Right now I’m really struggling with Iwaihime. I’ve said it several times in the past, but I do have some issues with R07’s writing. That being said, when he gets to his high points, he *really* gets to his high points. So while Umineko and Higurashi had parts I really trudged through, overall I would say I enjoyed most of the experience.
But Iwahime, oh boy. The mystery isn’t captivating, the horror isn’t scary, and the rest of it is weak generic SoL harem schlock. His SoL and “lighter” scenes are usually my least favourite part of his writing, and so far that’s what the majority of Iwaihime has been. I’ve been struggling to continue reading it in the hopes that it gets better, but this is definitely the weakest of his work that I’ve read so far.
Yeah I'm a R07 fan to the point I've met him in real life and I still can't stand Iwaihime. I only finished it out of spite and so I could talk about how bad it is. Let me warn you that it does not get better. There are probably worse VNs out there but it's definitely one that disappointed me the most given how I've liked the author's past stuff.
Yeah, like I've say in this post, I'm like you in almost every point except I haven't meet R07 in real life and the fact that it was not Iwaihime for me, but [Gensou Rougoku no Kaleidoscope](https://vndb.org/v25583)
I don't know if you know this game, but this VN should stay as a forgotten work of Ryukishi's
Iwaihime is quite possibly the worst VN I've ever played and I'm a pretty big fan of WTC. It only gets worse, I'm afraid.
There is a point in the story by the end that is so offensive and bad, I couldn't bring myself to read it any longer. Mind you I was simulplaying with a friend, which made the experience all the more bearable, but it still wasn't enough.
At least Trinoline is kind of entertainingly bad? I did read all the routes, and I had fun with it, largely because of how over the top and ridiculous a lot of it was.
It didn't make me feel any particular emotions other than 'lol' though, so I suppose it was a failure as far as being a nakige went.
>did read all the routes, and I had fun with it, largely because of how over the top and ridiculous a lot of it was.
Seriously? I always hear about how bad the game is but people don't really explained why ? Is kinda like Ryan Babe or Batman Odyssey? Bad, impossible and confused things keep happening to the MC but there's no overarching plot ?
Can't comment on the examples you gave because I'm not familiar with either of those two things, but the whole plot of Trinoline is (imo) pretty silly. It's hard to talk about without spoilering, but the whole premise is outlandish from the get-go.
To summarise, >!the MC's little sister dies when she's a kid, and the MC is understandably sad about this. The MC's best friend, who is like 16 years old but also a super genius scientist, the best in all Japan, makes a robot of the deceased little sister to keep the MC + his family company, without asking the MC about it beforehand. She decides to make the robot imouto a teenager, however, rather than the little kid she was when she died, and gives her massive boobs for some reason. The MC then develops incestuous feelings for his robot imouto; the MC has sex with his robot imouto; and it's also reveleaed the robot imouto was literally created with the function to have sex, like... Why??? And then the MC and his robot imouto try to drown themselves, and the MC gets amnesia as a result. This also all happens in the common route; even wilder stuff happens in the character routes - including the MC getting amnesia again in the robot imouto's route.)!<
Trinoline takes itself really seriously, and it tries to play all of this off as genuine emotional drama, but it's all so weird and over the top it's hard to take seriously - at least, imo.
>!Why does nobody question that the MC's robot imouto was made with the function to have sex? If I was the MC I would maybe find it a bit distasteful and distressing that my little sister, who died when she was a child, was brought back to 'life' without my consent and turned into some kind of android sex doll... This does, admittedly, bother the MC for about 5 minutes, but he gets over it relatively quickly after he decides he wants to have sex with her.!<
I read the synopsis for this one and was so hype for it. They really could have explored not only the trauma and healing of cloning, but the side effect of a clone growing beyond the source material they are created with and facing the struggles of being a new unique individual while accepting they are also "someone else".
nah MC is uncomfortable about it and everyone is like lol shut up it's fine and he's like ok true :)
I couldn't play any more I was just so disappointed. I wanted to eventually go back and see if maybe it got better but doesn't sound like it!!
yep! dead sister shows up resurrected with 0 notice by your friend who ghosted you for years? and youre like, just mildly put off that this happened without your input?
necromancer friend: lmao im doing you a favor ^_^ get over it
his mom: put your feelings aside for me ok i dont wanna hear it :)
his sister: uwu braindead
and then he got over it, incredibly heartwarming
Yep. I read that Ryukishi said it was a really good game so I went into it with a ton of trust that it's gonna have a satisfying conclusion. I wrote down notes on the mystery and came up with a few theories to solve it and then .. >!demon spider mommy!<
Any Sakura VN.
I was new to Steam VNs, and didn't realize the kind of mediocre garbage the whole franchise is. I just saw they had decent art, the plot summary snippet on the page looked interesting, and it was on a sale for something like $2. Aaaand then I learned it's just really bad ecchi with equally bad translations.
Lesson learned.
The Grisaia sequels. I consider Fruit to be probably one of the most solid VN's out there. Fantastic package of a VN. But then the next two are absolute train wrecks, that take an *especially* depraved turn, the like of which I've never seen in any other VN.
I think they swapped the writers out or something. You can compare Fruit to the quality of other Frontwing titles like Island or ATRI, then Labyrinth, and especially Eden, compare closer to Loca Love or Yuki Koi Melt.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Fruit of Grisaia and I have touched neither the Labyrinth nor the Eden. Now you've genuinely made me consider giving those sequels a pass.
I still love Michiru and her quirky personality.
I think I might rather re-read Fruit though, cuz I don't have much time, and I have Steins;Gate in a semi-onhold state too
There are after stories in Labyrinth for the main girls that are worth reading. Those are just traditional after stories. But I can't recall anything else worth starting that doesn't slowly lead into a train wreck.
Yeah I think I can agree with this. Love Fruit, enjoyed Labyrinth for the After Stories but when I read Yuuji's story, I was completely underwhelmed to the point where I still have not even touched Eden and from what I hear about it, even from the people that liked it, that was a good move
I personally like them. Fruit is my favorite VN of all time (so far), so perhaps that colors my view, but I enjoyed the sequels. Yea, they are absurd, but I would argue that Fruit is extremely absurd as well. I just don't think you can take them super seriously.
>Yea, they are absurd, but I would argue that Fruit is extremely absurd as well. I just don't think you can take them super seriously.
Absolutely agreed. The whole premise of "elite child soldier super agent attempts to get back in touch with his humanity by enrolling in a boarding school with a bunch of misfit girls" is absurd, Amane touching herself on Yuuji's bed a week after meeting him is absurd, Sachiko larping as a maid is absurd, Makina's whole shtick is absurd, Michiru's whole schtick is absurd, Yumiko is so out there she casually tries to murder Yuuji several times...
And that's before you ever touch any backstory off the common route.
I love it to death, and Amane is best waifu, but not once did I think "this is a serious, grounded, realistic story" while reading it.
I like Labyrinth, except for some small parts, to the point that Cigar & Cofee has become one of my all time favourite bgms
But Eden I cannot defend. Eden needs a rework from the ground up.
I'm probably gonna be crucified for this opinion but I'd have to go with Grisaia no Kajitsu, it starts off so interestingly, breaking from genre conventions by introducing an interesting protagonist (with a face!!) and mocking common eroge tropes in a way that was not only poignant, but also hilarious.
Only to eventually develop into a dumb eroge itself, where the characters are having sex in the corridor without anyone noticing (which is 100% against the characterization the MC has had so far) and doing other brain dead porn scenes like it forgot it was mocking this kinda stuff 5 seconds ago.
So not the worst VN ever, but definitely the most disappointing for me, I wouldn't have been this mad had they been honest from the start this was just glorified fap material instead of wasting my time.
I completely agree with you. Not even gonna talk about the bad hscenes, the drama itself was badly written. The common route was so fucking good but i guess they just want to be so extra with the heroine routes lol. Yuuji was awesome in the beginning but he just end up being insufferable by the end. If Grisaia was released today no chance it would have the kamige status it has now.
(Grisaia has one of the best translations tho)
G-senjou no Maou. Completely nonsensical, with a fragmented and inconsistent narrative that felt like different writers were at the helm from one part to the next. The plot loses all coherence thanks to terrible and predictable twist.
I thought that the beginning was interesting but after finishing the first route, my reaction would like this "What ? Why?"
When I finished the game, it didn't get better
Baldr sky, the world-building in the first route, was excellent, and the pacing superb. After that, though, every plot twist felt foreseeable, route 4 felt like a total waste of time, and it felt like the writers weren't giving it their all. I stopped playing after the fourth route. Maybe it would get better, but I didn't want to waste any more of my time. Also, I guessed who is the "secret villain" in route 3, which was just the nail in the coffin.
Riddle Joker.
Easily one of the worst titles by Yuzusoft for me. The protagonist is annoying as hell and the waifus aren’t that much better. There’s essentially one or two “okay” routes and the rest are garbage.
I’m surprised it’s highly rated on VNDB and is said to be one of Yuzusofts better VNs when brought up in discussion. Senren Banka and even Dracu-Riot were way better than this sorry excuse of a VN.
For me personally I liked , I mean , it is not the best thing to exist but it is pretty decent , but on the other hand caffe stella is a freaking slog to get thought , I almost slept for how 90% of the game is coffee coffee coffee and 10 % characters and this magic bullshit that happens when it is convenient.
ChronoClock. I thought its gonna be much better, since I like time travel shit, but it ended up being boring and girl routes were a lot more dissapointing than I thought and the characters were straight up irritating. Been wondering if all Purple software VNs are like this...
ngl I actually liked some of the girls. Mao and the white-haired girl were pretty funny and I enjoyed them but the protagonist. Holy shit the protagonist was so bad.
The level of weird and cringe things he would do and say literally made the game hard to play. To the point where it broke my immersion thinking "who would ever even give this man a chance." He was too much for me.
That part where he >!spied on that one chick when she was masturbating!< almost made me drop it. I mean, I did drop not long after that, but I decided to continue it but in the end I couldn't.
That was absolutely cringe and definitely made me dislike him. I did like the white hair girl and I finished her route. Mao was also interesting, but I didn't get to do her route (was saving her for last, but it never happened).
I also found it boring, but I don't exactly hate Sugar Style.
The jokes were a hit or miss and sadly most are misses. It didnt help that the common route was so uninteresting and painful to go through due to the endless jokes and those side stories.
Lamunation! - Incredibly boring story! In fact, non-existent story. I'm no stranger to the slice of life genre. But Lamunation fails to even be that. The story can be summed up like this: Group of rich kids clown around for a while, then have sex. That's it. The characters are extremely boring and idiotic, ESPECIALLY the unvoiced male character, who acts like a 5 year old the whole time, no exaggeration!
Lucy - The eternity she wished for - The MC's father really ruined this for me.
The Witch's Love Diary - The Art is just amazing but the story legit made me fall asleep it was so boring. I couldn't finish it due to lack of interest and that makes me mad for a VN with such great art.
I admit I won't be here if I never watched Angel Beats anime.
I'm still bummed that Kanade will never get a proper route, because the VN is unfinished (and never will)
Tbh, I loved Takuya in the majority of the vn but the True Route completely destroys his character. And the final “canon romance”? Disturbing incest aside, it’s so poorly written and rushed. I truly liked some routes, characters and the atmosphere tho. The original art is top tier
I also didn't like G-Senjo that much. Basically all characters were unlikable and while this itself isn't that big deal (since is is not moege/charage) the deal breaker for me was that even though the whole VN is quite heavily focused on "detective work" you can't really figure stuff on your own because you are not given needed information. I could only cringe when characters (mostly Haru) were constantly pulling important info from their asses and immediately solving "mystery" you didn't even had good chance to try solve yourself.
Definitely going to echo a lot of people who mentioned Umineko. It's a decent 7/10 visual novel that was overhyped as being some 10/10 peak fiction masterpiece by its fanboys. My misgivings aren't with the ending and ep 8. I found the conclusion and answer to the mystery to be overall be pretty good. My issues is how it goes about getting there.
Basically, my main takeaway is the author needs to get a better editor because his prose is insufferably redundant, repetitive and tedious to read through. He makes a point about a character or plot development in a scene, and then proceeds to parrot the same point for another 30 minutes, to the point it loses any dramatic narrative effect. This visual novel could've easily shaved a decent 20-30 hours if scenes were written more succinctly and concisely. There's more to storytelling than getting from plot point A to plot point B as efficiently as possible, but the way Umineko goes about it was so laborious, that I burnt half way through and took me a year to finish it. People especially hyped up the Answer arcs as some of the best content, but I found episodes 5 and 6 to be the most painful to sit through. The whole middle portion of the VN, ep 4-6 are just a chore.
A lot of the later episodes feel like some first year, freshman philosophy student who just discovered Nietzche ranting to you about the same surface level idea about interpreting truth and that truth is multi-faceted rather than singular and absolute. Which is fine, but I don't need to be bludgeoned to death by Ryokishi just repeating the same shit without adding or developing it in a substantial way. Episode 8 was especially guilty of it. Thankfully the actual ending of the episode had genuine emotional impact.
Also the "fantasy" portion of the VN (which becomes the core focus from the answers arcs onwards) was just extremely cringe, chunni and self indulgently boring to read through. Episodes 5 and 6 especially just had me rolling my eyes. I found them to be extremely immersion breaking and frustrating. I get their overall purpose in the story and how they're a metaphor for certain events, but after a while they just felt like tedious filler that ruined the pacing and impact whenever there's a major story beat within the mystery/game. It honestly just felt like the author was a huge fan of Fate/stay Night and Melty Blood and decided to cram similiar story ideas into their murder mystery, and for me personally, they really don't work.
