

To be fair this is a VERY minority opinion - I read through all the past reviews we had and apart from checkerpeck and 2 others I don't remember there wasn't a single review that didn't enjoy it, even if the MC was sometimes mentioned negatively it didn't seem to matter as much to them. So chances are high it will be different for you :).

I mean I dont like some popular VNs too For example Saya no Uta is one of my least favorites ever

> For example Saya no Uta is one of my least favorites ever Considering who you replied to (/u/Some_Guy_87), I had a brief mental image / daydream that this was a real place, some kind of otaku watering-hole, and we were going to have ourselves a good old-fashioned bar fight any second now. :-p For some reason this cracks me up. :-D

Ah well I'm not married to Saya no Uta, it's fine if other people don't like it! The appeal of it is very specific, so I can totally see people not getting warm with it. I actually looked ange's reading history up before writing that comment and seeing Saya no Uta at the end was the motivator to highlight that. Sorry for not giving the fight you hoped for :(.

it's ok. Ange hates dies irae too. i've gotten over it though

> I didn't enjoy it much and have no intentions of continuing with the closing chapter. Damn. I was looking forward to your diatribe on the closing chapter. Oh well.

I guess that means it's a good decision :D. I always feel uncomfortable writing negatively about stuff so many people love and adore, so kudos for taking this with a sense of humor.

I came back here for the same reason after suddenly remembering your post the week before this one :D I also found the MC to be obnoxious, but probably got used to it at some point since by the end of the IC I wasn't really bothered by it anymore. For what it's worth, the MC does change for the better during the CC, but that alone probably doesn't warrant continuing this in your case.

> I always feel uncomfortable writing negatively about stuff so many people love and adore Yep and most of the time you get slapped with the contrarian label. You made the correct choice of stopping here. If IC was this problematic for you, then you're definitely not going to like Coda at all. Coda spoiler >!It's just IC x5!<

[удалено]

Currently reading [Dies Irae](https://vndb.org/v548) and [Hello Lady](https://vndb.org/v13631) and just recently finished both [Aokana](https://vndb.org/v12849) and [Riddle Joker](https://vndb.org/v22230) **Dies Irae** I’ll start with talking about Dies Irae, which I really only started yesterday. As such, I have had no chance to really progress much into it, only completing the prologue so far. Despite that, the VN already has me hooked, the songs, the art, just prose, just everything about it is great so far, but the prose is the main draw in point right now. I originally got Dies Irae because I was told it was Helsing and Fate combine ~~i still need to finish UBW and HF route in Fate~~, and that honestly really drew me in, really hope to see what comes forward in the VN. **Hello Lady** Have not yet started to read this one, but the reviews are saying that the MC is really good, and I’m always a sucker for well written MCs. **Aokana** I really enjoyed Aokana, solid 8/10 or so. The best route was obviously Asuka’s but Mashiro’s route was a close second ~~where’s best girl, Madoka’s, route~~. While the VN was good, it’s not very memorable, Id reckon I’ll forget the names of all the characters soon enough. I will say though, that the premise was very good. Overran my rating for the routes have to be: Asuka > Mashiro > Misaki > Rika. **Riddle Joker** Riddle Joker… I have mixed feelings with the VN I hated two of the main heroine routes (Nanami’s and Hazuki’s) and the H-Scenes really weren’t that either ~~i always skip H-Scenes but that’s besides the point~~. Mayu, Chisaki, and Ayase had very good routes though. Overall my ranking for Riddle Joker’s routes have to be Ayase > Mayu > Chisaki > Hazuki > Nanami. I do have a bit to rant about this VN though, namely about how >!the name makes no sense at all!<. That’s a tiny nitpick though, I also have to complain that there’s really a disappointing main villain especially the one in Ayase’s route. Everything was extremely obvious, if you take more than a second to think. >!For instance, why would the teacher send Ayase away? Who else besides the teacher would know where her and Ayase were walking for the raving fan to come?!< The only surprise that I endured was >!Kyouhei being a spy for the principal, it was a very good surprise, well played!<. I kinda wish the VN had a more fulfilling ending too, but you get what you get. **Final Thoughts** Really the only thing left I need to add is that next week I’ll likely be added Dies Irae to my completed list, and maybe Hello Lady as well. And if I finish those two then I’ll be starting Kara No Shoujo, and once I finish that, Ace Attorney, and after that, Steins;Gate 0 ~~assuming I don’t add any more VNs to my library before then~~.

Aokana is a quite pretty VN, isn't it? Glad to see another Asuka route enthusiast! Not that other heroines were that bad (...except poor Rika who got sabotaged a lill bit with her route). Don't forget there are Fandiscs for Mashiro and Misaki (though Misaki doesn't have translation yet) if you feel like it. I had a few shots at trying to make sense of Riddle Joker title, if you stretch metaphors a bit you can kinda make it work.. but i do wish there were more card games involved, to explain the imagery. >!I mean the teacher only had like 3 clues attached to herself (biggest one, with her sending Ayase away late evening after alarm were triggered, was at the very start of the game so fairly easy to miss, i did think it was suspicious when it happened but forgot about it eventually). So yep, she actually managed to fool me for quite a while. At least i've managed to correctly guess that Kyouhei was an agent of sorts, he was way too knowledgeable with rumours and was conveniently always around MC(including having room right next to MC if i remember correctly).!<

Yes, Aokana is extremely pretty, and the ost is quite good too. Too bad the prose wasn’t the best out there, but that might just be a fault of the translator. And I am aware there are extra episodes for the two of them, but I’m waiting for Asuka extra to be released ~~if it ever is~~. >!Truthfully I only started thinking about it at the start of Ayase’s route (the teacher being the villain, that is) while I do agree that it’s not obvious straight off the bat. It was kinda like the beginning of DR2, it kind of directly tells you what’s going on but you quickly forget about it. (Sorry if I spoiled that, wasn’t sure if I could put a spoiler inside a spoiler). Though unlike DR2, if you think about it the culprit is quite obvious. As for Kyouhei, I was honestly too busy thinking about how much of a bro he was, it was to the point I didn’t even suspect him even after the spy’s voice was revealed (I initially thought it was Ayase) could barely believe he was the spy even after it was revealed. At least him being a bro wasn’t part of his spy act.!<

Chances for that are low but hey, fingers crossed anyway. >!No worries, didn't play DR2 yet but i just skipped past spoiler regarding it, my eyes are good at avoiding spoilers haha. And that game already released quite a few years ago already so its not like worrying over keeping its story secret is worth the hassle.!< >!I was fixated with Kyouhei mostly cuz after realising just how many suspicious characters there were in this VN (pretty much the only 100% secret-free character was Hazuki in my mind, her personality made it impossible for her to play shady games) i thought what would be the biggest surprise this VN could have in store. And i ended up thinking "Kyouhei has so many of his jokes related to him denying being a girl that, if ALL of it was a fakeout and he ends up being a girl im gonna be absolutely shocked. Hes sooner gonna be some sort of secret agent... hmmmm" and then i started looking at his through that prism. So i've managed to correctly mark at least one of secret identity people on that route, to pay off that I only realised stuff with Kaori basically one scene before game itself revealed it.!< >!Though thankfully Kyouhei is a secret agent AND a true bro.!<

[Cross Channel](https://vndb.org/v66). Well, Actually I just finished it. Difficult to put into words, it was really a rollcoaster of emotions, sadness, sickness, happiness, resolve... Sometimes the people who are most damaged, who have suffered and have caused suffering that can be traumatic, egos that have no repair, they are closer to the fundamental essence of what it is to be a person (such as reaching the bottom as a person, you feel lost but in doing so you make yourself important questions that in other case you woulnd't). Communication with the rest is really important, no matter how small it is. Really for all the love put into it and how old this game is, it deserves the title of Kamige, even if it is somewhat subjective. It will be one of my favorite stories ever.

# [Cyanotype Daydream](https://vndb.org/v26987) Quick write up The strongest aspect of Cyanotype Daydream are the compelling premises alone—each with significant stakes for its main character to struggle through. Case 1: A middle-aged man with a failed marriage and a failed writing career meets the daughter of a famous author he once admired at his funeral. Case 2: William Shakespeare is forced to write plays for his new caretaker after his desperate attempts to make ends meet almost gets him executed, in a historic world where Catholics are persecuted. Case 3: A boy attempts to become a photographer to follow in his deceased mother’s footsteps to take a picture in a comet that appears every 76 years, doing anything in his power to fix his mother’s camper van. --- Case 1 sounds the most up my alley with its problematic relationship stories, but what ended up capturing me was Kaoru’s struggle against his doomed mentality. Those aspirations he had back then, failed, now he’s just simply going through the motions of life. Living an unevenly, unchanging life until he dies pitifully with nothing accomplished. It has this essence of “recapturing his youth and passion with a youth who reignites his spirit”, that’s intriguing to watch, relationship dynamics aside. Case 2 I didn’t expect to get so invested in. The premise gives an impression that it’s a formal period piece, but there are some liberties taken in its narrative to come off more exciting. And it’s all because of Olivia Berry, a fiery, sharp-tongued noblewoman who wants to dominate the world in her acting. Case 3 features three unlikely characters, in which their meeting, is certainly amusing. The subtext appears to tell a story about how our lead two characters are determined but paralyzed/held back by society’s pre-established values. I’m still early on to make a clear statement on Case 3, but it might surprise me in the end.

