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Visual Novels Community Thread | A Little Something for Everyone

Hopefully PQube actually gets it out in NA this time.

I asked in the S:G thread and got no replies, what's a good place to import the Euro Steins;Gate PS3 from?
 
We've been asking that question for a long time.

kBv4Yiq.png

I believe Steiner posted the intended translation for this and all the other Engrish taglines for Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes. Still have no idea how they somehow translated delusion into noids though.

Seeing as how PQube left Steins;Gate's Engrish tagline alone, can probably expect Chaos;Head's to stay untouched as well.
 

jonjonaug

Member
Hopefully PQube actually gets it out in NA this time.

I asked in the S:G thread and got no replies, what's a good place to import the Euro Steins;Gate PS3 from?

Amazon.uk should have it and ship overseas. I'd recommend getting the PC version though. From what I've heard the console editions have wordwrap issues.
 
Alright, both tea parties of Umineko ep 7 complete.

I thought I was supposed to understand what happened in the first 4 games by now. I definitely have no clue still.
Don't tell me Will's cutting the mysteries with those vague throwaway lines was supposed to reveal everything.
 

Sakura

Member

Can you romance Yui in it? I know she is one of the characters featured, but if it's just a VN form of the Yui x Blue haired guy (with you helping them), then I kind of have no interest.

Also I'm not sure how I feel about their method of selling this. 7500 yen (without tax) for just 3 routes? And then what, 2nd beat is three more routes for another 7500 yen or something when it finally comes out?
 

StayDead

Member
I ordered a copy of Chaos;Child for the vita today. I didn't even realise it was out this month and completely forgot to preorder it.

I really don't have the money or time to spare, but I really want to support Nitroplus/Mages/5pb and I've not played a collab game between them that's been bad. I have to ask though. Steins;Gate 0 went up for preorder today on amiami. Is there any news on a limited edition yet?
 

jonjonaug

Member
Alright, both tea parties of Umineko ep 7 complete.

I thought I was supposed to understand what happened in the first 4 games by now. I definitely have no clue still.
Don't tell me Will's cutting the mysteries with those vague throwaway lines was supposed to reveal everything.

Episodes 6-8 are put together in such a way that they're the "solution" of the story, but a good deal of it is written to be difficult to intrerpret unless you already had a good idea of what was going on.

Episode 6 was the solution for "who did it and why" and episode 7 is "how" plus backstory. Episode 8 is the epilogue and has a little bit more info on things.
 

JulianImp

Member
Alright, both tea parties of Umineko ep 7 complete.

I thought I was supposed to understand what happened in the first 4 games by now. I definitely have no clue still.
Don't tell me Will's cutting the mysteries with those vague throwaway lines was supposed to reveal everything.

Ep 7 spoilers ahead:
  • When Will says "Dirt to dirt", it means people actually died, and/or that the event was real
  • "Illusions to illusions" means the event was fantasy, a fake
  • Fantasy and reality could be mixed in the same crime

With that, from what I can remember (ridiculously heavy spoilers up to Ep7, I think):
Note: Remember, once you see this theory you won't be able to "unlearn" it.
Set-up:
  • Yasu is Kinzo's son/daughter and grandson/granddaughter (from Beatrice II, daughter of Beatrice Castiglioni), and after being led to finding out the truth about the epitaph is made into the Ushiromiya family head. That means that Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo become her allies
  • Because Yasu solved the epitaph, s/he has a whole lot of money. Ange learned the families of those three had received a lot of money a little while after the Rokkenjima explosion incident, so it's possible to link that with another reason behind why they'd help Yasu
  • Eps 6 and 7 make it kind of obvious that Yasu is Shannon, who is Kanon, who is Beatrice. That means we have sixteen "humans" in Rokkenjima at the beginning of each game, which equals the number of pieces in a chess board at the start of a game
  • The military base apparently had lots of explosives, which Yasu tested on the shrine that was blown to bits (the real story is covered up, and turned into more of a supernatural story). This test was carried out to see if the explosives still worked after so long of being unused, which was required for Yasu to know if the bombs underneath the Ushiromiya house that Kinzo had linked to a clock would still detonate
  • Why would Yasu want to nuke everything? To him/her, the unknown is where infinite possibilites exist (aka magic), so if she blew the island up with everybody in it, that could lead to a magical land where all three of her personas could be happy (Shannon with George, Kanon with Jessica, and Beato with Battler... even though the latter didn't work out in the end)
  • Maria is friends with Beatrice, and was the one who actually taught Beatrice about magic circles and all that. Beatrice then uses the same seals in crime scenes because they're some kind of inside reference that Maria could use to assure herself that the crimes were the work of Beatrice