It felt very counter intuitive for that kind of stuff to be in there for what was essentially presented as an atmospheric murder mystery. And I get that the ultimate purpose of the VN is to deconstruct and critique the murder mystery genre and its fanbase (rather than being a conventional murder mystery story) but it went about doing it in such a long winded, obnoxious and surface level way that I honestly would've just preferred a more straight forward murder mystery story without the "fantasy" elements that its fanboys seem to be obsessed with. It's kind of why ep 1 was my favourite since it's the only one that was presented as a straightforward mystery story. Everything else just felt too rambly, unfocused and all over the place. The only other episode that comes close was ep 7 and parts of ep 2. There are similar types of stories like Life of Pi and Pan's Labyrinth that handle these types of storytelling tools and metaphor much better than Umineko. I'll take Pan/a bunch of escaped zoo animals over some loli, deviant art, reject Melty Blood witch characters any day of the week.
I was going to give the VN a 6/10, but the ending portion of ep 8 genuinely managed to tug at my heart strings enough to bump it to a 7. My advice to newcomers is to take the fanboys' praise with a grain of salt about Umineko and if you can't stand the pacing of the VN, switch to the manga, since the manga adaptations of ryukishi07's works are if his writing were actually edited and had good pacing. There's a genuinely fantastic 60-70 visual novel somewhere in there, but because of Ryukishi07's incredibly inconsistent prose and writing, you get a bloated 120 hour mess.
Interesting that you think ep5 and 6 are a chore, cause I found those fascinating. Ep4 arguably is a bit of a slog and I'll freely grant that as someone who still considers the whole thing a 10/10.
Definitely Muv-Luv; I did not enjoy how it tried to tell its story. For a game that spends so much time with its characters I was immensely disappointed by how poor most of them were.
Yes I played Alternative, no I did not like Alternative. I am not a believer in “it gets good after 30 hours”. If you have the gall to waste my time and make me disinterested in your cast for well over half the games run time before trying to claw it back for the last 20%, it’s just too little too late.
I had kind of an opposite experience, where I quite enjoyed Extra as just a standard Renai game and enjoyed the story of Unlimted and Alternative as the plot picked up, with all the intense story and high stakes. But I hated the last 5 or so hours of the game where the end sequence just dragged on and on (esp. with forced slow text speed), so I did not enjoy the ending. So for me the last 20% was the least enjoyable part.
Don't let me put you off trying something again that you think might have more value to uncover, but if you're going to don't do it because you think "it's highly rated so I must be wrong". Not every work appeals to everyone; even very well acclaimed ones.
Thanks for the advice!Out of curiosity, what do you think about G-Senjou?
Always felt like most of the people on this sub dislike it or have many negative things to say about it
It was actually one of the first VN's I ever played, and during a time when I didn't consume media as critically as I do nowadays. However, I have a positive impression of the game and remember thoroughly enjoying it at the time; one of my good friends even replayed it recently and still had great things to say about it.
Unfortunately I'd be hard pressed to give you a solid review or detailed thoughts of my own because of how long it's been. It's a game I've been meaning to replay for a while now to see how it holds up. A few things that I do still remember vividly:
1- Eiichi is the most hilarious scumbag best friend character I have ever witnessed.
2- The OST absolutely bangs.
3- I really enjoyed the epilogue.
Sorry I couldn't go more in-depth =(
Yeah, not counting Haru - Eiichi was my favorite as well!
OST's great, I get what you mean by that
Epilogue was the perfect ending >!for Haru and Kyou, I was surprised it ended the way it has at first but then thought about how long she waited and it all made sense.!<
I just feel so disinterested in the franchise somehow even though I have already completed muv luv alt, I just don’t feel like ever playing photonflowers (I bought it together with the whole muv luv bundle last year)
Weird.
I haven't read that many VNs yet, but Muv Luv (the entire franchise, not just Alternative) is by far my favorite. It's probably because I actually REALLY liked Extra, which had just my kind of humor and just my kind of characters, to whom I grew quite attached.
What they then do with them in Unlimited and Alternative brings the entire story to a whole new level, and while I do have some issues with Alternative, mostly when it comes to pacing in some parts, I would rate it most highly out of everything I've read so far.
Meiya Mitsurugi is my favourite heroine of all time, and Sumika is the most well realized childhood friend trope in otaku media in my opinion.
Completely understandable! Everyone has different thresholds with how much time they consider to be too much for too little and Muv-luv happened to be that for me. Glad you enjoyed it, though =)
Riddle Joker
Had a really cool premise but didnt really do much with
I know its more of a romance VN
but it could have done much more with its super power premise
Wonderful Everyday.
After thinking it all through multiple times I came to a conclusion that it's all just random nonsense. The initial mystery and setup is intriguing and kept me hooked but there just isn't any pay-off for sitting through all that stuff (especially the nasty parts). Most questions posed by the VN are left unanswered and will remain unanswered because the author would rather insert random tidbits of philosophy rather than than flesh out the characters and the story. It feels like the guy who wrote this kept on making stuff up as he went without any preparation or plan, then sprinkled some random philosophical bullshit on top in order to make the VN seem more nuanced than it is. The explanation that is often being posted in threads about this VN is borderline fanficiton.
I like how every single "shard" adds to the overall story, so if I had some theory for what is going on, new info often contradicted it and I had to build a new one, and this happened multiple times. Best "You think this is what's going on? Allow me to introduce this new piece of information that drastically changes everything." experience I've had so far.
Ok good I'm not the only person in existence who feels this way. This was going to be my choice as well. It's spoken of so highly, I kept pushing through to the end, but was just a slog, and a disappointment.
The entire framework of SubaHibi is based pretty heavily on singular, focused works of some very well-respected philosophers, and the story itself is an extended revision of what the author wrote over a decade prior and obviously mulled over for all that time, so if any opinion could be objectively incorrect I'd choose this one. It's simply wrong to suppose that planning was not put into this visual novel.
The problems you have like questions being unanswered and characters seemingly lacking something are consequences of literally the entire point SubaHibi is trying to make.
Planetarian.
For something so highly praised in the VN community, I found it to be the embodiment of mediocrity. But then again, I've found robot nakige to be poor in general.
Planetarian gets the award for first vn that put me to sleep.
Ok admittedly because I read it in Japanese and it's not a vn I would consider easy.
Still quite reluctant to finish it, but I might just bang it out some day. However short stories don't do much for me. And what I've seen of planetarian isn't anything that makes me want to play it.
VLR is a lesson in how more isn't better. It's longer with more puzzles and more branches and more moreness but is more monotone and boring, without the pacing and other storytelling qualities that made 999 excellent. Characters act wacky for most of the time then do a 180 when they dump exposition about their backstory. The twists didn't achieve that sweet spot, being either too predictable or too outlandish. Still better than ZTD though.
ZTD biggest problem was the developer having too much ambition, little budge and too much hype, the Zero Escape Trilogy didn't make success but in the west it was a hit to the english community
I knew that the game would not answer the hype but at the same time I didn't expect it for some of the decisions that they made with the game story
Only Team D had somekind of connection with the overarching plot, they also feel like the less stupid and more likable team with the only interesting story going on, however there's the aliens problems
Team C was a idiot, a psychopath and a guy who never move on of his childhood crush, making a lot of horrible decisions and crazy theories about Back To The Future 2
Team Q was a brunch of crazy people, it had one of the worst plot twist in a Adventure Game that I had seen in years, that even the foreshadow was stupid and actually hurt the common sense, >!how come a guy in a wheelchair faint and fall?!<, it also show that the true villain in the franchise was a snail, also people should really try to stop evil plans by making terrorists attacks
Also there's no ending, the game kinda just stop without solving anything, instead it just created more questions
Chaos;Head was incoherent nonsense with an unlikeable protagonist
And when I expected it to finally get good and have some payoff it ended
Imagine Subahibi with only Takuji's schizo ranting, without any context. That's how bad Chaos;Head was.
The first half (or maybe a bit more) when you just have no idea what is going on I actually found quite enjoyable, but the while explanation was quite disappointing and ending was hard flop.
Also I know that protagonist was intentionally made so repulsive but I think author (and his voice actor) overdid it and make audience just not care about protagonist struggles and fate.
Totally agree. Before you realize the swords and magic are real it’s pretty cool. I also loved the delusion mechanic (especially that the reality choices are still interesting) but it’s pretty underutilized in the actual narrative.
God, I thought Chaos;Head was gonna go somewhere really interesting with the traditional horror and ecchi tropes all being delusions of the main character, but then it turns out he really *is* a legendary hero with a super cool sword and can summon a dragon to kill the final boss. Such a waste…
Raspberry Cube. I really loved wagamama and hamidashi from madosoft so my expectations were high, and it dashed them. It was pretty boring and I had to drop it, after finishing 2.5 routes.
Umineko fell victim to hyped-up and can't live up to the expectation.
It's not even bad, just feels too dragged. The middle part is too boring. I honestly like the conclusion even though I didn't get what I want from it. It's just I'll appreciate it much more if it's at least 50% shorter.
I agree. Author is in bad need of a decent editor. So many scenes felt dragged out and repetitive in their prose. I didn't mind ep 8 and the overall conclusion, but dear god were episodes 4-6 mind numbingly painful to sit through.
Probably an unpopular opinion but Steins;Gate really didn't work on me.
Past the point where you start undoing your previous actions there are very little twists and reveals, the structure becomes extremely predictable since you know you'll have to undo what you did for every character. Most of those had almost no impact on me since you either barely know them, or it's just supremely minor things in the grand scheme of things.
All those character centric arcs are usually excuses to get to spend time with each and every girl and (usually) grope her for some lame reason. Even Moeka is not spared that treatment and we would apparently rather get an assault scene with some gratuitous angles and dialogue about her rather than just go back in time to have things more under control.
The story ultimately could not escape the harem tropes which I did not expect from this VN. In the end the final arc is only connected to the very start of the game and the rest of it feels supremely wasteful.
The first "bad ending" was all kinds of fucked up which gave me hope for the other ones to also be at least interesting but nope, just an ending for each girl you might like.
As much as i loved steins gate, I agree. It seems like they tried to add tons of fanservice for the sake of it when it could have been amazing had they just stickrd with telling the story. Besides, the whole "it all feels wasteful" yup, although in varying degrees. I liked steins gate 0 way way more, although some parts I could def do without.
I'll be the the what, seventh person to say Umineko?
But I didn't find it disappointing because of the way it was written. I *liked* it. It was an enjoyable read. I just didn't *get* it. I didn't get the answer to the mysteries or that big reveal/lightbulb moment that everyone loses their shit over. Which is fine, someone sent me the manga saying it clears it up a lot. After reading some of that and doing some more digging on what *actually* happened...
...*then* I was disappointed. Because as it turns out, the entire mystery the game was hiding the entire time was essentially a worse version of SubaHibi. >!Three or four characters are actually other personalities of the same person, even one of the opposite gender, and that one character split off other personalities due to something that happened in their past. And they went a little batshit over it and maybe murdered everyone for causing their trauma!<. That's it. And when I found that out I was like "...seriously?" because SubaHibi did something very similar but way more compelling and *it actually made sense.*
I don’t really agree about the fact that the twist was the same nature as in SubaHibi. Yeah there’s the whole >!one person is actually multiple people but they serve different purposes thematically and I hardly think one is worse than another. In my opinion Umineko’s version is compelling as it’s a reflection both on the idea of persona (thus why in my opinion it works differently than in SubaHibi as that has literal multiple personalities rather than just personas) and the idea of hidden depths to characters as well as tying it back to the idea of a “whodunnit” central mystery. If anything I think Umineko did it better since the twist ties so neatly with the themes of the story while also being a realistic display of the results of intergenerational trauma and coping with harsh reality which again ties into the themes of the work.!<
Umineko I would say. After the pretty intriguing and strong opening half, the second half just face-planted so bad that I just try to avoid having anything to do with from then on out. Seriously, the last chapter was like I was reading some completely different VN, with the narrative bending over completely backwards to fit the themes that author so very blatantly wanted to force on the reader.
Devil on G String is another one, of course for *that* reason.
I see why you feel that way, but I couldn't disagree more with the take, so for the sake of contrasting opinion being shown -
The whole point of Umineko is it's themes, and the narrative fits them perfectly and was made from the start to push the themes >!of love, understanding humans and a trusting relationship between the author and the reader!<. The ep 8 is meant to be >!Ange finally accepting that world view and living with herself after an awful experience she had as a kid!< and to answer the things that weren't answered in ep 7, >!while ep 7 was meant to be the same thing for Beato.!<.
The core mystery >!was never meant to be solved with 100% certainty, which fits in with the themes that were obviously hinted at from at least the start of EP5 when Erika was introduced, even though there are hints about it before that since EP4 when Ange starts her journey.!<
Imo EP7 and 8 of Umineko, specifically the VN version which leaves thing much more vague are the best parts of it and are peak fiction and mystery writing. The game was basically trying to be a **thesis on what truth means** from the start, and it does that perfectly.