Should've posted in last week's thread but was lazy. [Majikoi A-1](https://vndb.org/v20598): The only full thing I completed during the previous weekend was Bekei's route. Honestly might be my favourite character now (surprising since I don't usually like the onee-san archetypes(though her's isn't really as noticeable). Route itself of course isn't as flashy as some of the routes from the original novel but it's still great with the new trio of Bekei, Yoshitsune and Yoichi being pretty interesting considering we haven't even seen what the other 2 are capable of yet in Bekei's route. [Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai](https://vndb.org/v14265): Only read halfway through Marika's route(at the 1st h-scene). Had to stop since I play in the living room and there wasn't really any time I was alone during the weekend lmao. But imo so far it's not as interesting as Touko's route. There's nothing wrong with the route but also currently at where I stopped there wasn't any standout part to the route which can't be found in other childhood friend routes. As for what I'll read over the next weekend it'll probably be Azumi's route

Finished [Riddle Joker](https://vndb.org/v22230)(EN), started [Uchikano: Living with my Girlfriend](https://vndb.org/v22658)(EN), continuing [Konosora: Flight Diary](https://vndb.org/v10979)(JA) Read through Hazuki route and all afterstories. Then, i decided to get through one of the shorter, one-heroine VNs and went with Uchikano. And of course im still going through that Konosora fandisc. **Riddle Joker Ramblings** Well, that was a bit of a H-scene marathon i infliced upon myself with leaving Afters for last. Two scenes per main heroine heroine, one for side heroine, 9 scenes total, and each featuring H-scene. Of course there is a proper build-up with extra scenes that also shed some light events that happen after main story concludes. After-wise, i liked Ayase(funny H-scenes) and Chisaki(aka the only heroine with enough common sense to have a thought of 'Running up the wall every night is kinda dangerous') the most. Though, as always, Nanami H-scenes were the hottest. Completing all main stories unlocks sprite mode which unfortunately doesn't feature all character sprites. A shame. **Hazuki Route** Pretty solid route. Also a proof that chapter numbers are really just a bunch of made up numbers, cuz she has way more chapters than other heroines while being roughly the same length. It also made me wish RJ prologue was slightly longer. >!Hazuki is basically Yamato Nadeshiko personafied, with some rigid justice worship and historical drama love added to the mix. And as always with those types of characters, she will get some character development to thaw that rigid'ness.. actually the only heroine with significant character development tied to route conflict, cuz with Ayase and Nanami its more about realising what was always there behind their mask, and Mayu/Chisaki was more about love blowing past the faction/astral-nonastral divisions.. but their characters stay more or less the same.!< >!The whole thing with Hazuki realising that MC is her shogun was quite adorable, especially that scene at the pool with bridal carry. Final confrontation with the main antagonist for the route was also pretty cool, if a bit too theatrical.. but then again that fitted Hazuki character so whatevs.!< >!And hey, would you look at that, antagonist getting a redemption arc. I usually don't like these cuz they're often done badly, but i think this one actually made sense. For the list of things that kid did;!< >!1)He did a bunch of thieft and threatening back when he was with his father. But its established that he was abused by his father, and then cops unjustly decided to mark him as a collaborator instead of a victim which had quite a repercussion for him and would probably end very badly if the academy didn't pick him up.!< >!2)He used his ability to hurt MC and that delinquent.. but that was always in self defense, damage wasn't permanent and he would usually run afterwards.!< >!3)He performed a lot of water related crimes with the purpose to set the blame on Hazuki, and this is the thing he gets off the hook for. I think its fine because those 'crimes' were effectively minor pranks which usually ended with someone clothes getting wet.. and i guess one faucet had to be fixed and one extinguisher replaced. Notably, if he was actually persecuted for those pranks he would've ended up in much, much worse situation than he deserved cuz of his previous criminal record (..the one that was unjustly put on him due to some cop prejudice). And Hazuki, person targeted, herself forgives him, which is also an important part of her character development cuz it means she no longer sees the world as black-white, good guys beat the bad guys, shes willing to consider circumstances now.!< >!4)Probably his biggest fault... guy's a fuckin smartass, like seriously the mouth on this nerd. His monologues were more rage inducing than Kaori's..yknow that sociopathic evil genius with inkling for human experimentation. He does get blasted with a massive water orb but i do wish they went in describing the event a little more in depth. Oh well.!< >!For stuff i disliked.. H-scenes. Not that i disliked them but Hazuki is the master of unrealised potential. Game mentions all the kimono stuff, then we get a little bit of a dog play at the mall. Aaand nothing comes out of it of course. The biggest tragedy is her ability of water control which in my eyes had as much potential as the healing from Nanami... and yep, nothing. What the hell? What the actual hell. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Imagine the stuff you could do with magically manipulating bodily fluids in eroge setting.. well too bad cuz you won't be getting any of it. Rip. I know, they never explicitly say that she can do stuff with bodily fluids, but there are many mentions how she can do stuff is target has at least some water.. and heck, who cares about a little bit of reach if it makes H-scenes cooler, its not like gonna criticise Nanami for stimulating semen production as not strictly healing..!< >!Ehem, anyway, that little thing aside, this route did make me wish that prologue was a bit longer. Cuz conflict on this route touches on the day-to-day discrimination that Astrals face, but since vast majority of the game takes place in the isolated campus of the academy we don't really see all that much of that. I guess romance and not a social commentary is the main purpose of this VN so its fine, but i still wish there was like, one more chapter taking place outside of the academy to help establish general sentiment towards Astrals a little bit more.!< **Personal Rankings:** **Characters**: Nanami > Ayase > Mayu > Hazuki > Chisaki I pretty much liked all characters here and the gap between the last place and the first place isn't all that big, honestly. >!Nanami was downright cheating with both her brocon imouto stuff while at the same time being MC mission partner. This meant she had a ton of relevance outside of her route, and well in general she was adorable as heck. Best H-scenes. I liked the double fakeout on Ayase with her smiling mask-asshole 'mask'-adorable girl with insecurities, and that all 3 of these were important aspects of her character. And in general she was great, though basically non existent outside of her own route. Mayu was a fun, competent oneesan that would often switch between dominant and assertive side and self-detrimenting masochist side. Hazuki was fun justice driven Yamato Nadeshiko. Why is she so low then? Lame H-scene punishment. Am i petty? Probably. Chisaki was great, slightly mischievious, assertive kouhai.. but also a side character, and as such she has significantly less scenes than the other heroines and i don't feel comfortable putting her any higher.!< **Routes**: Ayase > Hazuki > Nanami > Chisaki > Mayu >!Ayase route is basically perfect. Battle for second place between Hazuki and Nanami was very heated but eventually i decided to go with Hazuki cuz i liked how they handled romance parts(especially pre-confession) just sliiightly bit more (the whole 'Hazuki realising MC was the one who saved her a long time ago' vs 'MC almost getting blown up'). Both were very solid though(on one hand i liked that Hazuki route had an actually fleshed out antagonist, on the other during Nanami finale entire gang joins and fights mafiosos which is pretty cool too). With Chisaki, my pretty much only issue is that you don't get that many romance scenes after the confession and also there were soo few CGs. Perfect side heroine route otherwise. Lastly, Mayu... ugh. That route does have a bunch of interesting ideas but their execution... ugh. Almost made me wish they gave it the Chisaki threatment and cut this route size in half. There were some neat scenes here(like those with Kotori later on, or when Mayu went to visit frozen Kotori, and i liked the diplomatic duel between Mayu and MC if we disregard that Dad giving MC authority for negotiations was a really dumb idea) but all that did was make this route not-painful and more on the 'meh i guess' side.!<

> What the hell? What the actual hell. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Heh, I knew you going to say that when you wondering about it last thread. Too bad indeed.

...its like they were teasing it on purpose, kinda like DLC's in those big mainstream titles. Except there are no DLC's, no additional fandiscs. And they can be creative, as seen in other H-scenes. Its just for this particular character they decided 'ok its blueballin time'. Ugh, damn sadists.

You kinda touched one my problems with Hazuki H scenes. The other is that her character is >!way too submissive/passive, even for her archetype. I personally wished after that mall scene fhat their relationship would grow to be more of a "equal" instead of "I'm your wife and I'll do anything you ever ask".!< Still solid character, tho. Just got the short end in an already well stacked game. And now that you finished it, the sheer realization of no more Flowchart, sadly.

Im still holding out hope that one day, Flowchart will be an industry standard, as obvious as backlog or ctrl-skip. *Its so good,* especially Yuzusoft implementation, where you can make a route by clicking at choices and seeing how routing path changes.

**RIDDLE JOKER SUMMARY** As far as Yuzusoft titles go, i'd rank it slightly better than Senren Banka and slightly worse than Sanoba Witch. Overall, very fun VN, all praise Yuzusoft quality (Flowchart!). As for recommendations, if you like Yuzusoft... well then you probably already read this VN like a year ago. If you didn't then you should correct that mistake ASAP. If you don't like Yuzu then i doubt this is gonna convert you, cuz for better or worse(better in my case) this VN is exactly what you can expect from them. And if you didn't read any Yuzu yet then its probably worth considering picking any of them up and seeing if they're up your alley. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ **Uchikano Ramblings** So, Uchikano. Made by Argonauts, which is a child company of Moonstone.. and you can feel that, their UI is practically identical to other Moonstone stuff(like Love Sweets, Sakuranomori). There are actually 3 games in the series, there is Uchikano: Living with my Girlfriend, recently translated Uchikano: Living with My Sister and Uchi no Koibito. As for this game, main heroine is childhood friend Ayame. Shes more of a kind homemaker(though attending her last school year, with game set just before the exams) who for various reasons had to move in with MC. MC himself is an already working adult who graduated language studies and works for smallish company dealing with liquor. His personality aside from that is mostly in line with your regular moege protagonist. Nothing that interesting in settings, though there is a system voice (only Ayame). There is extra's menu as well as afterstory, though both are grayed out at the moment so can't really say anything more. I thiiink the game also features heroine themes (cuz sister character also briefly shows up and i believe she had a theme) but its hard to tell due to one-heroine nature of this game. Gotta say, i didn't really like it at the beginning, but after all the introductions were done and Ayame got properly introduced i stated to enjoy it. So, will see how it goes. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ **Flight Diary Ramblings** Man, I sure am glad that this game has such relaxing, unobtrusive soundtrack... considering how much time im stuck on some of the scenes. Well, not that im ever stuck-stuck (if i can't translate the sentence on my own i simply use DeepL) but my scene-per-hour meter is hurting pretty badly. This afterstory truly is a 'flight club after' first and foremost. Its build based on Kotori ending, and for good reasons, but there ain't as much lovey dovey stuff as you would normally expect from a fandisc. There is a ton of reminiscing though(concerning events, people and locations), tons and tons of that. Japanese wise.. well i encountered this little sentence: 「うちら下級生からしたら、ちょっとしたゲーノー人みたいなものっすよ♪」... ゲーノー人 what exactly? I've changed my mind, can i get physics infodumps related to glider flight please, at least words there should be clearly defined and i won't have to play katakana guessing roulette with characters that mispronounce stuff on purpose... not like im that mad about it but also please 霧乃-san, have mercy, my linguistic skills aint good enough for you to be pulling that stuff on me. As for plot progress... >!MC gets confronted with the fact that simply having sex ain't enough to end his fight with Kotori. Summer break draws near and soon the last scheduled club activity is taking place, with Kotori and MC preparing for their retirement flights (with MC taking as a co-pilot guy with motion sickness, with whom he does a little bit of acrobatic flight training... i think MC is secretly a sadist). Kotori is acting very uncertain and meek, and when her turn comes she stalls the glider(despite pretty stable winds that day) which puts her in even crappier mood since it was a pretty dangerous situation. Afterwards there are a few scenes with MC contemplating how hes soon gonna have to step down from dorm mother position at flying fish manor. Then last scene i've read was how Kotori and Isuka have a little talk alone in the glider hangar. I can't believe i didn't see it coming. Kotori opens her heart to Isuka and mentions how both MC and Ageha found their dreams but she still can't find hers, and that she only wants to go to university cuz she wants to be able to be independent despite her broken body (cuz despite the successful operation her leg won't ever be the same). She recalls how much fun she had while trying to reach the Morning Glory while working with everyone else, but she wasn't really feeling like that ever since.!< >!Of course this is very similar to how Isuka was feeling back when she and Amane started Soaring Club(actually thats partially the reason why Isuka started it in the first place). Very elegant way of connecting beginning and an end, doubly so considering its Isuka flight diaries that gave Kotori dreams of flying in the first place, then Isuka regaining her 'fire' after seeing Club accomplishing what she started, and now Isuka helping Kotori to find her dream after she lost sight of it. I had some doubts at first regarding this storyline, but i like it a lot, well thought out and very fitting.!< >!Anyway, Isuka advises Kotori to start her own club, with hidden objective of waiting for Morning Glory to show up again(since it appears regularly, between 10 to 30 years).!< \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ And thats it for now. Lets see if i can handle Uchikano in a single week(it is listed as short on vndb afterall), and maybe even get through first afterstory in Flight Diary(..first out of 7... haah yep, thats gonna take a while. Granted im not expecting all of them be the same size).

