Community The Visual Novel Council | All Choices Lead To Here

[Kvik]

But yikes at that price

$60 AUD for a digital book... the same price as a volume of Berserk Deluxe which is almost 700 pages long, in hardcover.

I still need to play the Muv-Luv games. It feels like they're never on sale

They go on sale pretty often I think, but seldom hitting their historical low. Just bookmark the bundle and observe during Golden Week Sale.

Muv-Luv MEGAVERSE on Steam

store.steampowered.com

 

[beep boop]

I still need to play the Muv-Luv games. It feels like they're never on sale

They sat out that recent VN sale too. Bummer. I wanted to pick the games up on Vita but they’ve only been on sale once since release and over a year ago.

 

[ZKenir]

 

[ZKenir]

 

[ExistentialThought]

Lowkey excited for this, especially since it is a good price for the length!

Steam page is live:

Also, Seabed is getting a limited physical release at SeaBed

 

[Exzyleph]

I'm genuinely looking forward to Making*Lovers.
There aren't too many rom-coms with a non-highschool setting in English, so it is always nice when more get translated.

Also, a bit off-topic, but hat-tip to NN for actually listing the base price in their announcement.
Way too many publishers stay tight-lipped until the VNs are actually out.

 

[ZKenir]

 

[ExistentialThought]

Free games from Fruitbat Factory on Itch.io

 

[Ascheroth]

Free games from Fruitbat Factory on Itch.io

Oh nice. That includes both ENIGMA and Seabed, which are the next 2 book club VNs!
I've also put the link to the Book Club in the OP Exzyleph

 

[Exzyleph]

Adabana is still blocked in Europe, which is bloody annoying.
I've gone ahead and written an email to Aniplex USA, asking about it, but chances are that I'll get no answer or a "no comment" answer.

Oh nice. That includes both ENIGMA and Seabed, which are the next 2 book club VNs!
I've also put the link to the Book Club in the OP Exzyleph

Thanks

 

[ZKenir]

Adabana is still blocked in Europe, which is bloody annoying.
I've gone ahead and written an email to Aniplex USA, asking about it, but chances are that I'll get no answer or a "no comment" answer.

Aniplex is shit and they don't care, they never reply and it drives me mad that this game is blocked in EU for whatever asinine reason

 

[ZKenir]

 

[Exzyleph]

Nice to see Frontwing releasing something other than Phantom Trigger for once. The Steam page is here:

 

[Exzyleph]

I did some spring cleaning and found a bunch of Steam keys that I never activated, so here's a small give-away.
Send me a PM if you want something:

EDIT: Ended.

 

[Gevin]

How is fault;milestone? I already have them but never touched them and thinking of starting a VN soonish

 

[Knurek]

How is fault;milestone? I already have them but never touched them and thinking of starting a VN soonish

Unfinished.

 

[Gevin]

Unfinished.

 

[ZKenir]

The news of Colopl’s acquisition of Mages comes only eight months after Mages broke off from former parent company Kadokawa Group to become independent.

 

[Ascheroth]

We have a thread that goes into details here: News - MAGES (Steins;Gate devs) acquired by Colopl after 8 months of independence.

 

[ZKenir]

 

[ExistentialThought]

APRIL FOOLS ALERT

Visual novel for Azur Lane, though I would play it.

END OF APRIL FOOLS ALERT

 

[Kvik]

Nobody posted this yesterday, but here it is.

JAST USA – Press Kits

Warning: loud music.

(thanks to Jazz)

 

[skLaFarebear]

Finished the second route (nanoha route) in Baldr Sky. The game continues to be great and the Nanoha route had some pretty great moments towards the end there. It's clear that whoever did the writing clearly did their research into AI, nanomachines, etc. and continues to spend a lot of time carefully crafting the laws within their world. I definitely admire the great attention to detail and the mysteries continue to be interesting to unravel.

I'd say while I'm definitely enjoying the game, I'm not quite in love with it at the moment. Not much has really happened between the two routes, with it mostly being world building and set up for plot lines that are probably going to be elaborated on in future routes. It's good stuff and has definitely enraptured me to keep reading, but I haven't seen anything yet that's truly hooked me.

I'm also not the biggest Kou fan, which isn't to say I dislike him, but so far I'm liking everyone around him moreso, especially his dad, Aki, Sora, Noi, Chinatsu, and especially Rain. I sympathize with his struggles, but at the moment there really isn't that much to explore with his character as we've been slowly getting drip fed more about him through the flashbacks. It's still pretty early on though, so I wouldn't call this a big problem or anything.