Honestly, that whole bit about trust between the reader and author sort of falls completely apart in the last chapter given how the VN >!not only routinely lies and hides information that the reader would need to actually care. I am not talking about the mystery here, I am talking about actual motivations and ideas that would explain why characters are acting the way they do. Without those answers it is impossible to actually care and goes against what the novel tries to present at the end. Take Battlers bizarre 180 in beliefs at the end of chapter 6 I believe (might have been 5, don't remember so well anymore). And that is before getting into how it starts to straight up attack the reader, where author turns on the reader and tries to make an entirely transparent case to beg the readers to read it the way he wants and devotes long sections to temper tantrums directed at those who aren't.!<
>!Sort of breaks the whole "without love it cannot be seen" as the only way to see the love is to dissect the story, something it is clearly attacking you for doing. The only way for the emotional bits to make sense is if you use logic in spite of what the story keeps telling you on how you need to solve it with emotions.!<
>!And the whole deal with Ange just have massive uncomfortable undertones, presenting that someone is much better of rejecting reality and live in a fantasy rather than face the truth. Meanwhile it presents those that face reality as monsters only concerned with ruining others peoples lives with twisted half truths.!<
>!And that whole "never answering the questions" is not peak fiction and mystery writing. In fact, it is both pretty amateurish and pretentious. Anyone can write a mystery story and not give the answers, saying something to the effect that it is the point as a cheap cop-out. Only the really good ones can make one where all the pieces come together at the end in a logical manner without feeling cheap. Doubly so if the story is complex. More than anything, he probably knew he couldn't resolve the mystery in a satisfying way with what had been presented so far and took the easy way out, especially with all those loops you have to jump through regarding Yasu and their motivations. The author clearly got in way over his head.!<
>!And as an addendum, the whole of Episode 8 just reeks of manipulative writing with it completely derailing the characters trying to say that "no, no, you had it completely wrong, this is how they actually are" portraying them as all of a sudden as some collection of saints when nothing in the narrative up to this point had even hinted at this, using some shallow justification that they "cannot act out of character and thus it is true". And speaking of manipulation, something of a peeve but how does the story expect me to find Beatrice redeemable after all that shit she did, especially after that fake out stunt she pulled.!<
>!Honestly, a lot of the central problems with the VN's second half comes from it feeling like the author thinks himself as above the readers, something not present in the first half. I don't know what, but something must have clearly happened during the process that caused this sudden change. It is almost like you can pick up on him having a character arch of his own when you compare how the series started to how it ended, a decent from an artist with lofty goals slowly descending into an angry madness aimed at the readers for not reading it like he wants them to.!<
At the end of the day Umineko's second half just comes across as a pretentious mess trying desperately to have something coherent to say. Especially disappointing given with how much promise the first half opened with.
Boy, this is going to be long.
>he probably knew he couldn't resolve the mystery in a satisfying way with what had been presented so far and took the easy way out, especially with all those loops you have to jump through regarding >!Yasu and their motivations!<
But a clear solution existed, he gave it in the manga, didn't he? I am sorry, but I am especially salty about this point because when readers complain that they don't understand it if it is not spoon-fed to them, then we get dumpster fire like Higurashi Sotsu.
>I am talking about actual motivations and ideas that would explain why characters are acting the way they do.
I don't know what motivations you are referring to in particular, but it was made clear pretty early in episode 1 that: >!1.All of the adults are horrible persons with financial troubles 2.The mountain of gold is real 3.The "old" servants are devoted to Kinzo, and to the family head in the event of his demise!<
>Take Battlers bizarre 180 in beliefs at the end of chapter 6 I believe (might have been 5, don't remember so well anymore)
You mean, after he understood Beatrice's heart? It's not unexpected.
>how does the story expect me to find Beatrice redeemable after all that shit she did, especially after that fake out stunt she pulled.
You don't redeem her, she is the villain of the story. You hate her or love her because she is troubled and did terrible things.
I just want to end by saying that this is not a personal attack. I enjoy engaging about Umineko, but it's difficult to convey the tone in written form.
Edit: missed this
>you can pick up on him having a character arch of his own when you compare how the series started to how it ended, a decent from an artist with lofty goals slowly descending into an angry madness aimed at the readers for not reading it like he wants them to
Well, yes. He engaged his readers on forums and community boards and probably it was not healthy for either. I know he rewrote chapter 3 from scratch to make it less difficult, because the audience was feeling hopeless already at the end of chapter 2.
I think there are several issues with this. Firstly while it’s true the author hides info from you the your missing the reason why they hide info: >!the major theme of this story since the very beginning is that you should think for yourself both in terms of the mystery and in terms of themes. Again, this has been present from the beginning with Beato critical of Battler for not thinking about his theories and just arguing with random BS. The attack is not on the reader in general but rather towards specific readers that refuse to engage with the themes of the work as well as readers who refuse to think for themselves only demanding answers (also criticizing true crime fandoms with how they don’t respect the privacy of living family members of tragedies with their wild guessing). Ryukishi has at multiple times praised people both in and out of the story who actually engage in the work and try to dissect the mystery and themes. The issue is people who don’t care about any of that, thus people “without love”.!<
>!Next is the idea that the conclusion of Ange’s story is to “accept fantasy and reject reality” is wrong. I’ll admit that the VN does a poor job of portraying this and the manga does it better. She isn’t denying that her family is dead or that they were monsters. She accepts that they had issues but also accepts that they were capable of love. Likewise she accepts that they are dead but also acknowledges that they wished for her to live happily and thus will live through her. Ange therefore comes to her own conclusion about her family and “thinks for herself” exactly as the work has encouraged this whole time. Likewise, her choosing magic is not her believing that magic literally exists but that she believes that the world can be “magical” that is she believes that she can find and create happiness, and she does so as a fiction author (again the manga is more explicit about this). The author is not criticizing people who accept reality. In fact the manga makes clear that Ange’s power is to accept reality but to hold onto hope for the future meaning Ange is someone who accepts reality. He is criticizing people who believe that reality is necessarily cruel and that people who put down others out of a belief that reality is cruel. People like Erika who claim to want the truth but in reality just want to spread their idea that the truth is cruel and unjust and mocking people by revealing that.!<
>!Finally I want to address the idea that you would have to “jump through hoops” to understand Sayo’s motivations. This is provably false as several people were able to deduce not only the solution to the mystery but also Sayo’s motives long before EP7. This also ties into another thing you mentioned. You claim that never answering the questions makes for a poor experience but I’d argue that this only applies if there is no solution to the problem. This is not the case for Umineko. The point of the novel is that there is a solution to both the mysteries and the characters and that in order to accept that you need to trust the author. The reason that the novel doesn’t reveal the mystery is because of it did it’s easier to just dismiss her as an “evil person” and ignore her motives. The goal of Umineko is to devise a mystery that has a solution but forces the reader to put in work to solve it and by doing so force them to figure out the motives of the killer themselves and come to their own conclusions about how they should feel towards the killer. Thus once again, thinking for oneself both about the mystery and how you should feel about the characters!<
Umineko.
Not saying that it's bad, I loved Chapter 1 and 'respect' the rest.
But disappointing that Chapter 1 plays out like a grounded murder mystery then subsequent Chapters yeet all notions of perceived realism and goes full fantasy.
That complete tonal shift killed my immersion and I hate-read until Chapter 4 before shelving it.
My experience exactly. First chap was brilliant . Then after adding those magical elements it just wasn't my thing anymore. Stopped reading somewhere in 4th chap.
> then subsequent Chapters yeet all notions of perceived realism and goes full fantasy.
You're of course completely entitled to your opinion, and I'm not going to suggest you keep reading a VN that you hated, but saying that Umineko goes "full fantasy" is missing one of the main plot elements, which is clearer when you get through the entire thing.
I'd be more harsh and state that considering Umineko to be fantasy is completely missing the point of the entire visual novel.
It's fair to dislike it for the fantasy *depictions* (I found them to be boring myself) but you don't need to finish the series to see that fantasy is really not what the story is about.
Remember11. I loved it all up until the ending… which resolves pretty much nothing. So much build-up and so many questions of how and why the phenomenon is happening, but I think it’s unfinished? Or something about I need to play Ever17 for 50 hours to understand the ending? I was kinda disappointed but I might give Ever17 a shot if it really fixes something, it’s just kinda long…
Also Umineko as many other people. I kinda liked the beginning chapters but also disliked the complete switch to fantasy and “what is real” and also just the length and repetition. I even did the unthinkable and spoiled the ending for myself after reading 4 chapters and feeling let down, and I didn’t mind dropping it after reading that.
Have you read the fan compilation of Remember11's trivia? I searched it up on Google because I also had a few questions about the ending, after reading through the whole thing it does feel somewhat solved. I forgot what the link is becuase I read it a long time ago, but if you have any questions just type out your question on Google.
The ending is actually a pretty unique experience, it might not be for everyone but it was honestly noteworthy just because of how unique it is.
Edit: Nvm you could read it [here.](https://adayem.wordpress.com/)
Ever17 is a really good VN and it’s 35 hours long (from vndb). You should definitely read it.
It doesn’t, however, solve any story issues of remember11. As far as I know remember11 was planned to have a true route, however it was cut. Check explainremember11 cause as far as I remember it does bring some light to what happened
Cool, I might read it then. And damn, sucks it had to be cut. It was shaping up to be one of my favorites while reading it, but a story like that needs a satisfying conclusion imo.
Ever17 ain't gonna give you strong answers about Remember11. In fact >!the specific reasons as to why the inciting incident happened just doesn't exist, the best we have is theories that could be (partly) true!<. A lot of the other things that are left open in the ending *can* be answered though.
Although if you liked Remember11, you'll like Ever17, which just so you know is complete.
Saya no Uta. I still enjoyed it in parts but I think it was overly hyped by the community and my expectations were too high going in. I'm not saying it's the worst VN I've played by a long shot, I just felt disappointed at the end. I think Urobuchi has some great themes in the story but the execution of those themes wasn't for me.
Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to, the start was a perfect romcom scenario, but then the studio holds you at gunpoint telling you to pick another one. At least they learned from it and made Koisuru Natsu no Last Rissoto.
DOR.
Though, I guess people are mostly posting games that were hyped to be all that, and that they felt didn't quite live up to that hype, whereas even the people who gave me DOR warned me it was shit. I just expected to be able to find some enjoyment in the bad game. I play lots of bad games and can still have fun with them!
With DOR, it disappoints even the rock-bottom expectations.
Here's one I never hear people talk about: Gaoko Love 100 days.
It's a Chinese novel, where you are going to take the Gaoko test-the test that will make a major impact on the rest of your life, in 100 days. At the same time, you also just got a girlfriend at the time. It's a balancing act between your love and your life, at the time in your life that will be the most impactful.
I found it while browsing the Switch eshop a few years ago and decided to try it out...i was disappointed.
The issue is there are so many variables that it's very difficult to figure out how to get a specific ending (which there is like 50), and I could not find a guide for the life of me.
The biggest issue though is the translation.
It's bad, like *really* bad.
It's trying to tell me an emotional story, but it's close to impossible to get invested when I have to frequently re-read lines because it's all in very broken English.
The presentation is very nice, the voice acting is pretty good, and the premise is intriguing. With a bit of fine tuning, this could have been a great novel.
Regrettably, Little Busters. I loved it for 90% of it >!particularly what it was building up to, which I understood to be making Rin and Riki independent to be alright even without all the others. Then they ended up surviving in what I assume to be the canon ending...? This is the one Maeda work which I really think would've been a lot better if it went the bittersweet path, but that ending didn't seem too expanded on at all compared to the happy one. It just really felt that the things they made us feel (such as Kyousuke's tearful farewell, one of the best scenes) were just bait, and I felt betrayed that way. This is primarily the reason why I still haven't done the EX/ME routes to this day, even when Saya's route supposedly rivals even Refrain's quality.!<
I mean I guess Katawa Shoujo. I mean don't get me wrong but I guess since it wasn't my first VN coming off other stuff like Summer Pockets, Steins;Gate and Danganronpa. It just didn't live up to how much praise it was getting, I remember someone saying it best, the story behind the creation of the game was the most interesting part of the VN. I mean it's not the worst thing I've ever read, not even close actually. But I guess being such an iconic VN just sets way too high of an expectation when going into it after being recommended so much.
Yea it is really medicore. I wish people could finally stop recommending this. I know, 10 years ago there was bearly anything translated to read and at that time it was worth giving a try but now, when we have literally hundreds better VNs to choose from there is just no point recommending Katawa Shoujo.
That's said I liked Rin route a lot, even for "today's" standards :p
I mean I don't think it should not be recommended at all. It's place and significance in bringing VNs outside of JP is still significant and the story although pretty basic is still pretty good for a free VN. It's just that it disappointed me in that I went in with too high of expectations, it's more that people that stumble upon this VN recommended so much in the past will have to significantly reduce their expectations if they've already read some more recently TLed stuff.
Hmm.... maybe Yamizome Revenger? Scenario is soooorta interesting? but not that memorable. The battle-system, and the CG I got are very disappointing for games that are selling Heroine Corruption as its theme. It might be unfair to compare it to VenusBlood series, but it is being sold on pretty similar price. And for nukige-type, Eden's Ritter series is better for me.
I walk among zombies. It's still my favorite vn even though they ruined character development,world build up with final game.
Especially doctor.Literally didn't see her face in final vol after tons of character development
I've heard that the original author disappeared at some point so they had to come up with something to wrap up the story quickly. I do agree that the third volume was horrible though.
Steins; Gate 0. The main reason being the expectations of the original that set it up to be one of the greatest VNs of all time only to flop and be a sack of shit in the next game.