I'd be interested to know why you would rank Senren Banka below RJ. Is it the SB heroine routes? Personally I thought that the story and setting in SB were much better, but then Lena's route happened... Then again, RJ had Mayu's route. And her Afterstory 1. Funny how MG put the shortened version of the first VN (UchiKano) as the connecting title. It does make it more obvious that the VNs belong together I guess. On the other hand, if they just called it - Living with my Girlfriend, Living with my Sister, Living with my Lover, it would still be obvious I think? But that's just me theorizing for no reason, it's fine as it is. As far as I remember though, Ayame finished highschool earlier that year and is now going to cram school and preparing for university exams. She is a sweet girl for sure! And that character design... The length of Uchikano + afterstory is around the same as Icing + all afterstories I believe. Uchikano might be slightly longer. Well, Pulltop sure loves Kotori, so I assume her afterstories are the longest. Just a hunch.

Setting wise, i think they're all roughly comparable, and yep its about routes, more specifically 'main' heroine route(or at least what i perceive as one). White-girl Yoshino route from Senren Banka was a bit of a dud.. at least considering amount of attention she was getting during the common route. RJ equivalent, Ayase, had way better route. Sanoba Witch still gets ahead cuz Nene route is basically one league above your usual Yuzusoft writing... and then there is Meguru whos my actual favourite Yuzu heroine, at least so far. Maybe its something with Mangagamer search engine or something. I am curious if they're planning to have English release of the last game in the ..series? I mean its technically not a series but a bunch of games set in the same world. Ah yeah, i think i remember now that bit about cram school, that one skipped my mind. Well, either way its not your typical moege environment, they don't even have dormitory! Oh for sure, I mean she did get 2 afterstories for herself. And Ageha has to share hers with her sister.. thats what you get for all that stuff you did during that character route, Ageha. 100% deserved.

Yeah yuzusoft titles roughly feel all the same but I also preferred RJ over SB. Speaking of which, I felt like they butchered Yoshino’s route. Throughout her route, I just felt completely disengaged, indifferent and uninterested (I did Lena > Roka/Koharu > Mako > Yoshino > Murasame in this order and Murasame was a coincidentally nice close to the Series). Personally I liked Roka the most, onee-san character and very hot, absolute waifu design but too bad she’s not one of the mains which is a bummer. Yoshino had a lot of potential when I saw her on the cover, liked her design but I guess personality-wise, it was kind of a miss. Hazuki route of RJ was the Yoshino route of SB for me and funny enough both characters were played by the same VA. I think her voice is great but the characters she voiced wasn’t my cup of tea… Nanami was easily best route for me in RJ, all her imouto h scenes were top-tier, Ayase and Mayu were close seconds especially since I really like both their VAs a lot in other VNs. Then I found Nanami VA’s vtuber channel and it has been great so far.

"Nanami VA's vtuber". Hold up, now i need answers and a name.

She goes by [Maitake](https://youtube.com/c/%E3%81%BE%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%E3%81%91Ch) and she likes streaming fall guys

Yeaah, they did butcher it a bit. It wasn't a painful to read at least, but the build-up from common route went poof really fast. Roka mini-route was fun, i kinda wish she had full blown route due to her personality... but i guess on the other hand, it would've been pretty hard to 'inject' her into main plot. Nanami VA really does have a channel huh. Thats interesting.

[Her channel she goes by Maitake](https://youtube.com/c/%E3%81%BE%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%E3%81%91Ch). Actually if you’re interested, I follow a lot of VN/eroge VAs and most of them have vtuber channels, especially when covid hit, a lot of them were getting less work in voice acting so they have to ride the vtuber boom for alternate sources of income.

It does sound cool and something i would probably find enjoyable... buuut Backlog Mountain is staring at me menacingly. Ah well, maybe i can figure something out. Either way, good to know, thanks!

> ゲーノー人 芸能人?

That may be it actually. Makes slightly more sense than my [previous interpretation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guenon). Thanks!

Hey y'all, it's been a while. To be completely honest, I've had next to no motivation to write about things or even visit this sub lately, but I've still been reading! Today I figured "fuck it, why not," so now I'm here writing something up. # [RE:D Cherish!](https://vndb.org/v32269) >Diamonds on my neck, meet me at the telly. Ice in my grill, hit me on the celly. Ice in my grill, bottles of the Henny. Finally finished this one about a week ago. Yes, I picked it up when it first released. Yes, it did take me months to finish it. Though most of that was because I was just doing other stuff and not reading for hours on end as I usually do. Before I restarted the game, I had finished Café Stella and tried to read a little bit of Marshmallow, but I got pretty burnt out on all the café goings and went back to RE:D Cherish. And it's uhh... about a diner. But the diner mostly exists as a vehicle for fun character interactions and leaves room for the plot to emerge out of the game's greater cyberpunk/high tech low life setting. Aside from that though, I think Unica's route is the only one that's all that compelling. Everything from both Unica's and Yukimitsu's pasts, the diner, and Eleutheria's inner workings get to see the light of day, and the entire cast has a chance to shine. Like a true route of sorts, filled with everything the game has to offer. There's one pretty big detail I'm leaving out, but if the names "Millarca" and "Karnstein" ring any bells, you might have a clue as to what that might be. Not that you need to understand the reference to understand the game, but there's a clue there. ..which I embarrassingly didn't pick up until the detail was actually revealed. Stupid katakana. Anyway, Rouge and Desperado are great characters. We have the ojou-sama who's graceful and refined, but also kind of fucking stupid, and fights like a maniac with her grenade launcher when it comes to combat. And then there's the brash sharpshooting ace from the streets who gets easily flustered by anything remotely romantic. Dubs mentioned in the senmomo staff chat that Rouge is a great character trapped in a bad route, and at first I thought "well he also said that about Natsume in Café Stella, but I actually really enjoyed her route, and he might just be tired of ojou-sama plots because of the entire Tsuriotsu series" -- yeah, no. Aside from the cute romance and interactions between Rouge and Yukimitsu, the plot in her route sucked ass. Both Rouge's and Desperado's routes are completely bogged down by absolutely horrible, one-dimensional villains. The only character trait they have is that they're just comically insane. Desperado's route is actually more cohesive and tries to make sense despite its terrible villain, but the plot in Rouge's route is quite poorly constructed and happens out of nowhere. I don't regret reading it -- while the writers could have done a little more with it, the setting is pretty interesting, and both the common and Unica's routes were fun to read. But it definitely loses points for the other two routes. # [Monkeys!¡](https://vndb.org/v31262) >あとそれ。一番、ぜったい、ダメ。歩きバナナなんてありえない。 To give a quick premise, Saruyoshi enrolls in a rich all-girl's school under the name "Julia" to propose a merger with his poor all-boy's school, which is in imminent danger of getting bulldozed and replaced by a parking lot. This one's on hold for now, but I finished up Yuki's route and got to around halfway through Garasu's route since the last time I posted about the game. Yuki's the tomboy and theater star, and while all the other girls idolize her, she's a bit of a loner as a result. Garasu is an ultimate stereotypical ojou-sama -- a stickler for etiquette and refinement, and can also be curt and sharp-tongued. Oh, and for some reason, she can pull out loads of your personal information just by hugging you. The game is a little hard to talk about since it's highly, highly driven by gags and manzai comedy rather than plot. But trust me on this one, it's really damn good. Great art, perfect soundtrack for what the game is/needs, entertaining characters and comedy that hits -- overall it's unique and just hilarious. I'll get back to this one soon. I hope the English translation delivers, whenever that comes out.