Ep 1:
  • First twilight:
    Kanon and Genji kill five Ushiromiya adults, and buy Hideyoshi and Eva's cooperation with the gold in advance (hence their talk about going on a vacation after the family conference was done). That leads to them lying about Shannon's corpse being in the shed (impossible, since Kanon is Shannon)
  • Second twilight:
    Eva, who somehow didn't get the murders were actually real, keeps pushing Battler to find out the truth and spews it out (only readers are conditioned to not believe a character's theory so early on). That prompts Kanon and Genji to kill her and Hideyoshi. A perfectly simple explanation of the murder would be that Kanon actually broke the chain lock and carried out the murders, but then made up the excuse of the chain being in place until after the murders, since the only witnesses would be him and Genji (an accomplice)
  • Fourth twilight (I think?):
    Kanon goes into the boiler room and argues with his Beatrice persona, loses and then Beatrice carries out the next part of her plan by pretending to be dead (hint: Battler never sees the stake driven through his chest, which means that might not have even happened). His corpse is left alone pretty quickly because the group find Kinzo's, and they don't linger in the boiler room for too long or even lock it up
  • After this, it means both Kanon and Shanon's personas are "dead" for Yasu, so only Beatrice remains, and Yasu's "corpse" is left in an unlocked room, which means he/she can move around the whole place at will. Then, the rest of the twilights can be carried out pretty easily (except for how someone allied to Beatrice had to place her letter inside Kinzo's study in order to sow paranoia among them), and can be explained by Beatrice walking unimpeded through the house, killing whoever she wanted
  • Tenth and final twilight:
    The bomb goes off. Everybody dies

I won't keep writing about the other games because they aren't as fresh in my head as the first one, and I'd rather not write an even longer wall of text without being sure about the facts I'd be stating.
 
Episodes 6-8 are put together in such a way that they're the "solution" of the story, but a good deal of it is written to be difficult to intrerpret unless you already had a good idea of what was going on.

Episode 6 was the solution for "who did it and why" and episode 7 is "how" plus backstory. Episode 8 is the epilogue and has a little bit more info on things.

Seriously? All I got from ep 6 was
the culprit is either Erika, who doesn't exist on the island with only 17 people, or Battler, which contradicts pretty much every other game including the following one.

And ep 7 was super informative about Beatrice, but it never outright gave an answer, even if the way I'm interpreting it points at
Kanon.
I definitely saw no "how" in there unless the tea party is canon.

Will ep 8 clarify things or am I going to have to look it up when I finish?
 

JulianImp

Member
Seriously? All I got from ep 6 was
the culprit is either Erika, who doesn't exist on the island with only 17 people, or Battler, which contradicts pretty much every other game including the following one.

And ep 7 was super informative about Beatrice, but it never outright gave an answer, even if the way I'm interpreting it points at
Kanon.
I definitely saw no "how" in there unless the tea party is canon.

Will ep 8 clarify things or am I going to have to look it up when I finish?

The game has already given you all the hints. Just like Ange said while talking with
Featherine
, the moment when the detective (author) says "Great, now I have all the clues" in a mystery novel is the moment when the readers should know that all the information required to reveal the truth is in their grasp. After that, all that's left to do is read things once again with all the information you've accumulated until that point to reveal contradictions and come up with new theories for explaining what was actually going on.
 

Yuuichi

Member
Also I'm not sure how I feel about their method of selling this. 7500 yen (without tax) for just 3 routes? And then what, 2nd beat is three more routes for another 7500 yen or something when it finally comes out?

I'm not really thrilled about this either, which is why I haven't bought in yet. That said, I heard from a few people that the game supposedly has a >4mb script, which is crazy. A game that took me 20~5 hours or so to finish has a 2.3mb script, so you can do the math.
 
I'm not really thrilled about this either, which is why I haven't bought in yet. That said, I heard from a few people that the game supposedly has a >4mb script, which is crazy. A game that took me 20~5 hours or so to finish has a 2.3mb script, so you can do the math.