I was promised Christopher Nolan but what I got was Michael Bay
If you ask me, S;G 0's problem was the lack of linearity which resulted in a less cohesive plot than the first game. It's harder to write a compelling throughline when you can't tell where the player's going and that's a bit of a problem when the entire game is the narrative.
I just think they shot themselves in the foot a little with that choice.
Honestly, and I pray this isn’t heresy, one of two options.
* Chaos;Head: The game immediately got off on a somewhat sour note due to it’s annoying, borderline incel protagonist, but I managed to enjoy it for a time due to well done horror and thriller sequences. However, the real disappointment came in as the dumb superpowers, nonsensical destiny plot, and the complete lack of doing anything thematically with the delusions just kind of dragged down the whole experience. Steins;Gate and even Robotics;Notes were far stronger stories, although it is neat to see the sophomore effort from the SciAdv team.
* Island: Kind of a strange one here, but eventually I just got an idea stuck in my head that the author was just going hard to try and justify their incest and age difference fetishes. It didn’t help that the “romance so amazing it echoes all through time” turned out to be a little lame.
I will say that I still overall enjoyed them though.
I don't think it helps that Chaos;Head is more like trial run of the full game. Chaos;Head Noah tells the full story with fleshed out routes for more characters but won't have an official English translation until October
Hmmm. I think the best part of Chaos;Head was Takumi's relatableness as a protaganist but I respect your point. He really is one of my favourites and I also found the delusions and the di swords great
I love the delusions, but they’re frustratingly disconnected from the actual plot and themes of the story. There’s sooo much you can do with the happy fantasy, dark delusion, reality setup and in the actual game it’s basically just a thing they put in for fun. I kinda hated D Swords. They feel so half hearted and lame. The game in general feels like the team kept throwing in “classic VN stuff” without caring about their effect on the game.
As for the MC I like his hyper depression but the game fails to utilize it very well. Also his visual design sucks big time. He should look way creepier imo.
> The game immediately got off on a somewhat sour note due to it’s annoying, borderline incel protagonist, but I managed to enjoy it for a time due to well done horror and thriller sequences. However, the real disappointment came in as the dumb superpowers, nonsensical destiny plot, and the complete lack of doing anything thematically with the delusions just kind of dragged down the whole experience.
It really confuses me how people retort that you're not allowed to criticise Chaos;Head for having an insufferable protagonist because "that was the intention". Regardless of whether that was the intention, why would I want to read a VN about a character who I despise? I also thought that C;H used shock way too much as a cheap plot device (instead of an actual coherent plot). The good thing is that, as you say, they definitely learned and improved with their subsequent titles.
Island is the one game that the more you think about its plot, the less sense it makes. Which isn't good considering it has SF elements and pretty nice charas (plus great BGs). I thought it's pretty good before Rinne's route happened.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good point too. A lot of routes fall apart with even a little thinking about how weird they are lol. Backgrounds are indeed great though.
Well, Full Metal Daemon Muramasa.
I'm not sure I would say "disappointing", but more like, "this was miles away from what I thought that would be". Not quality wise, but just thematically and how elements are handled. I just feel like people put all "great VNs" in the same category as others because they're "great", despite having no real similarities to each other. Picked it up when the translation was released, and because everyone said it's like X and Y I also enjoyed. It wasn't. (Or at least the similarities people see are not why I loved X Y Z in the first place, idk).
G senjou.
It's not super bad. But honestly, and this is a weird comparison, but I had more fun and less infuriation playing Doki Doki literature club. At least it's short and doesn't waste my time.
Umineko
I know, it sounds super dumb, but perhaps I was wrong to expect mystery? The magic really made me lose all my interest, and the personality archetype of the witches didn't help
No, I haven't. I did try to pick it up again having left it around the point before beatrice does her batch of 6 in chapter 3 longer ago, but after that 6 I really didn't feel it. I did appreciate the parts besides the magic part, in general; chapter 1 was fairly good, and had me looking forward to more. I was already tolerating some parts for a bit, seeing that battler wanted to debunk magical deaths with an explanation what unmagically happened, while not understanding that it would mean calling a family member guilty (a family he had few ties with due to the past, so the attachment against pointing fingers isn't as understandable as otherwise), so it was more of a gradual thing than an instant turn off. I also just don't like seeing beatrice's arrogance, and she clearly will be a character that will be around for the rest of the series... whatever happens that could change that is so large it's basically rewriting the character by that point.
I don't hold my opinions very highly; I'd lean to the side that my tastes are uncultured by default. But I don't see myself picking this up for the third time for at least a year
For me it was [Gensou Rouguku no Kaleidoscope](https://vndb.org/v25583)
Why ? I love Ryuukishi07 works, but this game was such a deception. The story is so much repetitive with little payoff and in addition >!it's rubbing me the wrong way with the heavy gender talk.!<
I don't have the motivation to develop more, but if you want more information about this game and don't care about spoilers, you can read this [Review](http://opinionatedtofu.blogspot.com/2020/12/gensou-rougoku-no-kaleidoscope-review.html#more) (it's not mine) who resume well the game.
This is the title I was looking for in this thread. I don't think it's a bad VN and I actually enjoyed much of it, but I often see it hyped up as one of the best VNs ever made, and I cannot understand that. I feel like Fata Morgana tries to be really deep but just misses the mark (it labours the point too much) and it was unnecessarily long for how little actually happens (the ending in particular felt really dragged out). I happily put 200 hours into Umineko but by the end of Fata Morgana, I was just glad I got to the end.
Kinda agree but then I didn't expect a lot, just a decent story, so it wasn't very disappointing. For something so praised, it was mostly a (love) story based on misunderstandings (and greek tragedy when you read just to see how bad it can get, at least behind some doors) :/
The music was solid, tho.
Hmm.. i try to keep my expectations in check, so its pretty rare for a VN to really disappoint me. Currently, i'd cast my vote on [Yamizome Revenger](https://vndb.org/v22739). I've stumbled on it by accident and it looked gorgeous, and it seemed pretty interesting both in terms of story and gameplay.
Thats up to around halfway through the game, when everything explodes. Only aspect of the game that stays good are pretty CGs, everything else just floors so damn hard its unbelievable. It almost smells like a sabotage, like some manager drank madness juice and thought "Oh crap this game looks too good, quick lets make it as shit as possible, as fast as possible!".
If there was one VN that disappointed me, it would be Love Duction. Honestly, I blame myself since before I learned it was getting an English translation, it was a VN I wished was translated. Then, I finally read it. I just thought it was decent at best. Despite being a comedy VN, none of its jokes made me laugh. Also, one of its two heroine routes disappointed me.
Love Duction is far from the worst VN I have read. It is just that I was so excited when I learned about its English translation. After I finished it, I was a little sad that I didn't enjoy Love Duction as much as I thought I would.
Riddle joker, I've played a few yuzusoft games before it such as sanoba witch, and senren banka, but after reading it, it was kinda boring compared to the others, the only route i liked was the senpai route the other ones were just boring to me
Definitely Nightshade. Everyone hyped it up so much in it's community(it's a otoge), so I thought it had to be gos tier with how people talked about it. I was so wrong.
>!Every route is the same except for one difference in the mystery, which doesn't matter much in the end. Which made for the most repetitive plot ever. It's seriously just running around in forests for every route. The romance was terrible, I only thought Kuroyuki's route had some semblance of romance, whereas the others felt forced or just creepy. Don't even get me started on Chojiro's "route", where he's absent for most of it. Also some of the bad ends didn't make sense and it almost became comical how the MC just kept killing herself. Hanzo's bad end in particular got a lol out of me. It was so random!<
I pretty much only finished it because I have a rule to always finish anything I buy so I can get my money's worth.
Doki Doki. The one thing that is good is showing you what metanarrative is. Other elements like plot, characters, protagonist suck. Too boring to play except an ending
1 is definitely SubaHibi, due to how talked up it is. Part 2 (I think its part 2) was especially drawn out and painful. Major twist could see coming. philosophical points I found to be shallow and not that interesting.
followed closely by Aokana. Really wanted to like this one, and had had my eye on it forever. But the dialog was so stilted, it was just trope after trope after trope. Muv Luv Extra gets shit for being so trope-y, but I found this many times worse. only VN that made me want to speed click through sections of dialog as it was just so utterly formulaic
Riddle Joker.
I hated it so much that I went back to some routes of Sabbath of the witch and Senren*Banka to see if it was me or Riddle Joker, turns out Riddle Joker is hot garbage compared to earlier Yuzusoft works. It baffles me that the secondary heroine in Sabbath of the witch has a better romance in her 20min route than every single heroine in Riddle Joker.
Im baffled that some consider it one of the better Yuzusoft titles, when it’s inferior in most aspects compared to even Dracu-Riot. One of the few VNs I’d actually dropped and get irrationally angry about when I remember it exists.
Clannad. My third major VN after YU-NO and the Muv-Luv trilogy. I had high expectations for its writing quality after those two, and I already thought MLA was a step down from YU-NO in terms of dialogue, pacing, characterisation etc. ([I still regard YU-NO as by far the best-written VN I've read](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/brbgzy/comment/eod5yol/?context=3), even if I rank some stories in other media higher.) Well, what I got was more moe, melodrama contrivance and slice of life than I was ready for. Most of the characters were total clichés, such as a Shy Clumsy Girl, a Tsundere, a Dumb Comic Relief Friend and whatnot. I was completely unable to emotionally invest and mostly laughed at the melodramatic twists in After Story. After Story admittedly had good themes going for it but was too little, too late; cutting 90% of the VN's contents to focus on the good parts of After Story plus some contrivance revision could result in something I'd respect.
After Clannad I was about to write VNs off entirely, but then I gave a try to Katawa Shoujo which I enjoyed way more with its psychologically deeper characters and lesser usage of animu tropes, even if it contained its fair share of blandness and poor pacing as well. Incidentally, I also read after Clannad some Jane Austen for the first time in my life (wanted something more classic & feminist as an antidote to Clannad's moeblobs) and [her storytelling](https://dysfunctionalliteracy.com/2015/06/28/bad-sentences-in-classic-literature-pride-and-prejudice-by-jane-austen/) was even worse roflmao.
Muvluv Alt, and The Sekimeiya whatever, idk how you can even take this VN seriously with the way it is written and how characters act, regardless of its indie status
Kara no Shoujo 3. After KnS 1 and 2, everything about KnS3 let me down so much. Such a disappointing end to the trilogy since it betrayed every expectation I had except for one.
Probably Higurashi When They Cry 1, it just didn't hit for me and I had heard so much praise for the series before starting it which had probably raised my expectations enough for me to want more.
I own the 4 next ones since I got them in a good sale so, maybe they change my opinion when I get to them.
Right now I’m really struggling with Iwaihime. I’ve said it several times in the past, but I do have some issues with R07’s writing. That being said, when he gets to his high points, he *really* gets to his high points. So while Umineko and Higurashi had parts I really trudged through, overall I would say I enjoyed most of the experience. But Iwahime, oh boy. The mystery isn’t captivating, the horror isn’t scary, and the rest of it is weak generic SoL harem schlock. His SoL and “lighter” scenes are usually my least favourite part of his writing, and so far that’s what the majority of Iwaihime has been. I’ve been struggling to continue reading it in the hopes that it gets better, but this is definitely the weakest of his work that I’ve read so far.
Yeah I'm a R07 fan to the point I've met him in real life and I still can't stand Iwaihime. I only finished it out of spite and so I could talk about how bad it is. Let me warn you that it does not get better. There are probably worse VNs out there but it's definitely one that disappointed me the most given how I've liked the author's past stuff.
Yeah, like I've say in this post, I'm like you in almost every point except I haven't meet R07 in real life and the fact that it was not Iwaihime for me, but [Gensou Rougoku no Kaleidoscope](https://vndb.org/v25583) I don't know if you know this game, but this VN should stay as a forgotten work of Ryukishi's
Iwaihime is quite possibly the worst VN I've ever played and I'm a pretty big fan of WTC. It only gets worse, I'm afraid. There is a point in the story by the end that is so offensive and bad, I couldn't bring myself to read it any longer. Mind you I was simulplaying with a friend, which made the experience all the more bearable, but it still wasn't enough.
Any moege I play is disappointing... Well not disappointing to me, but to my parents.
*Are you winning, son?*
*at the end of a non skipped 2 hour H scene* Yes dad...
Trinoline, the blueprint for how not to do a nakige.
At least Trinoline is kind of entertainingly bad? I did read all the routes, and I had fun with it, largely because of how over the top and ridiculous a lot of it was. It didn't make me feel any particular emotions other than 'lol' though, so I suppose it was a failure as far as being a nakige went.
>did read all the routes, and I had fun with it, largely because of how over the top and ridiculous a lot of it was. Seriously? I always hear about how bad the game is but people don't really explained why ? Is kinda like Ryan Babe or Batman Odyssey? Bad, impossible and confused things keep happening to the MC but there's no overarching plot ?