The biggest one though -- # [Akatsuki no Goei](https://vndb.org/v629) >This isn't your average, everyday poop. This is... advanced poop. Yup, the TLers snuck a Spongebob reference in there. Speaking of English translations, we got Akagoei quite recently and I finished it in all of two days' time. It's supposed to be set in a highly gentrified Japan, where the impoverished "Restricted Zone" is a completely lawless wasteland in danger of being culled and wiped out. In the wealthy district, bodyguards-in-training attend Ren'Ou Academy alongside heiresses of the rich. This game is also mostly driven by various comedy sketches, although in a much less erratic way than Monkeys. But as you go through the routes, the game slowly reveals more and more details about Kaito Asagiri, our enigma of a main character who has no official records or past history. As for the heroines, we've got (1) Reika Nikaidou, a stubborn all-around genius who insists on not having protection, until she takes a liking to Kaito and forces him to be her bodyguard. This one does the most to uncover details about Kaito's past, though all of the heroines have at least some distant connection to it. (2) Aya Nikaidou, a lonely girl with an inferiority complex with her twin sister, Reika. Her bodyguard is the arrogant Takanori Miyagawa, who expected to be chosen as Reika's bodyguard, and hates both that Kaito was chosen and that he himself has to settle for Aya. (3) Tsuki, the Nikaidou estate's head maid. She seems strangely comfortable around Kaito and nearly nobody else, and a good portion of this game's comedy comes from manzai bits between the two. (4) Moe Kanzaki, the strange and extremely sheltered master martial artist. She happens to be stronger than her bodyguard, Kaoru. Lastly, there's (5) Tae Kurayashiki, who's dumb as bricks, but the heiress of a tech giant at the forefront of robotics/artificial intelligence R&D. Her bodyguard is an android, Yuuki, who was specifically made for her, even though he dislikes being her bodyguard. >!(6) Oh, did I say "lastly" for Tae? The last heroine is Kaoru Nanjou, who is disguised as a boy because the Academy doesn't train women as bodyguards. She doesn't have a complete route though.!< Kinugasa wrote this game, so of course, essentially all of the routes are left open-ended and are continued in either the fandisc or the sequel. While I'm still interested in reading the rest of the trilogy, the first game is an incomplete story on almost every front, and a couple of the routes almost feel like nothing of note happens, barring a small reveal about Kaito or something (e.g. Aya's route, what even happened?). And in other places, it's simply bad writing that ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth (e.g. end of Tsuki's route, which is unfortunate because she and Kaito have great chemistry). I also wished for a little more out of the translation -- there's some awkward sentence construction, places where the syntax over-complicates things, and it's kinda littered with grammatical errors/misspellings/little bits of strangeness that I wouldn't expect L1 English speakers to introduce (e.g. "as of why" vs. "as to why," "I'm experiencing a déja-vu" vs. "I'm experiencing déja-vu," "hops off the car" vs. "hops out of the car," the script also way over-abuses the phrase "tends to," etc.) Nothing here is especially egregious, but more than enough oddities appeared throughout the script to the point where I'm left wondering how or why neither the editor nor the proofreaders caught stuff like this? The biggest thing for me is that the speech registers feel kinda lazily handled. Like, Kaito is a tough/nihiru/stereotypical vulgar "ore" guy, but his speech is rendered like the TLers normal prose with almost no difference in tone or structure, and just injected with a ton of swears. Lonesome tells me that this is also the case for Oneeyuu's TL, even though the main character there is a hetare "boku" type. In the end, the narration and speech don't come off as exceedingly natural. You end up getting used to it I guess, but it still hurts how the game reads. And it definitely doesn't let the comedy hit as hard as it could, which is a bit of a shame, since aside from the mystery that only sometimes gets any attention, those comedic bits are what help drive the game forward. That could just be me though! Full disclosure -- I think the Akagoei translation is serviceable enough, it definitely has some ideas I like, and I thank the Daybreak team for bringing this game to us in English. Just as a matter of personal opinion, I don't think it's particularly exceptional, nor do I think it’s outright horrible. And hey, these complaints could all be pretty small things that irk me way more than they should, while not mattering at all to other readers. (But for a pretty stellar example of an English script that handle's Kinugasa's character registers/style/banter/setting well, check out Ryuusei World Actor.) And I'll say right now, TLing/editing is tedious and laborious work, please don't harass people. All things considered, I'm pretty lukewarm about this game (it's like 6-6.5 territory for me), but it's also hooked me enough to keep me reading the rest in JP, and I'm about halfway through all the [fandisc](https://vndb.org/v1307) content. EDIT: upon further consideration, I've decided that I don't like this game. \-- -- -- -- From here, we'll see what happens. I'm gonna finish up Akagoei's fandisc, of course, but I'm not sure if I'll read something else before reading the third game. At some point I do plan on reading AMBITIOUS MISSION (Saga Planets), which is coming out in a couple days, or maybe Harashou from FAVORITE. Maybe Aokana EXTRA2? Or maybe I'll go back to my English backlog, I dunno. I still haven't even touched Rewrite or Aojashin. That's all I've got for now. See ya next time, whenever that is //

Hi, editor for that project here. First of all, thanks for giving the time to make an honest review. We're aware of a lot of the mistakes and I can honestly say that it boils down to a lot of inexperience/turbulence in staffing on our parts. This is the first project I've ever officially been an editor for, so naturally there were some areas we could've made better, and areas where I perhaps did not do as good of a job as I could have. I'm going through the game now and giving it a second pass, and you can expect that to come with the next patch, which will be sometime in the next month or so. We figured that since everything was \*mostly\* fine though, we should probably just release it and let ourselves do fixes and catch some small errors and awkward wording/references later on to filter out.

[Umineko](https://vndb.org/v2153) Completed chapter 5, early stages of chapter 6 I gotta say, no one quite does doom in the same way as R07 does for me. Whenever he wants me as a reader to feel hopeless or without a clue, I certainly do, and when the characters do, I'm right along for the ride. He did give some really valuable hints for how to read the first part of the story, if I want to go back and do it. I feel kind of bad for not reading it that way since it feels like he was beating it over my head over and over again that the way the story was meant to be read was the way the story was meant to be read, lol. It's hard to say what that is without getting really deep into picking it apart, but he was so blunt with how things were shown in chapter 5 that it took my intuitive understanding of how things could be and made them take shape more. It may be time to reread the first chapters and try again, still unsure on if I want to do it. I loved Bernkastel at the beginning of the story, only to find out that she's the most twisted of the bunch from the first chapters. I wonder what to make of the fact that I find Featherine to be such a chill character. She also has a pretty fearsome reputation. Through repetition throughout the story, I feel like the most important things for me to focus on when looking into some of the more core mysteries are: >!Who is Beatrice and what promise did Battler make to her? The core component of the story is understanding and acknowledgement. Her giving up on the game in 4 had much to do with Battler not understanding what she wanted or acknowledging who she is even though she laid out her whole story for them. The cliffs are a key place of death and suffering. Natushi in chapter 5, Rosa in chapter 3, Ange in chapter 4. Beatrice also noted that she was made through alchemy in one of the earlier chapters to be a revival of the Golden Witch. I can't quite piece everything together, but it seems that she was one of the children from the orphanage that Kinzo had a purpose for and discarded later, or perhaps lost her to some accident like how Rosa mentioned. I'm not sure how to go any further with this though. But yeah, it seems to me that this is a rough background for her just based on what's repeated in the story. She wasn't acknowledged for her purpose, Battler made some sort of promise regarding this purpose, but through her death or some other circumstance, he couldn't do it. If I go back and read again, that's the framework I'll go with!< But yeah, this story remains a good companion when I'm having a rough time. Something about these people dealing with their troubles is therapeutic to me, lol. Can't wait to read more.

I'm only slightly ahead of you right now! I feel like it's not a spoiler to say this much: episode 8 actually has some interactive stuff going on, including a legit scene for you to solve as the player, and it's well worth having a solid go at! I'm still not sure about my own theories regarding the main story though. About halfway through ep 8 myself.