I'm stuck at figuring at how much 20~5 hours is.

Though a >4mb script is massive, IIRC it should be bigger than any other Key VN.
 

Sakura

Member
I'm not really thrilled about this either, which is why I haven't bought in yet. That said, I heard from a few people that the game supposedly has a >4mb script, which is crazy. A game that took me 20~5 hours or so to finish has a 2.3mb script, so you can do the math.

While I know Angel Beats could have a lot of content, I'm just not sure how they will handle the other releases, which kinda puts me off for now. Will it be the same common route as the first game but 3 extra routes for full price? Or will it be cheaper? Or will it somehow have just as much content while being entirely new (I somehow doubt this)?
Also they are doing what, 6 games? How long is this gonna take, 1 a year would have me waiting forever.
 

Yuuichi

Member
While I know Angel Beats could have a lot of content, I'm just not sure how they will handle the other releases, which kinda puts me off for now. Will it be the same common route as the first game but 3 extra routes for full price? Or will it be cheaper? Or will it somehow have just as much content while being entirely new (I somehow doubt this)?
Also they are doing what, 6 games? How long is this gonna take, 1 a year would have me waiting forever.

My understanding (the important part, I don't remember what's a rumor and what isn't) is that most everything is done, including the scenario but not all the art (among other things). That said, the amount of time between releases is supposed to go down substantially now that most everything else is in place and the scenario is supposedly complete. I'd be more concerned about gaps in releases because of marketing more than anything, I would think more than one every ~6 would be too fast from a marketing perspective unless you need the first one to play them and they cost, say 4000円 or something.
 
The game has already given you all the hints. Just like Ange said while talking with
Featherine
, the moment when the detective (author) says "Great, now I have all the clues" in a mystery novel is the moment when the readers should know that all the information required to reveal the truth is in their grasp. After that, all that's left to do is read things once again with all the information you've accumulated until that point to reveal contradictions and come up with new theories for explaining what was actually going on.

So things will be intentionally left vague and I'll be expected to go back and piece things together myself? That's honestly super disappointing, especially after how much I enjoyed the revelations and how they played out in Higurashi.

Ah well, guess I'll just finish ep 8 since I came this far and hope that if Ryukishi ever makes another When They Cry series, it'll be much less obscure in its answers.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
So things will be intentionally left vague and I'll be expected to go back and piece things together myself? That's honestly super disappointing, especially after how much I enjoyed the revelations and how they played out in Higurashi.

Ah well, guess I'll just finish ep 8 since I came this far and hope that if Ryukishi ever makes another When They Cry series, it'll be much less obscure in its answers.

That's how Ryukishi wanted it. All good mysteries leave something in the cat box to speculate over.
 
That's how Ryukishi wanted it. All good mysteries leave something in the cat box to speculate over.

Sure, stuff that elevates what you already know when you realize it, like subtle foreshadowing and crazy connections that you wouldn't realize except on replays/rereads. Stuff like the identity of the culprit or the details (even if they have to be brief) of the crime shouldn't fall under that. It's completely unsatisfying, which is NOT something I want to be after pouring 100+ hours into something.
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
Well if you want to know the circumstances of each EP you can read that book that makes out what happened in each version of Rokkenjima and who did it and how. I have no idea if anyone translated it though.
 
This thread is making me want to push Umineko to the bottom of my backlog. It seems like the the return on the crazy time investment is pretty lacking.
 
Well if you want to know the circumstances of each EP you can read that book that makes out what happened in each version of Rokkenjima and who did it and how. I have no idea if anyone translated it though.

I'll probably just look up full explanations and skim through the manga again.

This thread is making me want to push Umineko to the bottom of my backlog. It seems like the the return on the crazy time investment is pretty lacking.

I mean, it seems a lot of people like it quite a bit. Maybe I'm the anomaly here. It just wasn't what I was expecting, even after having seen most of the anime and thinking it would be wildly different. It definitely doesn't feel like a Higurashi successor in terms of presentation, even if there are some clear narrative connections.

This degree of confusing escalation, hours spent on intense speculation arguments when we had been given the answer before it even started, and just overall poor pacing has really soured me on the whole thing. Sure, there have been some great parts, but they're well in the minority for me.

I guess I just need things to be spelled out and fast-paced when it comes to mystery stuff. There's a reason Danganronpa is my favorite one.
 