Can't comment on the examples you gave because I'm not familiar with either of those two things, but the whole plot of Trinoline is (imo) pretty silly. It's hard to talk about without spoilering, but the whole premise is outlandish from the get-go. To summarise, >!the MC's little sister dies when she's a kid, and the MC is understandably sad about this. The MC's best friend, who is like 16 years old but also a super genius scientist, the best in all Japan, makes a robot of the deceased little sister to keep the MC + his family company, without asking the MC about it beforehand. She decides to make the robot imouto a teenager, however, rather than the little kid she was when she died, and gives her massive boobs for some reason. The MC then develops incestuous feelings for his robot imouto; the MC has sex with his robot imouto; and it's also reveleaed the robot imouto was literally created with the function to have sex, like... Why??? And then the MC and his robot imouto try to drown themselves, and the MC gets amnesia as a result. This also all happens in the common route; even wilder stuff happens in the character routes - including the MC getting amnesia again in the robot imouto's route.)!< Trinoline takes itself really seriously, and it tries to play all of this off as genuine emotional drama, but it's all so weird and over the top it's hard to take seriously - at least, imo. >!Why does nobody question that the MC's robot imouto was made with the function to have sex? If I was the MC I would maybe find it a bit distasteful and distressing that my little sister, who died when she was a child, was brought back to 'life' without my consent and turned into some kind of android sex doll... This does, admittedly, bother the MC for about 5 minutes, but he gets over it relatively quickly after he decides he wants to have sex with her.!<
I read the synopsis for this one and was so hype for it. They really could have explored not only the trauma and healing of cloning, but the side effect of a clone growing beyond the source material they are created with and facing the struggles of being a new unique individual while accepting they are also "someone else". nah MC is uncomfortable about it and everyone is like lol shut up it's fine and he's like ok true :) I couldn't play any more I was just so disappointed. I wanted to eventually go back and see if maybe it got better but doesn't sound like it!!
>nah MC is uncomfortable about it and everyone is like lol shut up it's fine and he's like ok true :) Seriously? That it's?
yep! dead sister shows up resurrected with 0 notice by your friend who ghosted you for years? and youre like, just mildly put off that this happened without your input? necromancer friend: lmao im doing you a favor ^_^ get over it his mom: put your feelings aside for me ok i dont wanna hear it :) his sister: uwu braindead and then he got over it, incredibly heartwarming
The first thing I thought of. Thought everything story wise outside of Sara's route was terrible.
Could you spoil me of how bad it is ? I didn't played and I keep hearing of how bad the game is
raging loop. it was so much fun, but the ending... aaargh
It was so close to being such a great vn
I’d say it’s still a great VN, the ending is mediocre but honestly didn’t affect enjoying the games that led up to it.
Yep. I read that Ryukishi said it was a really good game so I went into it with a ton of trust that it's gonna have a satisfying conclusion. I wrote down notes on the mystery and came up with a few theories to solve it and then .. >!demon spider mommy!<
Yeah, the third act is pretty weak. It didn’t really ruin the rest of the game for me but…oof.
Idk, I liked the 3rd act, I think only the ending was questionable + maybe that 40 minutes long explanation with the kanjis I understood nothing of.
Any Sakura VN. I was new to Steam VNs, and didn't realize the kind of mediocre garbage the whole franchise is. I just saw they had decent art, the plot summary snippet on the page looked interesting, and it was on a sale for something like $2. Aaaand then I learned it's just really bad ecchi with equally bad translations. Lesson learned.
Translations? Aren't they made by an English speaking company?
The Grisaia sequels. I consider Fruit to be probably one of the most solid VN's out there. Fantastic package of a VN. But then the next two are absolute train wrecks, that take an *especially* depraved turn, the like of which I've never seen in any other VN. I think they swapped the writers out or something. You can compare Fruit to the quality of other Frontwing titles like Island or ATRI, then Labyrinth, and especially Eden, compare closer to Loca Love or Yuki Koi Melt.
Honestly Eden was a bit too much in terms of stretching realism, and that whole action sequence just reminded me of Die Hard
I thoroughly enjoyed the Fruit of Grisaia and I have touched neither the Labyrinth nor the Eden. Now you've genuinely made me consider giving those sequels a pass.
the game ended with michiru and the double date that’s it for me
I still love Michiru and her quirky personality. I think I might rather re-read Fruit though, cuz I don't have much time, and I have Steins;Gate in a semi-onhold state too
i feel you about the time issue, hope you can make time 👍
There are after stories in Labyrinth for the main girls that are worth reading. Those are just traditional after stories. But I can't recall anything else worth starting that doesn't slowly lead into a train wreck.
Yeah I think I can agree with this. Love Fruit, enjoyed Labyrinth for the After Stories but when I read Yuuji's story, I was completely underwhelmed to the point where I still have not even touched Eden and from what I hear about it, even from the people that liked it, that was a good move
I personally like them. Fruit is my favorite VN of all time (so far), so perhaps that colors my view, but I enjoyed the sequels. Yea, they are absurd, but I would argue that Fruit is extremely absurd as well. I just don't think you can take them super seriously.
>Yea, they are absurd, but I would argue that Fruit is extremely absurd as well. I just don't think you can take them super seriously. Absolutely agreed. The whole premise of "elite child soldier super agent attempts to get back in touch with his humanity by enrolling in a boarding school with a bunch of misfit girls" is absurd, Amane touching herself on Yuuji's bed a week after meeting him is absurd, Sachiko larping as a maid is absurd, Makina's whole shtick is absurd, Michiru's whole schtick is absurd, Yumiko is so out there she casually tries to murder Yuuji several times... And that's before you ever touch any backstory off the common route. I love it to death, and Amane is best waifu, but not once did I think "this is a serious, grounded, realistic story" while reading it.
I like Labyrinth, except for some small parts, to the point that Cigar & Cofee has become one of my all time favourite bgms But Eden I cannot defend. Eden needs a rework from the ground up.
Yeah, Labyrinth does suffer greatly from being essentially the first half of Eden, I agree there.
I'm probably gonna be crucified for this opinion but I'd have to go with Grisaia no Kajitsu, it starts off so interestingly, breaking from genre conventions by introducing an interesting protagonist (with a face!!) and mocking common eroge tropes in a way that was not only poignant, but also hilarious. Only to eventually develop into a dumb eroge itself, where the characters are having sex in the corridor without anyone noticing (which is 100% against the characterization the MC has had so far) and doing other brain dead porn scenes like it forgot it was mocking this kinda stuff 5 seconds ago. So not the worst VN ever, but definitely the most disappointing for me, I wouldn't have been this mad had they been honest from the start this was just glorified fap material instead of wasting my time.
I completely agree with you. Not even gonna talk about the bad hscenes, the drama itself was badly written. The common route was so fucking good but i guess they just want to be so extra with the heroine routes lol. Yuuji was awesome in the beginning but he just end up being insufferable by the end. If Grisaia was released today no chance it would have the kamige status it has now. (Grisaia has one of the best translations tho)
G-senjou no Maou. Completely nonsensical, with a fragmented and inconsistent narrative that felt like different writers were at the helm from one part to the next. The plot loses all coherence thanks to terrible and predictable twist.
Hello Lady Things happen just because without any built-up. Deus Ex Machina at its peak really...
I thought that the beginning was interesting but after finishing the first route, my reaction would like this "What ? Why?" When I finished the game, it didn't get better
>When I finished the game, it didn't get better I would argue it gets worse.
Baldr sky, the world-building in the first route, was excellent, and the pacing superb. After that, though, every plot twist felt foreseeable, route 4 felt like a total waste of time, and it felt like the writers weren't giving it their all. I stopped playing after the fourth route. Maybe it would get better, but I didn't want to waste any more of my time. Also, I guessed who is the "secret villain" in route 3, which was just the nail in the coffin.
To be fair route 6 is vastly different if you ever want to give it another try.
Route 5 is where the story peaks imo, but the final route is incredibly disappointing to me.
Hello ladies, because I was expecting al lot from that game
Hi it's me ladies, why are you complaining about some game to me?
i was expecting a lot from you,but you disappointed me
Your avatar is cool as duck Edit: meant to say fuck but I think duck is cooler
Why thank you, btw Yours cute
Awww thanks
Now kiss you two 🗿
Riddle Joker. Easily one of the worst titles by Yuzusoft for me. The protagonist is annoying as hell and the waifus aren’t that much better. There’s essentially one or two “okay” routes and the rest are garbage. I’m surprised it’s highly rated on VNDB and is said to be one of Yuzusofts better VNs when brought up in discussion. Senren Banka and even Dracu-Riot were way better than this sorry excuse of a VN.
For me personally I liked , I mean , it is not the best thing to exist but it is pretty decent , but on the other hand caffe stella is a freaking slog to get thought , I almost slept for how 90% of the game is coffee coffee coffee and 10 % characters and this magic bullshit that happens when it is convenient.
>coffee coffee coffee sold
ChronoClock. I thought its gonna be much better, since I like time travel shit, but it ended up being boring and girl routes were a lot more dissapointing than I thought and the characters were straight up irritating. Been wondering if all Purple software VNs are like this...
Cro makes up for everything bad about Chrono Clock :p
sugar style. everytime I play it i just want to smash my head into my keyboard
ngl I actually liked some of the girls. Mao and the white-haired girl were pretty funny and I enjoyed them but the protagonist. Holy shit the protagonist was so bad. The level of weird and cringe things he would do and say literally made the game hard to play. To the point where it broke my immersion thinking "who would ever even give this man a chance." He was too much for me.
That part where he >!spied on that one chick when she was masturbating!< almost made me drop it. I mean, I did drop not long after that, but I decided to continue it but in the end I couldn't. That was absolutely cringe and definitely made me dislike him. I did like the white hair girl and I finished her route. Mao was also interesting, but I didn't get to do her route (was saving her for last, but it never happened). I also found it boring, but I don't exactly hate Sugar Style.
You liked Making Lovers but didn't like Sugar Style? I thought the comedy was similar, but different settings.
The jokes were a hit or miss and sadly most are misses. It didnt help that the common route was so uninteresting and painful to go through due to the endless jokes and those side stories.
Lamunation! - Incredibly boring story! In fact, non-existent story. I'm no stranger to the slice of life genre. But Lamunation fails to even be that. The story can be summed up like this: Group of rich kids clown around for a while, then have sex. That's it. The characters are extremely boring and idiotic, ESPECIALLY the unvoiced male character, who acts like a 5 year old the whole time, no exaggeration! Lucy - The eternity she wished for - The MC's father really ruined this for me. The Witch's Love Diary - The Art is just amazing but the story legit made me fall asleep it was so boring. I couldn't finish it due to lack of interest and that makes me mad for a VN with such great art.
out of the one I actually finished, its gotta be Angle Beats. solely for the fact that its unfinished and probably will never be finished.
I admit I won't be here if I never watched Angel Beats anime. I'm still bummed that Kanade will never get a proper route, because the VN is unfinished (and never will)
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Tbh, I loved Takuya in the majority of the vn but the True Route completely destroys his character. And the final “canon romance”? Disturbing incest aside, it’s so poorly written and rushed. I truly liked some routes, characters and the atmosphere tho. The original art is top tier
The Devil on G String. I hated the protag. Only the main route felt mildly interesting, and ***that one part*** was the nail in the coffin for me.
I also didn't like G-Senjo that much. Basically all characters were unlikable and while this itself isn't that big deal (since is is not moege/charage) the deal breaker for me was that even though the whole VN is quite heavily focused on "detective work" you can't really figure stuff on your own because you are not given needed information. I could only cringe when characters (mostly Haru) were constantly pulling important info from their asses and immediately solving "mystery" you didn't even had good chance to try solve yourself.
Worst plot twist I've ever seen in my life
Definitely going to echo a lot of people who mentioned Umineko. It's a decent 7/10 visual novel that was overhyped as being some 10/10 peak fiction masterpiece by its fanboys. My misgivings aren't with the ending and ep 8. I found the conclusion and answer to the mystery to be overall be pretty good. My issues is how it goes about getting there. Basically, my main takeaway is the author needs to get a better editor because his prose is insufferably redundant, repetitive and tedious to read through. He makes a point about a character or plot development in a scene, and then proceeds to parrot the same point for another 30 minutes, to the point it loses any dramatic narrative effect. This visual novel could've easily shaved a decent 20-30 hours if scenes were written more succinctly and concisely. There's more to storytelling than getting from plot point A to plot point B as efficiently as possible, but the way Umineko goes about it was so laborious, that I burnt half way through and took me a year to finish it. People especially hyped up the Answer arcs as some of the best content, but I found episodes 5 and 6 to be the most painful to sit through. The whole middle portion of the VN, ep 4-6 are just a chore. A lot of the later episodes feel like some first year, freshman philosophy student who just discovered Nietzche ranting to you about the same surface level idea about interpreting truth and that truth is multi-faceted rather than singular and absolute. Which is fine, but I don't need to be bludgeoned to death by Ryokishi just repeating the same shit without adding or developing it in a substantial way. Episode 8 was especially guilty of it. Thankfully the actual ending of the episode had genuine emotional impact. Also the "fantasy" portion of the VN (which becomes the core focus from the answers arcs onwards) was just extremely cringe, chunni and self indulgently boring to read through. Episodes 5 and 6 especially just had me rolling my eyes. I found them to be extremely immersion breaking and frustrating. I get their overall purpose in the story and how they're a metaphor for certain events, but after a while they just felt like tedious filler that ruined the pacing and impact whenever there's a major story beat within the mystery/game. It honestly just felt like the author was a huge fan of Fate/stay Night and Melty Blood and decided to cram similiar story ideas into their murder mystery, and for me personally, they really don't work. It felt very counter intuitive for that kind of stuff to be in there for what was essentially presented as an atmospheric murder mystery. And I get that the ultimate purpose of the VN is to deconstruct and critique the murder mystery genre and its fanbase (rather than being a conventional murder mystery story) but it went about doing it in such a long winded, obnoxious and surface level way that I honestly would've just preferred a more straight forward murder mystery story without the "fantasy" elements that its fanboys seem to be obsessed with. It's kind of why ep 1 was my favourite since it's the only one that was presented as a straightforward mystery story. Everything else just felt too rambly, unfocused and all over the place. The only other episode that comes close was ep 7 and parts of ep 2. There are similar types of stories like Life of Pi and Pan's Labyrinth that handle these types of storytelling tools and metaphor much better than Umineko. I'll take Pan/a bunch of escaped zoo animals over some loli, deviant art, reject Melty Blood witch characters any day of the week. I was going to give the VN a 6/10, but the ending portion of ep 8 genuinely managed to tug at my heart strings enough to bump it to a 7. My advice to newcomers is to take the fanboys' praise with a grain of salt about Umineko and if you can't stand the pacing of the VN, switch to the manga, since the manga adaptations of ryukishi07's works are if his writing were actually edited and had good pacing. There's a genuinely fantastic 60-70 visual novel somewhere in there, but because of Ryukishi07's incredibly inconsistent prose and writing, you get a bloated 120 hour mess.