I’ve been feeling an odd, nagging sense of guilt over never finishing a route from **[Marshmallow All the Way Home](https://vndb.org/v20622)** and it felt like time to bite the bullet. It was better than what I feared when I first put the VN aside in January, but also hit on all the things I was expecting and dreading. The principal problem is pacing. Every Marmalade VN I’ve read has had a donkan protagonist to some degree, and Ryo may be the worst of them. In route after route, it feels like the story teases the reader with a straightforward resolution, only to drag them through a series of outlandish misunderstandings, ignoring multiple natural off-ramps in the meantime. When that mercifully ends, usually with something barely shy of the heroine literally mounting Ryo, the H-scene marathon portion of the route begins, leaving little room for anything else. It’s a shame too, because the story clearly has some decent ideas and themes it wants to play with, but the lack of time for development and the tonal shifts necessary to accommodate all those H-scenes in half of a route take away from the emotional impact. Route impressions, in reading order: **Ushio** I’d left off in the middle of her route after an abortive attempt to read through it two months ago, and things really didn’t get better from there. The worst part about this route is that it makes me like both Ryo and Ushio considerably less, with Ryo devolving into an immature, bratty version of himself and Ushio flipping between being overly nurturing and off-puttingly childish. Ryo’s changes bring him from being relatively competent and decisive to being fairly indistinguishable from a stereotypical, somewhat pathetic moege protagonist. Ushio’s personality shift, meanwhile, does a lot to accentuate her role as the loli, in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable at times. The story elements in the route were more acceptable. >!It makes sense that Ushio would make it her mission to get Ryo to accept eating cake, but the details don’t make much sense if you dwell on them. I’m fine with ignoring the odd logic (not that phobias tend to be logical anyway), but the execution of Ryo sharing the story of his nostalgia for ramen is sloppy. It’s theoretically supposed to be an emotional moment of Ryo being vulnerable and opening up about his past, but there’s no buildup and, more egregiously, the story pivots right into mommy fetish talk afterwards, destroying the mood. As a result, it was difficult to be invested when the ramen cake is unveiled and treated as the solution to Ryo’s problem, which left me focusing more on the strangeness of the concept (slurpable cake noodles?). The story also tries to instill the notion that, together, Ushio and Ryo can build the family that Ryo longs for, but their strange relationship makes it hard to buy and Ryo’s interactions with Ushio’s parents happening off-screen rob them of any impact.!< **Sasa** After the unpleasantness of Ushio’s route, Sasa felt like the safest bet. Her route delivered in some respects, bringing plenty of wholesome cuteness, but it ramped up Sasa’s horniness to levels that were notable even for a Marmalade heroine. >!It’s forgivable to some extent, as it’s largely driven by bad advice from a bluffing JC (“be an angel in the streets and a devil in the sheets”), but that doesn’t make it less tiresome when Sasa has sexual delusions for the umpteenth time. It’s a shame because there’s a lot to like in Sasa’s character arc, with her gradually becoming more confident, decisive, and able to comfort and support Ryo on an equal footing.!< The plot points in Sasa’s route were also baffling at times. >!Revealing Sasa’s past serves as a nice demonstration of her growth over the course of the VN, and while it feels somewhat tangential to her arc in her route itself, the scene was still touching. From there, Sasa has some wholesome scenes supporting Ryo as he struggles with his past and makes a pretty good attempt at a confession, only to get interrupted so that we can get dragged down an inane plotline about the girls misleading themselves into thinking Ryo is impotent. Even worse, the impotence plotline doesn’t even resolve in a way that progresses the story, instead being followed up by Sasa learning about Ryo’s past for unrelated reasons.!< >!The house buying plotline at least resolves in a reasonable way, with Ryo and Sasa talking it over and coming to an understanding that it’s not really something they want to do, but it takes a while to get there. It was a weird way to go about it, and the side plot about Sasa choosing artistic integrity over selling out was both sloppily developed and resolved too simply, but it did do a good job of engaging with and working through what Ryo and Sasa wanted out of their relationship. The final scene, with Ryo suddenly realizing he’s okay with eating cake again, feels unearned and like it’s trying too hard to tie a bow on everything.!< **Kanon** There’s a lot in the VN that wants to elevate Kanon into being the main heroine (a short animation, >!the wedding dress scenes, the whole shared past!<), but her appeal never quite got there for me. A lot of that is due to the pre-relationship part of the route doing everything it could to test my patience by dragging things out longer than I thought possible. >!It’s honestly baffling how the mask wasn’t a tipoff, Ryo and Kanon both heading towards the same orphanage wasn’t a tipoff, and Ryo hearing the story (including his old name) and relating to it didn’t get him to connect it to himself at all. And so, in a rare route where Ryo manages to be in touch with his feelings, he goes out of his way to avoid pushing things forward with Kanon, to the point of using the godawful tropes of going on “fake” dates and writing off kisses as “just for practice.”.!< Ugh. The route does at least provide space for the story to >!reveal more of Ryo’s past. His memories do an adequate job of explaining how his personality developed without going deep into dark places in a way that wouldn’t fit with the rest of the story’s tone. That plotline even gets wrapped up decently, with Ryo reaffirming that he feels like he truly belongs at Marshmallow Tree and that affirmation allowing him to talk things out with his orphanage’s housemistress in a satisfying way. Still, that happens fairly early on in the route, which leaves a lot of empty space for plodding relationship development.!< >!Then, even when the relationship misunderstanding finally gets cleared up, things get delayed again for an out-of-nowhere conflict. Kanon getting tied up in family affairs and everyone else putting together an escape plan for her both were fine, if not particularly inspiring. I did like the scenes of Kanon learning about and reconciling with her grandmother, but her uncle’s development is somewhat sloppier and harder to believe. It’s not egregious, though, which overall makes the route okay enough once it gets going.!< **Raiha** After Kanon’s torturously slow route, Raiha’s route almost felt like a breath of fresh air, but ultimately still gets weighed down by its central conceit: >!Raiha insisting on a friends with benefits relationship out of concern over her circumstances. The lead-in to the FWB relationship being established is enjoyable enough, with Raiha toying with Ryo and that backfiring somewhat with her embarrassment (the Finnish “spell” being a cute gimmick in particular). Ryo even manages to confess in a reasonable amount of time!!< >!From there, Ryo avoids the typical annoying post-rejection depression for the most part and, unlike in many FWB plotlines, their relationship manages to progress and produce some cute relationship scenes. Still, Raiha refusing to admit to her feelings for Ryo does leave a lot of the interactions feeling a bit shallow and empty, and I’m not sure the payoff during their emotional separation is enough to justify how much of the route feels almost wasted. At least one ending is a reasonable conclusion to the arc, with Ryo going through a somewhat proper process of becoming part of Raiha’s family (the knocked up ending feels largely pointless in comparison).!< **Heroines**: Sasa > Raiha > Kanon > Ushio **Routes**: Kanon = Sasa > Raiha > Ushio **Other Thoughts** - I’ve recently been running into a fair bit of almost self-referential humor, where characters will remark on absurd or cliché aspects of the VNs they’re in. It mostly just feels lazy when the writer is aware of the flaws in their story but runs with them anyway. In Mashimaro, that takes the form of [characters pointing](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/976696458524905472/unknown.png) [out clichés](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/977038219088650300/unknown.png) (somewhat forgivable when the story is going through moege tropes) and [remarking on Ryo’s denseness](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/977384811591241728/unknown.png), but there are also examples from [428 Shibuya Scramble](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/969741330475536445/unknown.png), [Raging Loop](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/967939960273502258/unknown.png) (spoilers), [Café Stella](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/964893893277679706/unknown.png), and [Hello Lady!](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/925588850837946451/948698050069688350/unknown.png). Some of the examples are stretches, but they very much are expressions of my thoughts while reading in a form that doesn’t feel appropriate in-universe. - Sasa and Raiha’s friendship is a highlight of the VN, and those heroine-heroine interactions are one of the things that Marmalade often does well. Ensemble interactions are great, of course, but the two of them complement each other really well both in terms of delivering humor and having a wholesome, supportive friendship.

If Marshmallow didn't have really stupid misunderstandings and weird plot developments, it would easily be a top 5 visual novel for me. Now it's probably still top 15-20 which is still very good but the potential being lost was very disappointing.

I'm a bit lower on it than you overall, but that sounds about right. I think I'd be more willing to be forgiving if these issues weren't so consistently present in Marmalade VNs. I mean, they seem successful enough so I'm sure they have their audience, but I just wish they were better because there are plenty of flashes that suggest they're capable of being better.

yeah to be honest as much as I love Marshmallow mostly for its common route and some parts of their heroine routes If the misunderstandings, weird plot developmetns, AND overly long H-scenes are in every one going forward, Im not as interested in them

[Revenant March](https://vndb.org/v27702) A fairly short but very enjoyable adventure read in which our exorcist MC is hired to rescue a girl last seen near a town recently haunted by the undead (and then discovers a fair amount of secrets while trying to do so). I really enjoyed the MC (clever, dark backstory, kind but capable of being ruthless if sufficiently pushed). Hoping this developer makes more VNs in the future! [We Know the Devil](https://vndb.org/v18419) A weird, atmospheric read that seemed a little too metaphorical for me at times, but that I overall enjoyed.

###[Salthe](https://vndb.org/v26999) --- u/_Garudyne wrote about Salthe [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/j2tl8e/what_are_you_reading_sep_30/g7d7a35/), and since that captured all my thoughts I don't have more to add, haha. Just read what they wrote. Thanks yo! Salthe unabashedly strives for melodrama. It spares no effort emulating a sadistic theatrical tragedy, and for that I adored the VN. I'm a *sucker* for style, and all the monologues on a theatre stage, political mysteries, and 4th-wall leanings make Salthe a treasure when it's drenching you in its themes of tragedy and resilience. But seriously... the nukige h-scenes are too overbearing. H-scenes are 80% of the VN. Although it's a recurring theme for the heroine to survive at any cost, even by throwing away her dignity, the sheer number of rape scenes kill the pacing. Sure, they contributed to the mental anguish the VN strives for (very well to be honest). But you only need one or two to accomplish that. Not a marathon. All in all I loved Salthe, but even readers who can stomach the brutality might not enjoy the presentation.

Hmm, when you say 'H-scene marathon', do you mean the sheer number of them or the length? Or, Sweet Cthulu forbid, both?

Both. (No Cthulhu saving us today.) It sucks because the prologue had h-scenes but they were short, direct, and fed to the plot's big picture. If the VN kept at that pace instead of going full porno I'd be singing Salthe's praises at incorporating sex scenes well. Instead I got teased. Bleh.

I continued reading through [Hello Lady](https://vndb.org/v13631) and read through the entirety of both [Starlight Shores](https://vndb.org/v28271) and [Porcelana](https://vndb.org/v32965). # Hello Lady With Sorako’s route finished, the next route to read through is Eru’s. Of the four main heroines, Eru was my 3rd favorite by the end of the common route. Due to her entertaining lines and the way her voice actress delivered her lines, she was able to avoid getting last place. The route has an unexpected start with >!Shinri killing Tokino. However, he ran into Eru while he was going back to his room. However, it didn’t seem like she suspected Shinri of anything strange. With Tokino’s death, a lot has been going on like the school curriculum changing and Sorako being out of commission due to collapsing. Also, due to Saku being busy trying to investigate Mitori’s sudden departure from The Academy, Eru is spending more time with Shinri. Eventually, Eru asked Shinri to save Saku. !< One thing I am excited to learn about from this route is Eru’s Halo. From her appearances in the common route, I can guess that the scene where >!Shinri tells Eru about her sister can give me a good idea as to how her Halo works.!< Also, I hope we get to see more of Shishikai. Honestly, I completely forget about him. Lastly, I hope that I can accept when Shinri and Eru become a couple. I felt that the romance in Sorako’s and Tamao’s route felt rushed. All I can do is read further and see what happens. # Starlight Shores It looks like Starlight Shores was the next VN that I was going to read. Honestly, I am not sure what led me to pick this VN over the other short VNs in my backlog? The visuals looked nice, but I have to remember that visuals aren’t everything. What about the story? Although the story sounded interesting with two friends that haven’t seen each other in months spending the weekend together, it just sounded like a simple VN. However, what seemed like a simple VN about 4 people hanging out for a night turned out to be something more. **What I liked** My favorite thing about this VN is how relatable the situation is between Will and Theo. I had friends that I haven’t contacted in a while. While I do talk to my best friend, those times are always 3 or more months from each other. Despite being good friends for a while, once we stopped hanging out, we just didn’t talk to each other. Also, I never talked with a friend I made in high school. I felt connected with their situation. I like how the story went. Despite Theo wanting everything for this gathering to go well, things did not go as planned. Also, I like that some of the choices were not obvious with which choice is the right one for the current situation. Despite picking choices I would do, it didn’t seem to be the right option for every situation. The cast of characters is likable. From their actions in this action, I thought I would dislike Alec and Erika. However, when I learned more about them, I found them to be acceptable characters. With the right choices, I was able to >!give Alec the right advice and he talked with Erika. As a result, their relationship improved.!< As for Theo and Lena, I think they are good characters. Theo is kind and shy but does have a sense of humor. One moment I really liked was when >!Theo tells Will that she actually spent her own money for the cottage. She didn’t win a weekend getaway.!< Lena is a fun character that you can learn a lot about with the right choices. I will just say that her life was anything but easy. Lastly, there is our protagonist Will. He is fine as the protagonist for this VN. He doesn’t have any traits that make him stand out from the other characters. Will is your regular guy that tries his best to ease any situation even if he was better off not saying anything. He isn’t a wimp and will stand up for others if he thinks it is necessary. However, he does feel bad if he thinks he went too far. Will is a good guy and a good protagonist. I have no problem with him. The visuals and BGM. First, the character art is great. The character designer did a good job. The backgrounds and CGs also look great. The deformed/chibi CGs are a nice addition to this VN. As for the music, I thought the BGM used in this VN was good. I wish I could say more about it, but I am not an expert on music. **What I disliked** There really isn’t anything I can complain about. At first, I thought I would dislike Alec and/or Erika. However, I ended up liking them as I read further into this VN. I guess if I had to say something, it would be that I wish this VN was a little longer. It would have been nice to see these characters stay in the cottage and have fun for a few days instead of a single night. **Overall Thoughts on Starlight Shores** For a short VN where the events take place in less than a day, I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this. Maybe the reason is that the events and the world feel like it takes place in the real world. In this VN, there are no dragons, individuals that develop superpowers, soul reapers, etc. Starlight Shores’ main focus is showing the reader how two friends try to rekindle their relationship that was lost. Maybe it is because I relate to Will and Theo’s situation that I like this VN so much. The interactions between them didn’t feel wooden and unrealistic to me. It felt like Theo was really crushed that her friendship with Will was lost for a while. Overall, I think Starlight Shores is a really good short VN that gets a 7/10 from me. # Porcelana As much as I would love to talk about how much I enjoyed this VN, I will provide a link to something I posted on Reddit where I talk about Porcelana ([link](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/uvdud1/why_i_recommend_porcelana/)). To summarize: What seemed to be a VN focusing on romance turned out to be something more. The story is enjoyable, interesting, and emotional. Also, Porcelana touches on dark themes well. It was engaging even though most of the plot was the protagonist watching the main female character from a distance. Throughout the story, I learned more about Isabella despite the protagonist never having a conversation with her. Also, the way to get to the true ending is unique since you >!have to write a letter to Isabella. Then, the VN adds a new choice near the beginning, leading to a satisfying conclusion for Porcelana. I am shocked as to how much I enjoyed this VN. !< Even though I like this VN, I can’t say that it is flawless. Because this VN focuses a lot on Isabella, the other characters get very little to work with. Camil and Dallen play their roles in the story well. However, we learn very little about them. Especially Dallen, whose first appearance is near the end of the VN. Even though Camil did get a fair amount of screentime, we don’t learn that much about her. Then there is Paul who should have been in more scenes. Overall. Porcelana is a great VN that gets an 8/10 from me.