Yeah it seems like you're slow on the upkeep for the most part since I figured out what was going on by the time EP 5 was out.

I want to say the way everything is presented is throwing me off (as is the fact I find a lot of the debates boring and just kind of zone out), but maybe I'm just dumb and not cut out for crazy meta-mysteries like this.
 
Let me amend that. I found a lot of the debates and the interactions between Battler and Beatrice fun, but a lot of them also ended up dragging. By the fifth time something like "no, this door is locked because magic!" was said within 3 minutes, I just started to zone out. I was reading the words, but I wasn't absorbing them, and by the time I realized that, several paragraphs had gone by. There was a particularly bad one in episode 5 when
Dlanor
showed up for the first time.

Maybe that degree of reiterating is necessary on a replay or something, but it sure as hell wasn't compelling for me as I was going through it, even if the overarching plot was.
 

Knurek

Member
This thread is making me want to push Umineko to the bottom of my backlog. It seems like the the return on the crazy time investment is pretty lacking.

If you're expecting to have a Clue-like solution (The butler killed the colonel with the kitchen knife in the attic), yes, you will be disappointed.
If you want a deconstruction of mystery novel, and a lot of pent up family drama with an immensely unreliable narrator and god-tier voice acting, you will like Umineko.
Sometimes the destination is less important than the journey, is what I'm saying.
 

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
Man I can't wait till July 2nd. Aksys, MangaGamer, and sekaiproject all have announcements for AX.

I'm pretty excited :) I wonder if Aksys will announce another VN so quickly, since they are already working on 3, which seems like quite a bit already.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
If you're expecting to have a Clue-like solution (The butler killed the colonel with the kitchen knife in the attic), yes, you will be disappointed.
If you want a deconstruction of mystery novel, and a lot of pent up family drama with an immensely unreliable narrator and god-tier voice acting, you will like Umineko.
Sometimes the destination is less important than the journey, is what I'm saying.

I played it without VA and it still had me engrossed the whole time. My first exposure to the VA was Ougon Musou, heh. (I still wish more people played that, the stories are very good.)
 

Sakura

Member
Can you romance Yui in it? I know she is one of the characters featured, but if it's just a VN form of the Yui x Blue haired guy (with you helping them), then I kind of have no interest.
To answer my own question, it seems you cannot.
I don't play galge to hook other people up, what the heck is the point...
First game features three characters, only one of whom is romanceable, definite pass for me.
I feel like Key haven't released anything good since Little Busters.
 

Marche90

Member
Oh, speaking of which, beware those who want to import the game; it's region-locked (doesn't run on any non-Japanese version of Windows) ._.
 

Jazz573

Member
Oh, speaking of which, beware those who want to import the game; it's region-locked (doesn't run on any non-Japanese version of Windows) ._.

There's already a patch to fix it.

Can you romance Yui in it? I know she is one of the characters featured, but if it's just a VN form of the Yui x Blue haired guy (with you helping them), then I kind of have no interest.

Apparently it also has a gay pairing too.
 

Sakura

Member
As a real pairing or a joke pairing? I know Key works often have a gay end for gags. There is a guy as one of the three characters for the 1st beat but I think it's just a normal route right?

And yea, the region lock thing is a little annoying. I buy your game and I have to download a crack to play it just because I'm not using Japanese Windows? Come on...
 

Yuuichi

Member
And yea, the region lock thing is a little annoying. I buy your game and I have to download a crack to play it just because I'm not using Japanese Windows? Come on...

It sucks, but you've gotta deal with it. Some games run ok, some just want the disk, and some are a little more frustrating. All siglus (visualarts) games have this lock, and only on my copy of LB!PE have I been able to bypass it by just cancelling enough times and closing the warning or something; it's been a while since I've done it and I leave the crack in my windows shortcut for convenience.

The game's technically aren't supposed to even be sold outside of japan for legal reasons anyways, so there's not really any basis to complain, since we're not even supposed to have the games in the first place.
 

Jazz573

Member
As a real pairing or a joke pairing? I know Key works often have a gay end for gags. There is a guy as one of the three characters for the 1st beat but I think it's just a normal route right?

And yea, the region lock thing is a little annoying. I buy your game and I have to download a crack to play it just because I'm not using Japanese Windows? Come on...

Yeah I think it's more of a joke. I got this information fron this thread on vndb.
 