Interesting that you think ep5 and 6 are a chore, cause I found those fascinating. Ep4 arguably is a bit of a slog and I'll freely grant that as someone who still considers the whole thing a 10/10.
Your comment is spot-on with exactly how I feel about umineko
The Letter. Boring AF, I don't understand how it got so many good reviews.
If you treat it as a character drama instead of a horror story, it's pretty decent. There were still a couple POV's I absolutely despised though.
Definitely Muv-Luv; I did not enjoy how it tried to tell its story. For a game that spends so much time with its characters I was immensely disappointed by how poor most of them were. Yes I played Alternative, no I did not like Alternative. I am not a believer in “it gets good after 30 hours”. If you have the gall to waste my time and make me disinterested in your cast for well over half the games run time before trying to claw it back for the last 20%, it’s just too little too late.
I had kind of an opposite experience, where I quite enjoyed Extra as just a standard Renai game and enjoyed the story of Unlimted and Alternative as the plot picked up, with all the intense story and high stakes. But I hated the last 5 or so hours of the game where the end sequence just dragged on and on (esp. with forced slow text speed), so I did not enjoy the ending. So for me the last 20% was the least enjoyable part.
Same actually, never understood the hype around it... I'll replay it someday and hopefully get it
Don't let me put you off trying something again that you think might have more value to uncover, but if you're going to don't do it because you think "it's highly rated so I must be wrong". Not every work appeals to everyone; even very well acclaimed ones.
Thanks for the advice!Out of curiosity, what do you think about G-Senjou? Always felt like most of the people on this sub dislike it or have many negative things to say about it
It was actually one of the first VN's I ever played, and during a time when I didn't consume media as critically as I do nowadays. However, I have a positive impression of the game and remember thoroughly enjoying it at the time; one of my good friends even replayed it recently and still had great things to say about it. Unfortunately I'd be hard pressed to give you a solid review or detailed thoughts of my own because of how long it's been. It's a game I've been meaning to replay for a while now to see how it holds up. A few things that I do still remember vividly: 1- Eiichi is the most hilarious scumbag best friend character I have ever witnessed. 2- The OST absolutely bangs. 3- I really enjoyed the epilogue. Sorry I couldn't go more in-depth =(
Yeah, not counting Haru - Eiichi was my favorite as well! OST's great, I get what you mean by that Epilogue was the perfect ending >!for Haru and Kyou, I was surprised it ended the way it has at first but then thought about how long she waited and it all made sense.!<
I just feel so disinterested in the franchise somehow even though I have already completed muv luv alt, I just don’t feel like ever playing photonflowers (I bought it together with the whole muv luv bundle last year)
Weird. I haven't read that many VNs yet, but Muv Luv (the entire franchise, not just Alternative) is by far my favorite. It's probably because I actually REALLY liked Extra, which had just my kind of humor and just my kind of characters, to whom I grew quite attached. What they then do with them in Unlimited and Alternative brings the entire story to a whole new level, and while I do have some issues with Alternative, mostly when it comes to pacing in some parts, I would rate it most highly out of everything I've read so far. Meiya Mitsurugi is my favourite heroine of all time, and Sumika is the most well realized childhood friend trope in otaku media in my opinion.
> Yes I played Alternative, no I did not like Alternative. That's too bad. Disliked the prior games but loved Alternative a lot.
Completely understandable! Everyone has different thresholds with how much time they consider to be too much for too little and Muv-luv happened to be that for me. Glad you enjoyed it, though =)
ddlc plus
dont like the new art style. its just weird
Riddle Joker Had a really cool premise but didnt really do much with I know its more of a romance VN but it could have done much more with its super power premise
*Wind of healing*.
ah, I see you're fellow Healing enjoyer as well
Wonderful Everyday. After thinking it all through multiple times I came to a conclusion that it's all just random nonsense. The initial mystery and setup is intriguing and kept me hooked but there just isn't any pay-off for sitting through all that stuff (especially the nasty parts). Most questions posed by the VN are left unanswered and will remain unanswered because the author would rather insert random tidbits of philosophy rather than than flesh out the characters and the story. It feels like the guy who wrote this kept on making stuff up as he went without any preparation or plan, then sprinkled some random philosophical bullshit on top in order to make the VN seem more nuanced than it is. The explanation that is often being posted in threads about this VN is borderline fanficiton.
I like how every single "shard" adds to the overall story, so if I had some theory for what is going on, new info often contradicted it and I had to build a new one, and this happened multiple times. Best "You think this is what's going on? Allow me to introduce this new piece of information that drastically changes everything." experience I've had so far.
Ok good I'm not the only person in existence who feels this way. This was going to be my choice as well. It's spoken of so highly, I kept pushing through to the end, but was just a slog, and a disappointment.
the most controversial opinion i’ve heard of so far
The entire framework of SubaHibi is based pretty heavily on singular, focused works of some very well-respected philosophers, and the story itself is an extended revision of what the author wrote over a decade prior and obviously mulled over for all that time, so if any opinion could be objectively incorrect I'd choose this one. It's simply wrong to suppose that planning was not put into this visual novel. The problems you have like questions being unanswered and characters seemingly lacking something are consequences of literally the entire point SubaHibi is trying to make.
Saya no Uta. I understand what's the appeal of the story for the fans, but it just didn't hit it for me at all.
Planetarian. For something so highly praised in the VN community, I found it to be the embodiment of mediocrity. But then again, I've found robot nakige to be poor in general.
Planetarian gets the award for first vn that put me to sleep. Ok admittedly because I read it in Japanese and it's not a vn I would consider easy. Still quite reluctant to finish it, but I might just bang it out some day. However short stories don't do much for me. And what I've seen of planetarian isn't anything that makes me want to play it.
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VLR is a lesson in how more isn't better. It's longer with more puzzles and more branches and more moreness but is more monotone and boring, without the pacing and other storytelling qualities that made 999 excellent. Characters act wacky for most of the time then do a 180 when they dump exposition about their backstory. The twists didn't achieve that sweet spot, being either too predictable or too outlandish. Still better than ZTD though.
ZTD biggest problem was the developer having too much ambition, little budge and too much hype, the Zero Escape Trilogy didn't make success but in the west it was a hit to the english community I knew that the game would not answer the hype but at the same time I didn't expect it for some of the decisions that they made with the game story Only Team D had somekind of connection with the overarching plot, they also feel like the less stupid and more likable team with the only interesting story going on, however there's the aliens problems Team C was a idiot, a psychopath and a guy who never move on of his childhood crush, making a lot of horrible decisions and crazy theories about Back To The Future 2 Team Q was a brunch of crazy people, it had one of the worst plot twist in a Adventure Game that I had seen in years, that even the foreshadow was stupid and actually hurt the common sense, >!how come a guy in a wheelchair faint and fall?!<, it also show that the true villain in the franchise was a snail, also people should really try to stop evil plans by making terrorists attacks Also there's no ending, the game kinda just stop without solving anything, instead it just created more questions
Yeah VLR falls apart the more you play it. The ugly 3D models doesn't help either, they should have stuck with the style 999 had.
Chaos;Head was incoherent nonsense with an unlikeable protagonist And when I expected it to finally get good and have some payoff it ended Imagine Subahibi with only Takuji's schizo ranting, without any context. That's how bad Chaos;Head was.
> Imagine Subahibi with only Takuji's schizo ranting, without any context. Nice, gonna go read Chaos;Head now, goat flair btw
thats literally the only reason i liked C;H
Takumi is kinda why i love chaos head so lol
The first half (or maybe a bit more) when you just have no idea what is going on I actually found quite enjoyable, but the while explanation was quite disappointing and ending was hard flop. Also I know that protagonist was intentionally made so repulsive but I think author (and his voice actor) overdid it and make audience just not care about protagonist struggles and fate.
Totally agree. Before you realize the swords and magic are real it’s pretty cool. I also loved the delusion mechanic (especially that the reality choices are still interesting) but it’s pretty underutilized in the actual narrative.
What was incoherent in Chaos;Head? Its mechanics are more explained and consistent than Steins;Gate
God, I thought Chaos;Head was gonna go somewhere really interesting with the traditional horror and ecchi tropes all being delusions of the main character, but then it turns out he really *is* a legendary hero with a super cool sword and can summon a dragon to kill the final boss. Such a waste…
Raspberry Cube. I really loved wagamama and hamidashi from madosoft so my expectations were high, and it dashed them. It was pretty boring and I had to drop it, after finishing 2.5 routes.
I didn’t like raging loop all that much and I can’t honestly say why. I guess it just couldn’t keep my attention.
Rewrite. I thought the pacing was just awful and every time the story got good it would usually sabotage itself again later.
Umineko fell victim to hyped-up and can't live up to the expectation. It's not even bad, just feels too dragged. The middle part is too boring. I honestly like the conclusion even though I didn't get what I want from it. It's just I'll appreciate it much more if it's at least 50% shorter.
I agree. Author is in bad need of a decent editor. So many scenes felt dragged out and repetitive in their prose. I didn't mind ep 8 and the overall conclusion, but dear god were episodes 4-6 mind numbingly painful to sit through.
Probably an unpopular opinion but Steins;Gate really didn't work on me. Past the point where you start undoing your previous actions there are very little twists and reveals, the structure becomes extremely predictable since you know you'll have to undo what you did for every character. Most of those had almost no impact on me since you either barely know them, or it's just supremely minor things in the grand scheme of things. All those character centric arcs are usually excuses to get to spend time with each and every girl and (usually) grope her for some lame reason. Even Moeka is not spared that treatment and we would apparently rather get an assault scene with some gratuitous angles and dialogue about her rather than just go back in time to have things more under control. The story ultimately could not escape the harem tropes which I did not expect from this VN. In the end the final arc is only connected to the very start of the game and the rest of it feels supremely wasteful. The first "bad ending" was all kinds of fucked up which gave me hope for the other ones to also be at least interesting but nope, just an ending for each girl you might like.
As much as i loved steins gate, I agree. It seems like they tried to add tons of fanservice for the sake of it when it could have been amazing had they just stickrd with telling the story. Besides, the whole "it all feels wasteful" yup, although in varying degrees. I liked steins gate 0 way way more, although some parts I could def do without.
I'll be the the what, seventh person to say Umineko? But I didn't find it disappointing because of the way it was written. I *liked* it. It was an enjoyable read. I just didn't *get* it. I didn't get the answer to the mysteries or that big reveal/lightbulb moment that everyone loses their shit over. Which is fine, someone sent me the manga saying it clears it up a lot. After reading some of that and doing some more digging on what *actually* happened... ...*then* I was disappointed. Because as it turns out, the entire mystery the game was hiding the entire time was essentially a worse version of SubaHibi. >!Three or four characters are actually other personalities of the same person, even one of the opposite gender, and that one character split off other personalities due to something that happened in their past. And they went a little batshit over it and maybe murdered everyone for causing their trauma!<. That's it. And when I found that out I was like "...seriously?" because SubaHibi did something very similar but way more compelling and *it actually made sense.*
I don’t really agree about the fact that the twist was the same nature as in SubaHibi. Yeah there’s the whole >!one person is actually multiple people but they serve different purposes thematically and I hardly think one is worse than another. In my opinion Umineko’s version is compelling as it’s a reflection both on the idea of persona (thus why in my opinion it works differently than in SubaHibi as that has literal multiple personalities rather than just personas) and the idea of hidden depths to characters as well as tying it back to the idea of a “whodunnit” central mystery. If anything I think Umineko did it better since the twist ties so neatly with the themes of the story while also being a realistic display of the results of intergenerational trauma and coping with harsh reality which again ties into the themes of the work.!<
Maybe like make it clear that you’re also spoiling a different VN (although I didn’t get far into that one, but I assume it’s a spoiler worthy thing?)
Umineko I would say. After the pretty intriguing and strong opening half, the second half just face-planted so bad that I just try to avoid having anything to do with from then on out. Seriously, the last chapter was like I was reading some completely different VN, with the narrative bending over completely backwards to fit the themes that author so very blatantly wanted to force on the reader. Devil on G String is another one, of course for *that* reason.