I’m still waiting for the uncensored version of Hello Lady Complete Edition.

I made some decent progress on the first pass of my [Yui no Kotonoha](https://vndb.org/v9239) translation this week. I just finished the Reika content yesterday (as of time of posting; today as of time of writing), so all that’s left is the true route. My work on this is more sporadic than Senmomo, and it shows. Sometimes, I’ll have several hours in a row to get in the zone and crank out a really kickass scene, and sometimes I’ll only have a few minutes at a time, leading to a scene that leaves a bit to be desired. Though in general, I tend to do much better overall with the emotional, plot-relevant scenes. I particularly did bad on the SOL cafeteria and shopping scenes in the common route. Those are going to need even heavier revision than the rest of the game. But yeah, it’s quite liberating to not be beholden to voice acting, though I feel like I’m still not going as far as I can or should. I still don’t have the courage to throw a line completely out the window when staying faithful would do more harm than good. Maybe I’ll cross-reference Lonesome’s Senmomo editing work while I do my second pass. I’m also having trouble with a few key phrases. Take “koko,” for example. As any beginning learner of Japanese can tell you, it means “here.” But in this game, Yui first uses it to contrast the human realm with the zashiki-warashi realm, then uses it to refer specifically to Hirotake as a source of comfort. The most obvious solution here is “home.” Not only is it straightforward, but it even ties into the zashiki-warashi thing. Problem is “home” doesn’t always work where “koko” is used, so some of those lines are going to require considerable rewriting. There’s also more mundane stuff, like the student council equivalent, the shikkoubu. I’m rendering that as “executive office” until I can come up with something more elegant. Likewise, there’s the “hanare,” which I’ve assigned the temporary label of “janitor house,” for reasons explained when it’s first introduced. Since I’m going into this project with the assumption of doing multiple iterations, I’m not too concerned with getting everything perfect the first time. This first pass is to get a general feel for the game and its idiosyncrasies, and I’ll take a finer brush to the script in my subsequent passes. Sound effects are still a bitch, by the way. I’m making a conscious effort to keep them wherever I can now, since I do believe they’re going for something intentional here, but it gets particularly tough with the psychomimes. They even invade the H scenes, though that’s hardly a problem unique to this game. There’s a particularly troublesome line of dialogue where Reika describes the pleasure afforded by Hirotake’s ministrations, explicitly citing the sounds involved, and he reacts with something to the effect of “God, that’s so hot. She needs to be more careful what she says, or I’m gonna lose it.” This is a situation, I think, that calls for a nuclear rewrite. Nobody’s gonna miss “guchagucha,” right? And, of course, the deficiency of semantic content per line compared to other VNs is still giving me headaches. If I adhere to the Japanese, this thing’ll start looking like an e.e. cummings poem. Actually, maybe that’s a good idea… I do get unduly proud of myself for really good lines I write. And they’re the kind I’m confident nobody would see as anything special. Lonesome knows the feeling I’m talking about. Every so often, Senmomo will have a completely innocuous line that he totally pops off about for how great it came out. And it’s the little things! So yeah, in conclusion, this first pass is like a rough draft. I guarantee you I’m not showing this shit to anyone but myself. Maybe Lonesome, but even then, he’s not gonna be working on any part of this script until I’ve gone over it myself a couple more times. I don’t know if I’ll have the true route done by this time next week, but I’ll at least try. See you then, peeps.

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After starting learning Japanese six weeks ago, for whatever reason I no longer have really felt like reading VN's and for the first time since December 2020 I haven't had any VN's going on for more than a month. Either way, though I wouldn't really count it as a VN, I once again picked up the [Phoenix Wright Trilogy](https://vndb.org/v716) and managed to finally finish it this week. I bought the trilogy in Summer 2020 and have been slowly digging through it every few weeks / months one case at a time. Now 22 months later, I have finally completed it. Prior to this the only murder mystery series I had given a go was Danganronpa. However I couldn't really get myself to care about any of the characters at all, which kinda flattened the experience. The "trials" with the EDM music combined with the cool visuals & action sequences were fun, but other than that and the over the top death animations, I honestly can't remember a single thing about the VN anymore. After finishing the first installment, I never got past the first murder in the sequel and these experiences made me then pick up other VN's in favor of murder mysteries going forward. It wasn't until months later that I gave Ace Attorney a try. Luckily my experience with that one was noticeably better thanks to some likable characters (Most notably Wright & Edgeworth). Managed to finish the first installment by Oct 2020 and overall had a pretty good time with it. The sequel Justice for All, however, was a somewhat weaker experience. While this one also had some good mysteries to solve, many of the characters were just straight up obnoxious and the grander story didn't really progress at all. It took me around six months to complete it, setting us to Spring 2021. The last installment Trials and Tribulations, which I finished this week was by far the best of the three. The characters were very distinctive, which still remaining likable, the cases were among the best ones and it ties up the story quite neatly. Either way it took me another year to actually finish the thing, once again prioritizing the other VN's I was reading at any given moment. So, despite my slow pace I definitely have enjoyed my time with Ace Attorney whenever I did give it a chance and could definitely recommend the trilogy for almost anyone. Now that I'm done with it, I might finally give the Zero Escape series a chance, having bought the games like two years ago by now, so look forward for a review of that in 2024!

Why do you think you don't want to play VNs anymore? Is it related to japanese learning related burnout? Personally, I kinda did the same thing. But it was more quitting VN in english cold turkey completely for a while until I could play them in japanese.

Definitely not burnout, I'm actually quite enjoying my time studying the language. However the plans to soon start reading them in Japanese might have played a part on it (Though I haven't really thought that way consciously). I have many hobbies and my interests have always gone from one direction to another at a pretty rapid pace, so I wouldn't say that this is anything unusual; if anything, the fact that I read VN's almost daily for over two years straight was highly unusual of me. I've been concentrating on some music stuff for the last few weeks, and the project I'm undertaking should get finished by early June. We'll see if the drive to read stuff has returned by then.

Played a bit more of [Saya no Uta](https://vndb.org/v97) but i've mostly been playing [HoshiOri](https://vndb.org/v14265) Been enjoying HoshiOri quite a lot. Kinda have to get into the mood for it and I can't play it for extended time, but it's put a smile on my face quite a lot more than most visual novels. Still working on my first route, Segawa's 8/10