I need to spend more time in the lab because it feels like I'm struggling to find out what are some good combos to build. I got dash cancelling/floor bouncing combos down, but it feels like I'm just missing something since my damage seems to just be "ok" while some bosses are doing more than a full bar of health to me on hard lol. Maybe it's the really slow rollout of new skills to develop, since the game never really makes it clear on how to unlock more. I've just been messing around with my kit leveling new skills, to see if that would unlock more of them.

Either way, on to the Chinatsu route. I am looking forward to playing more since I hear this route and especially all of Dive2 are a notable step up over the first 2 routes of Dive1, which I thought were already pretty good.

 

[sprinkles]

I must get back to Baldr Sky one of these days. I only finished the Rain route, and while I liked the setting, the frequent action parts really dragged the whole experience down for me.

 

[skLaFarebear]

I must get back to Baldr Sky one of these days. I only finished the Rain route, and while I liked the setting, the frequent action parts really dragged the whole experience down for me.

The combat is quite good imo, so I don't mind it. There's some real fun boss fights towards the end of the Nanoha route too. It feels a bit stiff at first in the Rain route, but once you get dash cancelling and more surge dash meters to work with, the flow feels a lot better.

 

[Exzyleph]

Making*Lovers is out now for $30 with a 10% launch discount:

There's also a free patch for the Steam version on the NekoNyan store, for those who want that.


And if you haven't seen it already, then this month's book club thread is up:

Community - Visual Novel Book Club - Seabed

Welcome to the 8th MetaCouncil visual novel book club! For this book club we will be reading Seabed, a yuri mystery story told from three perspectives: That of a designer plagued by hallucinations of her past lover; that of a psychiatrist researching the workings of human memories; and that of...

metacouncil.com

Seabed was one of the titles that Fruitbat Factory gave away a few days ago, so chances are that you already own it.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Got some movement on Chapter 8 of Higurashi

Matsuribayashi: Out of beta!

Project Status

Last updated: September 27th, 2024 DEAD DAYSComing soon to MangaGamer! Pre-order now! Rance X – ShowdownTranslation: 100% – Editing: 5% The Pillagers of RailloreBeta testing complete! Eve of …

blog.mangagamer.org

 

[DeejayDoom]

 

[Saty]

Anyone want a 75% off coupon for this game? It's VR only.

 

[skLaFarebear]

Chinatsu route very good.

 

[Exzyleph]

Yumeutsutsu Re:Master and the after-story, Re:After, are being released in English April 23rd on PC and Switch:

Yumeutsutsu Re:Master and Re:After launch April 23 in the west for Switch and PC, later for PS4 and PS Vita

Yumeutsutsu Re:Master and sequel Yumeutsutsu Re:After will launch for Switch via the Nintendo eShop and PC via Steam on April 23 in the west for $64.99 and $49.99, respectively, publisher Degica Ga…

www.gematsu.com

RE:Master is already on Steam, but currently only in Japanese:

It is also pretty pricey, but perhaps that'll change with the English release.

 

[uraizen]

FINALLY!

 

[ZKenir]

Sekai Project: (NSFW warning if you open the link)

We are excited to announce that Kimagure Temptation by the developer Silky’s Plus ( @silkysplus ) will soon be getting English and Chinese releases!

 

[Exzyleph]

Sekai Project: (NSFW warning if you open the link)

We are excited to announce that Kimagure Temptation by the developer Silky’s Plus ( @silkysplus ) will soon be getting English and Chinese releases!

This has some connection to Nanairo Reincarnation, which immediately got me a whole lot more interested. Despite its flaws, its true route made Nanairo one of my absolute favorite reads last year.

 

[ZKenir]

They also announced a Physical USB copy of Maggot Baits, news on their twitter I'm not linking directly for obvious reasons.

 

[Exzyleph]

They also announced a Physical USB copy of Maggot Baits, news on their twitter I'm not linking directly for obvious reasons.

I looked around a bit, got bored, and then looked up what other people had found to finish the list.
Spoilered for those who want to do the treasure hunt on their own:

Spoiler

• Beat Blades Haruka: MOONLIT NINJAS
• Eroge!: DIRTY FLOWERS
• Euphoria: KEY CONTESTANT
• Kindred Spirits on the Roof: GHOSTSOF YURITOPIA
• Koihime Musou: YELLOW TURBANS
• No, Thank you!!!: COCKTAIL MYSTERYHOUR
• Otoboku: SECRET GARDEN

The Maggot Bait USB is a also pretty interesting move by MangaGamer; one one hand it feels kinda odd, when you are used to discs, but in hindsight it seems obvious that they would have to move to a different medium eventually, considering how many PCs are sold without CD/DVD drives these days. It'll be interesting to see when other publishers start doing the same thing.