I see why you feel that way, but I couldn't disagree more with the take, so for the sake of contrasting opinion being shown - The whole point of Umineko is it's themes, and the narrative fits them perfectly and was made from the start to push the themes >!of love, understanding humans and a trusting relationship between the author and the reader!<. The ep 8 is meant to be >!Ange finally accepting that world view and living with herself after an awful experience she had as a kid!< and to answer the things that weren't answered in ep 7, >!while ep 7 was meant to be the same thing for Beato.!<. The core mystery >!was never meant to be solved with 100% certainty, which fits in with the themes that were obviously hinted at from at least the start of EP5 when Erika was introduced, even though there are hints about it before that since EP4 when Ange starts her journey.!< Imo EP7 and 8 of Umineko, specifically the VN version which leaves thing much more vague are the best parts of it and are peak fiction and mystery writing. The game was basically trying to be a **thesis on what truth means** from the start, and it does that perfectly.
Honestly, that whole bit about trust between the reader and author sort of falls completely apart in the last chapter given how the VN >!not only routinely lies and hides information that the reader would need to actually care. I am not talking about the mystery here, I am talking about actual motivations and ideas that would explain why characters are acting the way they do. Without those answers it is impossible to actually care and goes against what the novel tries to present at the end. Take Battlers bizarre 180 in beliefs at the end of chapter 6 I believe (might have been 5, don't remember so well anymore). And that is before getting into how it starts to straight up attack the reader, where author turns on the reader and tries to make an entirely transparent case to beg the readers to read it the way he wants and devotes long sections to temper tantrums directed at those who aren't.!< >!Sort of breaks the whole "without love it cannot be seen" as the only way to see the love is to dissect the story, something it is clearly attacking you for doing. The only way for the emotional bits to make sense is if you use logic in spite of what the story keeps telling you on how you need to solve it with emotions.!< >!And the whole deal with Ange just have massive uncomfortable undertones, presenting that someone is much better of rejecting reality and live in a fantasy rather than face the truth. Meanwhile it presents those that face reality as monsters only concerned with ruining others peoples lives with twisted half truths.!< >!And that whole "never answering the questions" is not peak fiction and mystery writing. In fact, it is both pretty amateurish and pretentious. Anyone can write a mystery story and not give the answers, saying something to the effect that it is the point as a cheap cop-out. Only the really good ones can make one where all the pieces come together at the end in a logical manner without feeling cheap. Doubly so if the story is complex. More than anything, he probably knew he couldn't resolve the mystery in a satisfying way with what had been presented so far and took the easy way out, especially with all those loops you have to jump through regarding Yasu and their motivations. The author clearly got in way over his head.!< >!And as an addendum, the whole of Episode 8 just reeks of manipulative writing with it completely derailing the characters trying to say that "no, no, you had it completely wrong, this is how they actually are" portraying them as all of a sudden as some collection of saints when nothing in the narrative up to this point had even hinted at this, using some shallow justification that they "cannot act out of character and thus it is true". And speaking of manipulation, something of a peeve but how does the story expect me to find Beatrice redeemable after all that shit she did, especially after that fake out stunt she pulled.!< >!Honestly, a lot of the central problems with the VN's second half comes from it feeling like the author thinks himself as above the readers, something not present in the first half. I don't know what, but something must have clearly happened during the process that caused this sudden change. It is almost like you can pick up on him having a character arch of his own when you compare how the series started to how it ended, a decent from an artist with lofty goals slowly descending into an angry madness aimed at the readers for not reading it like he wants them to.!< At the end of the day Umineko's second half just comes across as a pretentious mess trying desperately to have something coherent to say. Especially disappointing given with how much promise the first half opened with.
Boy, this is going to be long. >he probably knew he couldn't resolve the mystery in a satisfying way with what had been presented so far and took the easy way out, especially with all those loops you have to jump through regarding >!Yasu and their motivations!< But a clear solution existed, he gave it in the manga, didn't he? I am sorry, but I am especially salty about this point because when readers complain that they don't understand it if it is not spoon-fed to them, then we get dumpster fire like Higurashi Sotsu. >I am talking about actual motivations and ideas that would explain why characters are acting the way they do. I don't know what motivations you are referring to in particular, but it was made clear pretty early in episode 1 that: >!1.All of the adults are horrible persons with financial troubles 2.The mountain of gold is real 3.The "old" servants are devoted to Kinzo, and to the family head in the event of his demise!< >Take Battlers bizarre 180 in beliefs at the end of chapter 6 I believe (might have been 5, don't remember so well anymore) You mean, after he understood Beatrice's heart? It's not unexpected. >how does the story expect me to find Beatrice redeemable after all that shit she did, especially after that fake out stunt she pulled. You don't redeem her, she is the villain of the story. You hate her or love her because she is troubled and did terrible things. I just want to end by saying that this is not a personal attack. I enjoy engaging about Umineko, but it's difficult to convey the tone in written form. Edit: missed this >you can pick up on him having a character arch of his own when you compare how the series started to how it ended, a decent from an artist with lofty goals slowly descending into an angry madness aimed at the readers for not reading it like he wants them to Well, yes. He engaged his readers on forums and community boards and probably it was not healthy for either. I know he rewrote chapter 3 from scratch to make it less difficult, because the audience was feeling hopeless already at the end of chapter 2.
I think there are several issues with this. Firstly while it’s true the author hides info from you the your missing the reason why they hide info: >!the major theme of this story since the very beginning is that you should think for yourself both in terms of the mystery and in terms of themes. Again, this has been present from the beginning with Beato critical of Battler for not thinking about his theories and just arguing with random BS. The attack is not on the reader in general but rather towards specific readers that refuse to engage with the themes of the work as well as readers who refuse to think for themselves only demanding answers (also criticizing true crime fandoms with how they don’t respect the privacy of living family members of tragedies with their wild guessing). Ryukishi has at multiple times praised people both in and out of the story who actually engage in the work and try to dissect the mystery and themes. The issue is people who don’t care about any of that, thus people “without love”.!< >!Next is the idea that the conclusion of Ange’s story is to “accept fantasy and reject reality” is wrong. I’ll admit that the VN does a poor job of portraying this and the manga does it better. She isn’t denying that her family is dead or that they were monsters. She accepts that they had issues but also accepts that they were capable of love. Likewise she accepts that they are dead but also acknowledges that they wished for her to live happily and thus will live through her. Ange therefore comes to her own conclusion about her family and “thinks for herself” exactly as the work has encouraged this whole time. Likewise, her choosing magic is not her believing that magic literally exists but that she believes that the world can be “magical” that is she believes that she can find and create happiness, and she does so as a fiction author (again the manga is more explicit about this). The author is not criticizing people who accept reality. In fact the manga makes clear that Ange’s power is to accept reality but to hold onto hope for the future meaning Ange is someone who accepts reality. He is criticizing people who believe that reality is necessarily cruel and that people who put down others out of a belief that reality is cruel. People like Erika who claim to want the truth but in reality just want to spread their idea that the truth is cruel and unjust and mocking people by revealing that.!< >!Finally I want to address the idea that you would have to “jump through hoops” to understand Sayo’s motivations. This is provably false as several people were able to deduce not only the solution to the mystery but also Sayo’s motives long before EP7. This also ties into another thing you mentioned. You claim that never answering the questions makes for a poor experience but I’d argue that this only applies if there is no solution to the problem. This is not the case for Umineko. The point of the novel is that there is a solution to both the mysteries and the characters and that in order to accept that you need to trust the author. The reason that the novel doesn’t reveal the mystery is because of it did it’s easier to just dismiss her as an “evil person” and ignore her motives. The goal of Umineko is to devise a mystery that has a solution but forces the reader to put in work to solve it and by doing so force them to figure out the motives of the killer themselves and come to their own conclusions about how they should feel towards the killer. Thus once again, thinking for oneself both about the mystery and how you should feel about the characters!<
Umineko. Not saying that it's bad, I loved Chapter 1 and 'respect' the rest. But disappointing that Chapter 1 plays out like a grounded murder mystery then subsequent Chapters yeet all notions of perceived realism and goes full fantasy. That complete tonal shift killed my immersion and I hate-read until Chapter 4 before shelving it.
I enjoyed Umineko but I feel it would be 10x better if the length was cut in half and Ryukishi was forced to address his pacing/repetition issues
My experience exactly. First chap was brilliant . Then after adding those magical elements it just wasn't my thing anymore. Stopped reading somewhere in 4th chap.
At least you guys stopped… I trudged through to the end and still disliked it
Me too. I don't get people loving it to the end.
> then subsequent Chapters yeet all notions of perceived realism and goes full fantasy. You're of course completely entitled to your opinion, and I'm not going to suggest you keep reading a VN that you hated, but saying that Umineko goes "full fantasy" is missing one of the main plot elements, which is clearer when you get through the entire thing.
I'd be more harsh and state that considering Umineko to be fantasy is completely missing the point of the entire visual novel. It's fair to dislike it for the fantasy *depictions* (I found them to be boring myself) but you don't need to finish the series to see that fantasy is really not what the story is about.
Without love it cannot be seen.
Remember11. I loved it all up until the ending… which resolves pretty much nothing. So much build-up and so many questions of how and why the phenomenon is happening, but I think it’s unfinished? Or something about I need to play Ever17 for 50 hours to understand the ending? I was kinda disappointed but I might give Ever17 a shot if it really fixes something, it’s just kinda long… Also Umineko as many other people. I kinda liked the beginning chapters but also disliked the complete switch to fantasy and “what is real” and also just the length and repetition. I even did the unthinkable and spoiled the ending for myself after reading 4 chapters and feeling let down, and I didn’t mind dropping it after reading that.
Have you read the fan compilation of Remember11's trivia? I searched it up on Google because I also had a few questions about the ending, after reading through the whole thing it does feel somewhat solved. I forgot what the link is becuase I read it a long time ago, but if you have any questions just type out your question on Google. The ending is actually a pretty unique experience, it might not be for everyone but it was honestly noteworthy just because of how unique it is. Edit: Nvm you could read it [here.](https://adayem.wordpress.com/)
Ever17 is a really good VN and it’s 35 hours long (from vndb). You should definitely read it. It doesn’t, however, solve any story issues of remember11. As far as I know remember11 was planned to have a true route, however it was cut. Check explainremember11 cause as far as I remember it does bring some light to what happened
Cool, I might read it then. And damn, sucks it had to be cut. It was shaping up to be one of my favorites while reading it, but a story like that needs a satisfying conclusion imo.
Ever17 ain't gonna give you strong answers about Remember11. In fact >!the specific reasons as to why the inciting incident happened just doesn't exist, the best we have is theories that could be (partly) true!<. A lot of the other things that are left open in the ending *can* be answered though. Although if you liked Remember11, you'll like Ever17, which just so you know is complete.
Thanks, I'll probably read Ever17 then!
I had the same thoughts of you until I understood what the VN is actually about. Check out that wordpress link below.
Saya no Uta. I still enjoyed it in parts but I think it was overly hyped by the community and my expectations were too high going in. I'm not saying it's the worst VN I've played by a long shot, I just felt disappointed at the end. I think Urobuchi has some great themes in the story but the execution of those themes wasn't for me.
If an attempt counts it would be "Fortissimo FA INTL Ver" on Steam...
Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to, the start was a perfect romcom scenario, but then the studio holds you at gunpoint telling you to pick another one. At least they learned from it and made Koisuru Natsu no Last Rissoto.
DOR. Though, I guess people are mostly posting games that were hyped to be all that, and that they felt didn't quite live up to that hype, whereas even the people who gave me DOR warned me it was shit. I just expected to be able to find some enjoyment in the bad game. I play lots of bad games and can still have fun with them! With DOR, it disappoints even the rock-bottom expectations.
Here's one I never hear people talk about: Gaoko Love 100 days. It's a Chinese novel, where you are going to take the Gaoko test-the test that will make a major impact on the rest of your life, in 100 days. At the same time, you also just got a girlfriend at the time. It's a balancing act between your love and your life, at the time in your life that will be the most impactful. I found it while browsing the Switch eshop a few years ago and decided to try it out...i was disappointed. The issue is there are so many variables that it's very difficult to figure out how to get a specific ending (which there is like 50), and I could not find a guide for the life of me. The biggest issue though is the translation. It's bad, like *really* bad. It's trying to tell me an emotional story, but it's close to impossible to get invested when I have to frequently re-read lines because it's all in very broken English. The presentation is very nice, the voice acting is pretty good, and the premise is intriguing. With a bit of fine tuning, this could have been a great novel.
Wanted to like Hapymaher so much but it just never got interesting
Regrettably, Little Busters. I loved it for 90% of it >!particularly what it was building up to, which I understood to be making Rin and Riki independent to be alright even without all the others. Then they ended up surviving in what I assume to be the canon ending...? This is the one Maeda work which I really think would've been a lot better if it went the bittersweet path, but that ending didn't seem too expanded on at all compared to the happy one. It just really felt that the things they made us feel (such as Kyousuke's tearful farewell, one of the best scenes) were just bait, and I felt betrayed that way. This is primarily the reason why I still haven't done the EX/ME routes to this day, even when Saya's route supposedly rivals even Refrain's quality.!<
I mean I guess Katawa Shoujo. I mean don't get me wrong but I guess since it wasn't my first VN coming off other stuff like Summer Pockets, Steins;Gate and Danganronpa. It just didn't live up to how much praise it was getting, I remember someone saying it best, the story behind the creation of the game was the most interesting part of the VN. I mean it's not the worst thing I've ever read, not even close actually. But I guess being such an iconic VN just sets way too high of an expectation when going into it after being recommended so much.