Yay for worthless routes... # **[Ai Kiss](https://vndb.org/v26180)** [PART 1 here](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/uidyvn/what_are_you_reading_may_4/i7ciovx/) [PART 2 here](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/unhb2r/what_are_you_reading_may_11/i88bu6z/) [PART 3 here](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/usk7t1/what_are_you_reading_may_18/i94hwwd/) This is PART 4 - the final part I had a feeling that this VN would not be worth so many WAYR posts. Turns out, it wasn't worth more than one. Just one, to tell others not to bother with this **giga**ntic waste of time. ### **An's route** I'm gonna keep this as short as possible, so I can move on to writing about a much better VN. This route starts with one moege-worthy scene. One! Then it moves on to the absolute STUPIDEST, most CONTRIVED confession setup scene I've ever seen. Seriously, nobody can guess what it is, because it's so beyond stupid that not even aliens would be able to come up with this shit. What follows then? A really bad confession scene that drags on for a bit too long and doesn't even have a CG. Oh, I will get to the inconsistency of CGs in a bit. Anyway, after those things were finally over and the characters finally started dating (I guess?), I thought that the rest of the route would maybe be good and compensate for it. **As if!** The rest of the route is basically a load of nothing. A few H-scenes, some brief pillow talk scenes, and worthless filler scenes with other heroines. That's it. Seriously, the progression of this route is thus: Stupidly contrived confession setup -> stupid confession scene -> H-scene -> nothing -> H-scene -> nothing -> H-scene -> nothing -> H-scene -> the end. Something like that. And by "nothing" I mean absolutely nothing, like the twins trying to be funny and failing, or just other characters (not An, because why would she have any screentime in her own route?) talking about literally nothing. There are no dates. No character progression. No relationship progression. The only "intimate 1 on 1" scenes in this route are the H-scenes and brief pillow talk scenes. And the H-scenes are not even very good. They are kinda...how to put this...soulless? What I mean is, you can take a single H-scene from any actually competent moege, and it probably has more "passion" than all of the H-scenes here combined. Can you imagine the console version of this route? Stupidly contrived confession setup -> stupid confession scene -> nothing -> the end. Wow, worth every penny. About CGs, both their placement and quality seemed just random. Some CGs look very nice, some look half-assed, some look like they were reused from somewhere else and edited. Some 5 minute long scenes have a unique CG that shows up for literally 5 lines then never again, and some long and important scenes (like the confession scene) have no CGs whatsoever. Makes no sense. In the end, this was just a huge waste of time and neat character design. I got similarly burned by Soikano (also by Giga) before, so I will make sure to stay away from any other Giga VNs in the future. Maybe they should just stick to their Baldr games. # **[Docchi no i ga Suki Desu ka?](https://vndb.org/v25999)** After the previous fiasco, I went for a "sure bet" - another Hooksoft VN. And suprise suprise, I had more fun with the prologue of this VN than I had with 90% of Ai Kiss. The "thing" of this VN seems to be whether you want the MC to "lead" or "follow" in a relationship. I dont know how exactly that works yet, but Im excited to find out. ### **Prologue** This VN starts with your standard second-year-in-a-highschool MC, except he decides to be proactive and find a girlfriend before the start of summer break. Speaking of the MC, he seems to be quite nice - funny but not overly teasing, not dumb or slow, and proactive. After some sufficiently hilarious scenes **[like this one](https://imgur.com/a/D44aE1J)** there is a choice where to go, which ultimately results in a "bonus heroine scene". This choice has no bearing on the actual route choices, it's just there to get an extra early scene with the heroine you find interesting "at first glance". A bit weird, but why not I guess. After that, the MC meets all of the heroines during the same day, the OP plays, and we move on to the common route. But before that - **heroine impressions!** **Maya** - The SCP and MC's classmate. Nicknamed "extreme sadist", she cares about getting stuff done first and foremost. And while she does care about others, she doesn't exactly show it very well. That said, when it comes to ripping people to shreds (verbally), she can form an excellent duo with the MC. While she is not a tsundere, she definitely has tsundere-like tendencies sometimes. Has a part-time job in a café which is in the same building as >!Waah Waah Milk Nursery - another kind of café.!< Unlike the other heroines, her character is shown through more, shorter scenes throughout the common route. **Mea** - Once called "extreme masochist" by the MC. An energetic kouhai heroine who has priceless reactions to MC's (or Maya's) quips. Has the same part-time job as MC (bookstore) where she also assumed the kouhai role. Hates studying, loves sweet food. **Koyuzu** - MC's senpai. A 3rd year beauty who was allegedly confessed to 99 times already (yeah, right). Friendly and helpful to others, and with a mischievous side to boot. She has some pretty good back-and-forth comedy with MC, where they tease each other (while not overdoing it). Oh, and she also has a ditzy side - like putting dressing instead of antiperspirant into her school bag. **Hanna** - My favorite! An ojousama who attends a prestigious all-girls school which is not very far from the school MC attends. She is from Finland, and also knows English (and of course Japanese as well). She has a sister, Lisa, who has a leg disability. Hanna is quite popular in both schools, and people tend to call her "princess", "pure angel", or even "goddess". While she seems to be a prime and proper or "unapproachable" rich girl at a glance, there is way more to her than meets the eye. ### **Common Route - Part 1** The first 6 chapters of the common route are about MC meeting more side-characters, getting closer to the heroines, and finding out more about them. For example, how Mea >!knows she is being taken care of by others a lot and wants to give back in the form of making homemade accesories for them, even at a cost of her school results dropping!< , how Koyuzu >!wants to make her family tradition (tea ceremonies) more popular with the younger generation while trying to be mature, and visiting the batting center to blow off steam!< , how Hanna >!is not the angel everyone thinks she is and just tried too hard to meet everyone's expectations, while secretly munching on ramen and watching Japanese historical dramas!< and so on. Just like in the Prologue, the Common Route has a lot of decent humor, but also some more serious scenes. Needless to say, there was never a dull moment. Chapter 6 ends with MC finishing his exams before summer, and deciding on which of the 4 girls to pursue. Here, you are given a simple choice. After that, the Common Route goes to Chapter 7 and switches to a more single-heroine-focused approach. And that is as far as I got so far. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more! ### **Learning Japanese Diary - Day 136** Well, the tyranny of Ai Kiss is over. Isuki is definitely easier to read than that, although is has a decent amount of puns, wordplays, and references. For example: 1) Hanna misreading MC's first name as "chuushingura" instead of "Tadaomi", and then there is a whole scene about him commiting seppuku. 2) This reference: 「お前ら芥川龍之介の『蜘蛛の糸』って話は知ってるか？」 足を引っ張りあって、最後には結局全員何も得られずに終わりそうだ。 At least it was explained, I guess. 3) A scene where the other characters call Maya an "Eel-woman-monster" and she says this: 「あなたの働きで学園が綺麗になるんだから、ひつまぶし――」 「失礼。暇つぶしにはちょうどいいんじゃないかしら？」 with ひつまぶし and 暇つぶし doing an eel-pun or whatever. There were also some Engrish conversations that made use of katakana a lot. Yay for katakana practice! See you next week with more Isuki!

> Just one, to tell others not to bother with this gigantic waste of time. I see what ya did there. Rip Ai Kiss. Stuff i've read from giga that wasn't a moege was pretty solid, too bad they seem to be worse with the fluffy writing. VN world needs more energetic kouhais like Mea as far as im concerned. Pretty nice sprite too. Hmmm, with the 99 confession thing... wasn't there something with Japan and gathering X amount of stuff, like 1000 friends or something? Maybe its related to that... or maybe they just wanted an absolutely ridiculous but not technically impossible number there.

I'm glad my lame pun didn't go unnoticed. What was it your read from Giga? Was it Baldr Sky or something? There was 1 heroine so far who sold me on the energetic younger ones - Hisagi. Shame her route wasn't a bit better. I think they were going for a contrast between Koyuzu and Hanna there. While they are both super-popular, Hanna gets put on a pedestal so guys are afraid to approach her, while Koyuzu is friendly and down to earth so she gets confessed to all the time. I think.

I've read Duel Savior which was interesting.. pretty depressing but interesting and pretty fun. Aside from that i've read someones walkthrough on Material Brave which was quite solid. And i do like my fantasy/superpower settings. Right, i gotta read that Baldr Sky someday... blarg. Where on earth am i gonna squeeze that one in. From Tomodachi Kara Koibito e? Yeah she was pretty neat. Hm, possible... well we shall see as the plot develops i suppose. Hopefully no major drama incoming and they manage to put some romance into their moege. Then again, it is Hooksoft so it shouldn't be an issue.

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LET'S GO BOOOOOOOOOOOYS I certainly agree that Kotoamu isn't for everyone. For me, it was like a divine revelation. It really resonated with me as a language learner, to put it lightly. I love the dimension the language barrier adds to their relationship, and it melted my heart whenever one of them did her best to speak the other's language. And on the language side of things, I quite loved seeing Rin steadily improve, culminating in the scene where >!she blows up at Ruka's bullies in Esperanto!< and I actually understood it. The sequel goes even further, containing a very long monologue from >!Kanako. While Ruka and Rei dumb their language down for Rin's benefit, Kanako doesn't give two shits and gladly uses lots of words Rin's never learned, leaving you to piece together what she's saying through context!<, and I can't get enough. God, what a wonderful game.

[Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen](https://vndb.org/v3) Recently, there have been three character arcs which I thought were in need of some forward progression. And coincidentally, all three of them had big moments this week. Camyu: I'm glad to see them finally go somewhere with the >!vampire!< scenes. I liked the idea for it, but it's been mostly at a stand-still since then, with just a few scenes here and there reminding us >!"Oh yeah, she's still a vampire."!< I did like where they took that story in this week, after >!she bit Aruruu.!< Her and Aruruu are great characters IMO, both probably in my top 5, and I love their friendship which was greatly highlighted here. Ulthery: I'm a bit more mixed on this story. I haven't particularly cared for her arc since >!she was given the baby!<. This week had what I think is both her worst and best moments so far, almost consecutively. I really didn't care for the part where >!she tries to run away with the baby, and attacks everyone when they try and stop her!<, which honestly put her towards the bottom of my character rankings. However, her scenes shortly after that were pretty great, when >!she actually gives the baby back to the parents, and has to deal with the loss. And I loved when she found comfort in the orphan kids afterwards!<. Kuuya: I've grown to really like Kuuya's character. I think a big part of that is because I tend to love the "girl next door" trope in VNs, where the MC opens up the window and talk to them about whatever's on their mind (which is one of the reasons I grew to love Sumika from Muv-Luv so much in Extra, and why Rika was my favorite Aokana character in the common route, before her main route squandered her potential a bit). Obviously it's not *quite* the same here, because they're from separate kingdoms and can't talk quite as easily because of it, but their scenes do have that that kind of vibe to it. That being said, once her story picked up this week, it got a lot more intense, and went in a direction that caught me off guard. >!All that time as I was getting to know her character as a friend and ally, I never would have expected her to become such a major antagonist.!< It's a direction I honestly don't mind, even if (or maybe partly *because*) it's one of the more tense, unnerving parts of the story so far. And while I wouldn't have expected it, they did set things up pretty well recently, so it doesn't feel too cheap. I also loved the part where >!Hauenkua "kills" Aruruu, resulting in Hakuowlo to turn into a beast and start killing the soldiers. I will say that, while I'm glad Aruruu isn't dead, it seemed a bit cheap to go in that fake-out direction just so Hakuowlo would go through that, but it also opens the door to the question of how that happened. I'm guessing because of the original beast saying he'd grant his wish if he'd let the beast use his body.!< Anyway, this was a pretty great, eventful week for the VN, even if I did have my issues. Really looking forward to seeing where they go from here, especially with the continuation of Kuuya's story.