Bit into Umineko ep 8 and here's an example of how I like revelations to play out.
Kyrie is confirmed to be Battler's real mom, with a brief explanation following it with how things stayed hidden so long.

Nice clean reveal of something that was largely hinted, confirming my suspicions in a satisfying way.

That's what I want out of the greater truth (whether my suspicions are confirmed or denied), but it's already been made clear that won't be happening.


Also, young Ange is totes adorbs.
 

JulianImp

Member
Bit into Umineko ep 8 and here's an example of how I like revelations to play out.
Kyrie is confirmed to be Battler's real mom, with a brief explanation following it with how things stayed hidden so long.

Nice clean reveal of something that was largely hinted, confirming my suspicions in a satisfying way.

That's what I want out of the greater truth (whether my suspicions are confirmed or denied), but it's already been made clear that won't be happening.


Also, young Ange is totes adorbs.

The whole point of Umineko is that it's a mystery series based on stuff such as Shrodinger's cat or devil's proof. The power of Beatrice, witch of the infinite, basically amounts to that:
an infinite number of stories that spring from events that were seen by nobody but the people who died alongside with the truth
.

Basically, the series doesn't patronize the readers by force-feeding them the answers, since it basically set out to deconstruct the mystery genre, even if it might be at the expense of alienating people who aren't interested in this (in my case, it really changed the way I see mystery novels). Even without being told about it, weren't you happy when you finally conencted the dots leading up to
the "Kyrie is Battler's mom"
reveal?

Episode 8 also has a really fun mini-game in the VN later on, so I hope you'll be looking forward to it.
 
Even without being told about it, weren't you happy when you finally conencted the dots leading up to
the "Kyrie is Battler's mom"
reveal?

I was happier when it was outright revealed.

I like mysteries when they confirm or deny my suspicions regarding important plot points, not leaving them up in the air so the answer can be interpreted differently. That's perfectly fine with some things, like subtle hints at familial relationships between characters, or even a character's background that is only given basic info throughout a story with several connecting hints sprinkled throughout; stuff like that. Other things, not so much.

As I said before, the identity of the culprit, or in an even more ridiculous case Umineko is guilty of, the CONTENT OF THE ACTUAL STORY, are not things I want out of a mystery. Maybe it's my dislike of the unreliable narrator trope when taken to such an extreme, or maybe I'm just disappointed in the lack of any "culprit breakdowns" that I enjoy so much in the Japanese side of this genre. Either way, it's made me dread playing through ep 8 because I know I won't find a conclusion that I find satisfying.
 

Marche90

Member
I'm considering only finishing Reading Ruuko's route in To Heart 2 and consider the VN for all intents and purposes. I've already read the other routes so in a sense it will be a complete read-through, but I still wanted to play them again this time. To be honest, the structure of the VN is annoying for multiple route readings, due to the way the system works, and you can only skip so much before it gets tedious.
 

Jazz573

Member
So I've just finished playing Cafe Memoria, an OELVN that came out two days ago. It's not an amazing game, but it's pretty decent. Certainly not something I would pay for. But as a free VN it's pretty good. The game's structure is pretty simple. You order a drink, then a meal, and then you rate the waitress. If you're looking for a nice short game you can finish in about 2 hours then I'd say it's pretty good. At the beginning I found the VAs kind of irritating, but they grew on me.

Edit: Just saw this on reddit. ^_^
 

aravuus

Member
I like mysteries when they confirm or deny my suspicions regarding important plot points, not leaving them up in the air so the answer can be interpreted differently. That's perfectly fine with some things, like subtle hints at familial relationships between characters, or even a character's background that is only given basic info throughout a story with several connecting hints sprinkled throughout; stuff like that. Other things, not so much.

I agree with this. I've been pushing my Umineko restart forward (finished ep1 like.. A year or two ago, I think?) for a while now and after reading your thoughts, I think I'll just keep pushing for now lol. Looks like we enjoy more or less the same aspects in a mystery story.

If it at least had witty and/or fun dialogue, it could probably carry me through the episodes, but I can't remember ep1 having anything like that. Not necessarily bad writing, just a bit.. Dull and colorless. But it's what I've come to expect of VNs.

I'm pretty sure I did ep1 last summer, so maybe I'll do one episode each summer. Start ep2 today or tomorrow, do ep3 next year etc lol
 
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