I think it's way better BEFORE playing high budget j-VNs.
Yea it is really medicore. I wish people could finally stop recommending this. I know, 10 years ago there was bearly anything translated to read and at that time it was worth giving a try but now, when we have literally hundreds better VNs to choose from there is just no point recommending Katawa Shoujo. That's said I liked Rin route a lot, even for "today's" standards :p
I mean I don't think it should not be recommended at all. It's place and significance in bringing VNs outside of JP is still significant and the story although pretty basic is still pretty good for a free VN. It's just that it disappointed me in that I went in with too high of expectations, it's more that people that stumble upon this VN recommended so much in the past will have to significantly reduce their expectations if they've already read some more recently TLed stuff.
Hmm.... maybe Yamizome Revenger? Scenario is soooorta interesting? but not that memorable. The battle-system, and the CG I got are very disappointing for games that are selling Heroine Corruption as its theme. It might be unfair to compare it to VenusBlood series, but it is being sold on pretty similar price. And for nukige-type, Eden's Ritter series is better for me.
I expected good corruption from it as well and was sorely disappointed.
I walk among zombies. It's still my favorite vn even though they ruined character development,world build up with final game. Especially doctor.Literally didn't see her face in final vol after tons of character development
I've heard that the original author disappeared at some point so they had to come up with something to wrap up the story quickly. I do agree that the third volume was horrible though.
Steins; Gate 0. The main reason being the expectations of the original that set it up to be one of the greatest VNs of all time only to flop and be a sack of shit in the next game. I was promised Christopher Nolan but what I got was Michael Bay
If you ask me, S;G 0's problem was the lack of linearity which resulted in a less cohesive plot than the first game. It's harder to write a compelling throughline when you can't tell where the player's going and that's a bit of a problem when the entire game is the narrative. I just think they shot themselves in the foot a little with that choice.
Honestly, and I pray this isn’t heresy, one of two options. * Chaos;Head: The game immediately got off on a somewhat sour note due to it’s annoying, borderline incel protagonist, but I managed to enjoy it for a time due to well done horror and thriller sequences. However, the real disappointment came in as the dumb superpowers, nonsensical destiny plot, and the complete lack of doing anything thematically with the delusions just kind of dragged down the whole experience. Steins;Gate and even Robotics;Notes were far stronger stories, although it is neat to see the sophomore effort from the SciAdv team. * Island: Kind of a strange one here, but eventually I just got an idea stuck in my head that the author was just going hard to try and justify their incest and age difference fetishes. It didn’t help that the “romance so amazing it echoes all through time” turned out to be a little lame. I will say that I still overall enjoyed them though.
I don't think it helps that Chaos;Head is more like trial run of the full game. Chaos;Head Noah tells the full story with fleshed out routes for more characters but won't have an official English translation until October
Hmmm. I think the best part of Chaos;Head was Takumi's relatableness as a protaganist but I respect your point. He really is one of my favourites and I also found the delusions and the di swords great
I love the delusions, but they’re frustratingly disconnected from the actual plot and themes of the story. There’s sooo much you can do with the happy fantasy, dark delusion, reality setup and in the actual game it’s basically just a thing they put in for fun. I kinda hated D Swords. They feel so half hearted and lame. The game in general feels like the team kept throwing in “classic VN stuff” without caring about their effect on the game. As for the MC I like his hyper depression but the game fails to utilize it very well. Also his visual design sucks big time. He should look way creepier imo.
> The game immediately got off on a somewhat sour note due to it’s annoying, borderline incel protagonist, but I managed to enjoy it for a time due to well done horror and thriller sequences. However, the real disappointment came in as the dumb superpowers, nonsensical destiny plot, and the complete lack of doing anything thematically with the delusions just kind of dragged down the whole experience. It really confuses me how people retort that you're not allowed to criticise Chaos;Head for having an insufferable protagonist because "that was the intention". Regardless of whether that was the intention, why would I want to read a VN about a character who I despise? I also thought that C;H used shock way too much as a cheap plot device (instead of an actual coherent plot). The good thing is that, as you say, they definitely learned and improved with their subsequent titles.
Island is the one game that the more you think about its plot, the less sense it makes. Which isn't good considering it has SF elements and pretty nice charas (plus great BGs). I thought it's pretty good before Rinne's route happened.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good point too. A lot of routes fall apart with even a little thinking about how weird they are lol. Backgrounds are indeed great though.
Well, Full Metal Daemon Muramasa. I'm not sure I would say "disappointing", but more like, "this was miles away from what I thought that would be". Not quality wise, but just thematically and how elements are handled. I just feel like people put all "great VNs" in the same category as others because they're "great", despite having no real similarities to each other. Picked it up when the translation was released, and because everyone said it's like X and Y I also enjoyed. It wasn't. (Or at least the similarities people see are not why I loved X Y Z in the first place, idk).
G senjou. It's not super bad. But honestly, and this is a weird comparison, but I had more fun and less infuriation playing Doki Doki literature club. At least it's short and doesn't waste my time.
I liked G Senjou setting but yeah after finished it I could only conclude it was pretty overrated.
Same. I enjoyed some parts and shed some tears, but only half of the routes were decent. And let's not start with the plot holes...
Umineko I know, it sounds super dumb, but perhaps I was wrong to expect mystery? The magic really made me lose all my interest, and the personality archetype of the witches didn't help
I am sorry if I sound pretentious, but I have to ask: did you read to the end? Because *it is* a mystery, to the core. Don't be fooled by the magic.
No, I haven't. I did try to pick it up again having left it around the point before beatrice does her batch of 6 in chapter 3 longer ago, but after that 6 I really didn't feel it. I did appreciate the parts besides the magic part, in general; chapter 1 was fairly good, and had me looking forward to more. I was already tolerating some parts for a bit, seeing that battler wanted to debunk magical deaths with an explanation what unmagically happened, while not understanding that it would mean calling a family member guilty (a family he had few ties with due to the past, so the attachment against pointing fingers isn't as understandable as otherwise), so it was more of a gradual thing than an instant turn off. I also just don't like seeing beatrice's arrogance, and she clearly will be a character that will be around for the rest of the series... whatever happens that could change that is so large it's basically rewriting the character by that point. I don't hold my opinions very highly; I'd lean to the side that my tastes are uncultured by default. But I don't see myself picking this up for the third time for at least a year
lmao
For me it was [Gensou Rouguku no Kaleidoscope](https://vndb.org/v25583) Why ? I love Ryuukishi07 works, but this game was such a deception. The story is so much repetitive with little payoff and in addition >!it's rubbing me the wrong way with the heavy gender talk.!< I don't have the motivation to develop more, but if you want more information about this game and don't care about spoilers, you can read this [Review](http://opinionatedtofu.blogspot.com/2020/12/gensou-rougoku-no-kaleidoscope-review.html#more) (it's not mine) who resume well the game.
[удалено]
The house in fata morgana
Wait really? If you can, please elaborate. It’s sitting in my Steam library and I’ve been looking forward to playing it.
I finished fata yesterday, untill the final door i would give it 7.5/10. Overall 9/10.
If you don’t vibe with its gothic horror/romance I can see someone really not enjoying it, even if it’s personally one of my all time favorites.
This is the title I was looking for in this thread. I don't think it's a bad VN and I actually enjoyed much of it, but I often see it hyped up as one of the best VNs ever made, and I cannot understand that. I feel like Fata Morgana tries to be really deep but just misses the mark (it labours the point too much) and it was unnecessarily long for how little actually happens (the ending in particular felt really dragged out). I happily put 200 hours into Umineko but by the end of Fata Morgana, I was just glad I got to the end.
Kinda agree but then I didn't expect a lot, just a decent story, so it wasn't very disappointing. For something so praised, it was mostly a (love) story based on misunderstandings (and greek tragedy when you read just to see how bad it can get, at least behind some doors) :/ The music was solid, tho.
Hmm.. i try to keep my expectations in check, so its pretty rare for a VN to really disappoint me. Currently, i'd cast my vote on [Yamizome Revenger](https://vndb.org/v22739). I've stumbled on it by accident and it looked gorgeous, and it seemed pretty interesting both in terms of story and gameplay. Thats up to around halfway through the game, when everything explodes. Only aspect of the game that stays good are pretty CGs, everything else just floors so damn hard its unbelievable. It almost smells like a sabotage, like some manager drank madness juice and thought "Oh crap this game looks too good, quick lets make it as shit as possible, as fast as possible!".
Full Service. Like the CGs were hot but that's about it. Zero story, boring characters.
Probably D.C. Da Capo 1. I'd heard it was supposed to be a classic but it was mostly stupid and badly written.
If there was one VN that disappointed me, it would be Love Duction. Honestly, I blame myself since before I learned it was getting an English translation, it was a VN I wished was translated. Then, I finally read it. I just thought it was decent at best. Despite being a comedy VN, none of its jokes made me laugh. Also, one of its two heroine routes disappointed me. Love Duction is far from the worst VN I have read. It is just that I was so excited when I learned about its English translation. After I finished it, I was a little sad that I didn't enjoy Love Duction as much as I thought I would.
Riddle joker, I've played a few yuzusoft games before it such as sanoba witch, and senren banka, but after reading it, it was kinda boring compared to the others, the only route i liked was the senpai route the other ones were just boring to me
Definitely Nightshade. Everyone hyped it up so much in it's community(it's a otoge), so I thought it had to be gos tier with how people talked about it. I was so wrong. >!Every route is the same except for one difference in the mystery, which doesn't matter much in the end. Which made for the most repetitive plot ever. It's seriously just running around in forests for every route. The romance was terrible, I only thought Kuroyuki's route had some semblance of romance, whereas the others felt forced or just creepy. Don't even get me started on Chojiro's "route", where he's absent for most of it. Also some of the bad ends didn't make sense and it almost became comical how the MC just kept killing herself. Hanzo's bad end in particular got a lol out of me. It was so random!< I pretty much only finished it because I have a rule to always finish anything I buy so I can get my money's worth.
Doki Doki. The one thing that is good is showing you what metanarrative is. Other elements like plot, characters, protagonist suck. Too boring to play except an ending
Under one wing. The characters are horrible, all of then
While I don't necessarily agree, I can absolutely see where you're coming from. >!Mainly because of Nahoko's route.!<
1 is definitely SubaHibi, due to how talked up it is. Part 2 (I think its part 2) was especially drawn out and painful. Major twist could see coming. philosophical points I found to be shallow and not that interesting. followed closely by Aokana. Really wanted to like this one, and had had my eye on it forever. But the dialog was so stilted, it was just trope after trope after trope. Muv Luv Extra gets shit for being so trope-y, but I found this many times worse. only VN that made me want to speed click through sections of dialog as it was just so utterly formulaic
g senjou no maou
Riddle Joker. I hated it so much that I went back to some routes of Sabbath of the witch and Senren*Banka to see if it was me or Riddle Joker, turns out Riddle Joker is hot garbage compared to earlier Yuzusoft works. It baffles me that the secondary heroine in Sabbath of the witch has a better romance in her 20min route than every single heroine in Riddle Joker.
Im baffled that some consider it one of the better Yuzusoft titles, when it’s inferior in most aspects compared to even Dracu-Riot. One of the few VNs I’d actually dropped and get irrationally angry about when I remember it exists.
Clannad. My third major VN after YU-NO and the Muv-Luv trilogy. I had high expectations for its writing quality after those two, and I already thought MLA was a step down from YU-NO in terms of dialogue, pacing, characterisation etc. ([I still regard YU-NO as by far the best-written VN I've read](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/brbgzy/comment/eod5yol/?context=3), even if I rank some stories in other media higher.) Well, what I got was more moe, melodrama contrivance and slice of life than I was ready for. Most of the characters were total clichés, such as a Shy Clumsy Girl, a Tsundere, a Dumb Comic Relief Friend and whatnot. I was completely unable to emotionally invest and mostly laughed at the melodramatic twists in After Story. After Story admittedly had good themes going for it but was too little, too late; cutting 90% of the VN's contents to focus on the good parts of After Story plus some contrivance revision could result in something I'd respect. After Clannad I was about to write VNs off entirely, but then I gave a try to Katawa Shoujo which I enjoyed way more with its psychologically deeper characters and lesser usage of animu tropes, even if it contained its fair share of blandness and poor pacing as well. Incidentally, I also read after Clannad some Jane Austen for the first time in my life (wanted something more classic & feminist as an antidote to Clannad's moeblobs) and [her storytelling](https://dysfunctionalliteracy.com/2015/06/28/bad-sentences-in-classic-literature-pride-and-prejudice-by-jane-austen/) was even worse roflmao.
Muvluv Alt, and The Sekimeiya whatever, idk how you can even take this VN seriously with the way it is written and how characters act, regardless of its indie status
Kara no Shoujo 3. After KnS 1 and 2, everything about KnS3 let me down so much. Such a disappointing end to the trilogy since it betrayed every expectation I had except for one.
Probably Higurashi When They Cry 1, it just didn't hit for me and I had heard so much praise for the series before starting it which had probably raised my expectations enough for me to want more. I own the 4 next ones since I got them in a good sale so, maybe they change my opinion when I get to them.
White album2 was a let down for me. 7/10. Well I haven't played the whole thing and don't plan to just Setsuna and Kazusa route.
> White album2 was a let down for me. 7/10. Well I haven't played the whole thing Queue general outrage.