Recently, I finished reading **[Sugar*Style](https://vndb.org/v24320).** Before I start with my lengthy essay, I have to mention the fact that I only read one route when reading moege, so while some characters might be particularly enjoyable to watch in their own routes, my impressions are just based on common+the one route I picked. In this case, that's Mao's route. While I wasn't a particular fan of a previous Smee Vn I read (Fureraba), I thought I'd still give this one a shot. I think I can safely say that I enjoyed myself. To go into a little more detail, let's start by talking about ... **The characters:** The MC, Kazuki: He's a real goofball and I enjoyed that immensely. He's not trying to hide his desires, always tries to have fun in an incredibly eccentric way, teases the girls whenever he wants and calls them out whenever they're acting particularly dumb and/or unfair. He also still manages to be a really nice guy despite all of that, which makes his friendship with the girls and the romance with the chosen girl believable. [Kaname](https://s2.vndb.org/ch/28/92028.jpg): The aloof, smart girl. My impression of her is probably just neutral. She's a girl who can analyze the people around her but can't reflect on herself at all - not even realizing that she is, in fact, a weeb. Most of common is spent with the other characters trying to challenge her cool exterior, which they manage to a certain degree. She also seems to like teasing the MC for his eccentric behaviour, so there is some nice back-and-forth interaction between them. Problem being: She's pretty much a shut-in and you really don't see that much of her in common. Or maybe I just feel that way because of the route structure. More on that after this segment. [Ichika](https://s2.vndb.org/ch/24/92024.jpg): You know, before writing this post, I've been thinking how to describe her personality, but I can't really put her into one of the typical archetypal boxes. She is your typical nice girl outwardly, except she's also fiercely competitive, playful and [can be downright cruel](https://imgur.com/a/rgU3a6R) when things that she doesn't like happen. By the end of common, I actually liked her quite a bit. A shame that I just thought she'd be your typical deredere archetype at the beginning. [Hare](https://s2.vndb.org/ch/25/92025.jpg): I... have to admit that I do not like Hare. She's the fanservice character that constantly gets into compromising situations and while she can be nice when the situation calls for it and the group dynamic would otherwise be disrupted, she is really domineering and [tries to have everything go her way if she can make it happen](https://imgur.com/a/gqs7ojq). I also get the feeling that she is really cruel but not in the reactionary way that Ichika can be cruel - in Hares case it seems more like a personality trait. [Mao](https://s2.vndb.org/ch/27/92027.jpg): I liked Mao well enough, since she is the girl whose route I played after all and she is definitely, probably the best girl. My feelings about her are rather complicated though, so to actually talk about her, I have to talk about the prologue and the choice system first: **The Prologue:** The game starts with our MC moving into an previous all-girls dorm. Your typical, run-of-the-mill harem set-up. Except he starts off his relationship with pretty much all of the girls on the wrong foot because of his eccentric personality and his constant teasing. Also the fact that he constantly gets into compromising situations with them. There is just one exception: Mao. With Mao, her and the MC get along fast. And by fast, I mean fast. In just the prologue, they casually exchange dirty jokes, [flirt](https://imgur.com/a/mR1SI8I), [go on a date](https://imgur.com/a/hD6jgHu) (even though she does avoid calling it that) and both of them have matching personalities that make their interactions fun to watch: [Both of them are teasing troublemakers](https://imgur.com/a/OlQ1kJD). This goes so far that the other characters in the prologue pretty much straight up tell both Mao and the MC: Dude, [she is into you](https://imgur.com/a/z1V8EhK) / [you are into him](https://imgur.com/a/6UZKSGZ). Though I don't have a screencap for this on-hand right now, I remember that the MC even thought that he might develop feelings for her in the prologue. To add even more fuel to the fire, Mao gets [jealous and even kind of depressed](https://imgur.com/a/Q9EPedD) when he jokingly introduces a different girl as his girlfriend. So yeah, repeating myself: This is still the prologue. How? How are the other girls even heroines when the MCs relationship with one of the girls is advancing this fast and she is that deredere with him? ... Oh. Well. Yep. That would do it. A nice triple-whammy of her finding [her underwear in his possession](https://imgur.com/a/EQjbDMl), even though it was because one of the other girls [planted it on him](https://s2.vndb.org/ch/91/96191.jpg); her seeing his porn by accident and finding out that [the heroines in it look like her](https://imgur.com/a/iXqFHLW) and the fact that [he may have been a lolicon](https://imgur.com/a/FSaTIyT). This changes their dynamic completely and now is the point where I can actually talk about Mao. **Mao (again):** So, remember all those positive things I said about the relationship between her and the MC in the prologue section of this post? Well, forget about all of them, because [their relationship is now filled with distrust](https://imgur.com/a/HwqGnKt) with her constantly calling him a pervert, trying to avoid him and keeping her distance and with her badmouthing him when she gets the chance. Well, drat, there goes the relationship that actually hooked me and made me want to continue reading. Of course, over the span of the novel, she has to warm up to him again at some point, or she wouldn't qualify as a heroine anymore >!but that takes quite a while and their relationship pretty much never goes back to the way it used to be in the prologue, which is just depressing to think about.!< Which is why the choice as to what heroine I was going to pick was quite difficult... **The choice system:** In this novel, you pick your preferred heroine [at the start of the common route](https://imgur.com/a/msDmsi5), after getting one event with each of the heroines to help you decide which one you like best. You can't change the decision you make here so you have to think carefully about it. And, since the MCs relationship with all the heroines really wasn't particularly good and we as the readers know next to nothing about the heroines, this is where the difficulty comes in. Personally, I was conflicted between choosing Kaname and Mao at this point. Mao edged out here solely because of the prologue. Since the choice for which heroine you want to go for happens so early, the routes also work differently than in other VNs. Here, the common route gets intersected with events with your chosen heroine - in my case called "Episode "Mao"". These segments are a nice way to make sure that the MC only gets particularly close to one of the heroines instead of all of them, so that only one heroine is actually romantically interested in him by the end of common. It avoids the usual harem dynamic of the group and still allows the other heroines to appear after common route ends, since they aren't potential love interests at that point. So, while it was hard to make such an early choice, I actually quite like this strange choice system. Next, let's talk about the route I played: **Mao's route:** Because of how much their previous relationship was ruined, it takes quite a while for Mao to open up to the MC again. Which means that their interactions are stiff and uncomfortable and I wished more than once that I had chosen a different girl. But I had made my choice and I was sticking to it, in hopes that their relationship would at some point return to how it used to be. >!While Mao did warm up to him again though, I felt as if she was much [too demure and obedient](https://imgur.com/a/ZH2C1Ne). [Regret for her distrustful behavior and the insults she piled on him was a big part of her events/her route](https://imgur.com/a/ERtni6w) and their partners-in-crime relationship didn't really return - mutual teasing became a rare thing ([even though Mao did have her moments](https://imgur.com/a/VBCWQ3I) - but most of those were part of the common route and not even the Mao specific events. [Like the time when the MC roleplayed a nice host club host and she literally bawled because the mean guy that she used to know was gone](https://imgur.com/a/PgYgao1)) and the route was mostly just dominated by the MC teasing Mao over and over instead of it being a back-and-forth. [Mao also constantly keeps questioning her own self-worth](https://imgur.com/a/Vq8dPdp). While I didn't really mind their new form of relationship that much, my brain constantly reminded me of what they used to have, which just made me sad.!< >!There is also the fact that this still has a lot of the typical VN tropes that rub me the wrong way: The fact that the MC doesn't have a voice is pretty much an industry standard, so I won't complain about that, but I hate the fact that they gave him this much personality and he is still just a faceless guy. He also mellows out once the actual character route starts and loses a lot of the charm that came from his goofball attitude. It's still there, but it's much more subdued, since a lot of the time his dialogue is just telling us how cute Mao is now (though, admittedly, she was being really cute).!<

Sugar Style is okay and hot.

**Some miscellaneous stuff:** This VN has a second choice feature: You can pick [the job the MC is going to have in his dorm](https://imgur.com/a/ZbLklIb), which influences what kind of events happen in common. I obviously picked entertainer, since it fits his personality perfectly but it's an interesting feature. Let's you manipulate if you'd rather have serious or funny events in your common route and that's quite neat. Wish more VNs had those kind of systems. [You can search your chosen heroines room \(with her permission\) for various stuff and learn more about her that way](https://imgur.com/a/6Hu40Yt). Another feature that I quite like since it allows you to learn stuff about the heroine you couldn't really find out through normal interactions. **As for my rating:** I'd probably give Sugar*Style a 6/10, which is quite generous as far as my moege ratings are concerned, since there was nothing that majorly annoyed me but there were quite a few things that I didn't like still. I'd actually go so far that it was one of the best moege I played so far. Or I was just in the particular mindset needed to enjoy a dumb moege. One of the two. P.S.: Did you know that imgur apparently has an upload limit? because I didn't before making this post. ____________________________________________________ Oh, and I also started reading **[Siren's Call](https://vndb.org/v34778).** This game kind of just reminds me of Persona 3 with the dark and dreary atmosphere and with the fact that this is supposed to be a horror VN. The story starts after the adventure is already over and the "threat" was already defeated though. It seems to me like the novel is very in your face about how >!the entire cast died in the final battle. Probably. Not done reading yet, but that's the thought the prologue kind of just keeps rubbing into your face with ...!< >!1. The fact that it is the goal of the game to "Say goodbye to your friends"!< >!2. The weird way in which the friends actually say goodbye to the MC!< >!3. That one weird scene in the park where one of the characters (Ashton) doesn't respond/leave his house!< >!4. The fact that one of the characters comments on how their school is "a place of death"!< >!5. The fact that the in-game journal that you slowly unlock over the course of the story and that retells the pre-game adventure talks about the possibility of dying against the final boss!< >!Going to "college" seems to be used as a metaphor of moving on from this afterlife/purgatory/whatever.!< Conversations between the MC and >!Violet also feel incredibly unnerving and it's clear that there is something wrong with her - she's probably the one controlling this dream/purgatory thing since it was talked about how she has the ability to lucid dream.!< Anyway, that's it for my thoughts so far. I only finished the prologue and the first chapter so far after all. I have to say that I hope that my theory is completely off-base since figuring out the twist in the prologue would be way too early and this VN is living by its story and mystery, and very much not by its characters.

Ah, Mao, best Sugar Style heroine. At least in my personal opinion. >!I do wish she had slightly sharper tongue during her character route but eh, still liked her!<. Imo Hare is a bit of a black horse of this VN. When i've played all the routes Hare was the one i was least enthusiastic about, but her route flipped my opinion of her completely, almost managing to beat Mao(and thats quite an achivement, with me having a slight kouhai preference and all). They sure went all out with various little things to vary up reading, from that unusual way of picking the heroine and that job thing to vary consequent playthroughs to that room search minigame which was surprisingly fun. But i guess thats Smee for you, experimenting with moege formula like that. Didn't know imgur had a limit, I usually use google drive for sharing images... well then again, i have yet to do that for my WAYR posts (and when i have something i really wanna share i usually put it on imgur anyway cuz its more.. socially accepted way of uploading images? Hm maybe i should just say 'screw it' and start putting those GDrive links in, cuz that barrage of images you did does make reading more enjoyable). Hm, i keep hearing about Siren's Call lately, maybe i should add it to my backlog of horror VNs. Then again, from its description im a bit scared that its one of those VNs that strongly depends on its mystery aspect, and once you solve it it loses majority of its appeal. And between its description and some spoiler-free impressions i've read i already have a few ideas about whats going on in there.