 

[skLaFarebear]

Finished the Chinatsu route in Baldr Sky thus also finishing Baldr Sky 1. The Chinatsu route was definitely the best of the three in terms of integrating more of the side characters into the larger narrative (instead of just Kou + heroine w/ everyone else along for the ride), as well as setting up a lot of new concepts and questions that will probably be answered in Baldr Sky 2, while telling a pretty good story on it's own. The ending of 1 had that really bittersweet feeling of "you lost a lot in the process to ultimately solve the big problem, but there's still a ton of mysteries left to solve."

Kou as a main character was arguably at his best here of the three routes, where he showed that he's not quite the perfect MC merc who even while handicapped with amnesia can solve all the problems. The chinatsu route showed that even he can make big mistakes that lead to major consequences, but has enough sense to know when he's made the wrong decisions and how to walk back on them to do the right thing. It's something that was sorely lacking from the first two routes as he seemed to always be in the right situation as the right time and problems seemed to conveniently work out well for him, so it was nice to see how he'd struggle to cope when things were too much for even him to handle.

Speaking of "surprisingly well done," the h-scenes in the Chinatsu route were actually some of the best written content for her character development. To go into why would be spoilers, but it played really well into the situation revolving around her character and gave us a depressing, but important look into her state of mind. Compared to the other routes where it felt like the sex scenes were there just because it's VN and we gotta have sex with the heroine, it was actually really well handled here and I was surprised that I was actually engaged while reading them. It's one of the better examples of "sex scenes that develop with the narrative" that I can think of, instead of being there just for the hell of it.

Gameplay wise, I startedto get a better grasp of the combo system by the third route and was able to better understand how to develop new skills that led to some really fun combos. I was actually doing good damage too, which is nice because this route more than any other definitely ramped up the intensity between the new enemy types and some of the (amazing) late game bosses you fight who's combos can tear you apart. It definitely pushed me to be more flexible in my approach and not always just go for "big combo" since you can get blown up pretty easily.

Anyway, I clocked in about 66 hours for Baldr Sky 1 and am looking forward to diving in with 2. The new OP is super good and the new title screen is very melancholy, probably as this game is about to get much heavier considering some of the themes that have been hinted at since the first game are going to finally be tackled.

Edit: Oh, and I should mention that the game has an incredible localization, which is a feat considering all the complex terminology/themes that game can tackle in the character banter. I've only seen like two minor typos and all the dialogue flows extremely well and never feels awkward, while as far as I can tell, stays true to the JP script. Steiner did incredible work with bringing the script to english speakers and I'm sure he'll continue doing a superb job with Rewrite+.

 

[ZKenir]

 

[Ascheroth]

Lol.

Bofuri is great, y'all should watch it.

 

[Exzyleph]

The first English Frontwing VN in a while is releasing on the 29th (VNDB):

 

[Knurek]

The first English Frontwing VN in a while is releasing on the 29th (VNDB):

Still waiting for my Sharin no Kuni code, you fucks.

 

[ZKenir]

A new Half-Life game came out before Sharin no kuni loc was done...

 

[Ex-User (119)]

i thikn this fits here and also i think fiarly unique


every story element is visual novel and then turns into a 3d rpg game for combat and stuff.

 

[「Echo」]

Wanna feel old with me?

12-years ago, April 21st. Tsukihime remake was announced.

... we still don't have it.

 

[Kvik]

I'm sure they'll get on it sooner or later in between swimming in/counting the proceeds from FGO.

Btw, whatever happened to that new Type-Moon studio? I thought they would already announce a project or two by now.

 

[「Echo」]

I'm sure they'll get on it sooner or later in between swimming in/counting the proceeds from FGO.

Btw, whatever happened to that new Type-Moon studio? I thought they would already announce a project or two by now.

HA! Type-Moon is Japan's Valve. Prepare yourself for Type-Moon time.

Also on a much more serious note, COVID is shutting down everything in Japan. TM studios included. FGO is a massive money behemoth but they just minutes ago announced event delays and no more updates for April as they switch to WFH.

The new studio you're talking about is still in planning/hiring phase last I knew though. Most likely that's on hold too.

 

[ZKenir]

 

[Exzyleph]

This looks nice, but the Steam reviews are pretty down on it.

 

[Kvik]

Now in English.



Still too expensive in my region, especially during the weaker Aussie dollars in recent months.

 

[Exzyleph]

Now in English.



Still too expensive in my region, especially during the weaker Aussie dollars in recent months.

Ooof.
I was hoping that Re:Master would get a price reduction along with the English release.
This is definitely too expensive for an impulse purchase

It's also kind of odd that neither of these has a launch discount