Clephas' VN Home

Common First, I should say this VN isn't like Purple Soft's last few works. The common route is straight comedy and heart-warming antics combined with some minor drama and with a bit of personal growth for the protagonist on the side. It is good comedy and the personal growth is actually quite nice, since the protagonist as he started out would have driven me insane inside two hours. It is also relatively short, as are the heroine routes so far. I managed to finish the common route and one heroine route in around seven and a half hours... Makoto Makoto is a very straightforward girl, the daughter of a local yakuza group who has been ordered to live as a normal girl by her family. The funny thing is, she isn't one of those template heroines who dislikes her criminal family, but rather respects and loves them. This results in a rather hilarious personality that comes out a great deal in her route. This VN's route structure is really unusual, in that there is literall...

I know many people have chimed in on the debate about what precisely VNs are to them... but the three main schools of thought pretty much come down to 'story-delivery system', 'pretty picture delivery system', and a mixture of both. To an extent, I can sympathize with all three... but I fall mostly with the 'mixture of both' school of thought with a leaning to the 'story-delivery system' end of things. Why? Because, when it comes down to it, all forms of otaku entertainment are story-delivery systems, when you get right down to it... even if that story is somewhat out there, disjointed, or so mixed in with pointless moe that it is hard to recognize. Of course, that is in the larger sense, so it is basically playing with sophistry on my part to think that way... *loves making it impossible for anyone else to win the argument* Nonetheless, it is a valid point. I love stories, in general. I live for fiction in all its forms...

Yes, I hate trophies, achievements, or whatever you choose to call them. Why? At least part of it is because I was a gamer back in the NES era, and I liked that sense of private accomplishment it gave me for beating a game on my own. Another reason is simply because I hate the way achievements and the like break immersion, particularly in rpgs and games with a good story. I can say this outright... I almost never finish games where I can't disable trophies. I'm not interested in showing off, and I'm even less interested in people knowing my gaming habits. I hate that someone can look at my steam profile and know which games I own. I hate that people can look at my psn profile and see which ones I've played or am playing. I hate it even more that it feels like the game itself is reporting to the companies that produced it whenever I have the online function on. If you hadn't figured it out, I am a gamer that likes his privacy. I ha...

First, I should say that the last part of this game was actually worthy of Eushully in terms of dramatic flair. For those who probably think I was bashing this game out of hand, let me also say that there were lots of hints of what is best about Eushully. There are great characters/companions, some truly excellent character interactions, and even a few really stand-out scenes scattered throughout the first three fourths of the game... but the problem is that they are spaced out with a ridiculous amount of map-grinding for very small gain and a definite feeling that you are screwed by hitting maps too early (since you want to grab as many companions as you can before you hit the extra/optional ones, in most cases). I can't help but praise the way they do their best to immerse you in the previously only hinted at animalistic demi-human races and hints of their culture, and there are also plenty of references to the ongoing themes of this particular world ...

Ok, for those who read my first post on this game, you probably have a good picture of how I see the gameplay in this game. There are hints of really excellent possibilities in the actual battle system... if you can ignore the fact that you have to equip skills (as medals) - even the personal ones - and the fact that many of the characters you get access to later are at one of two extremes... either way too weak or way too strong for the time in which you get them. As an example, the angel is way too strong when you get her, and Tsumugi is really weak when you get her... it generally goes that way throughout the entire game, as you get various characters. Making it worse is the fact that all the advantages of the game system go to the characters you got earliest, meaning that evolving your party past a core of characters you got relatively early on is fairly difficult... Another issue is that the orbs you get as you go along are way too slanted in how they appear...

Ok, first I should say that this is based in the Ikusa Megami (Battle Goddess) series world. I haven't checked to see what time period it is in, but judging by the statements so far, I'd guess it was after the events in Madou Koukaku but before the second half of Verita. That said, this is based in the most fleshed-out fantasy world in all of VNs, so there is plenty of lore to draw on and add to, and Eushully is definitely milking the setting's popularity for all it is worth. Unfortunately, the gameplay aspect is a bit disappointing. First, there is no way to get stronger except during initial completions of a mission/map. You basically get orbs from killing certain enemies and the initial finishing of a map for each character that you can plug into their individual grids to increase their stats and - when you complete a bingo-like line of five - their levels. Equipment comes in the form of medals that have skills, stat-boosts, and other effects that can make the gam...

I am completely done - though without playing Mirai Kanojo - and I'm not interested in continuing (the new month's releases are already coming out, lol). For those who are interested... the contest between the VNs came down to a four-way fight between Shirogane, Hanasaki, Valkyrie, and Utakata. Naturally, I considered them all as fairly as possible, but in the end I picked Hana no No ni Saku Utakata no as VN of the Month March 2015 For those who were expecting me to pick something else... sorry. I honestly felt it was the best of the crop, though there was nothing god-level in the group.

So far this VN takes the form of a straight-out high-quality charage, with some nakige elements. The protagonist, Yuuma, is like the ultimate lazy guy... so much so that he researched ergonomics solely so he could create the ultimate pillow for sleeping in class. The heroines are Ayano - the much-older senpai who is a genius but has been held back more than any other person in the history of the school -, Inori - a lone-wolf girl who hates people who ask her personal questions -, Wakaba - the protagonist's best female friend, who acts more like a guy than a girl-, and Hikari - the 'traditional' normal girl who fell in love with the protagonist at first sight. Common The common route is surprisingly short, with the story splitting off relatively quickly after a set if meaningless formalities in the form of 'choices' (choosing girls off a map for their scenes is a horrible way of picking your path). That said, it is generally amusing, and it does s...

This VN is by the makers of Pure Girl, Innocent Girl, and the Grisaia series... Front Wing. As such, I couldn't ignore it, since it turned out not to be a nukige... though it feels like one toward the end of the heroine paths. To be honest, I didn't have any hopes for this game, so it was nice that it had such good humor in it - think Pure or Innocent if they weren't nukige. I'm keeping this short because playing this game got really stressful in the heroine paths, and it is a bit hard for me to be spiteful here. To be blunt, the structure of this VN is classic 'normal' charage. The common route is about two thirds of the game, and it is used for introducing the characters and building the overall dynamic and character relationships... and the heroine routes are straight 'fall in love>ichaichaichaicha (insert infinity sign here)'. The sad part is that the common route is really high quality... but the heroine routes ...

This is a VN by Applique, the makers of Concerto Note and Tasogare no Sinsemilla. Like most of their other VNs, this one has a layer of the supernatural mixed in with slice-of-life, wherein the supernatural becomes integral to their daily life. There are two major supernatural aspects present from the beginning. One is the protagonist, Michitaka, and his ability to see the traces of other human beings as colors, both on they themselves and the objects they touch or own. The other is Ouka... whom I'll deliberately avoid explaining so as to avoid spoiling a really funny scene early on. Common Route The common route is really straightforward, with Ouka being something of an armchair detective for figuring out events that happen in Michitaka's daily life. His interactions with his two osananajimis (Reina and Shione) and the other people around him are well-described and serve well in introducing you to both the heroines and side-characters. The actual split fo...

To be honest, I generally dislike Giga's non-Baldr VNs, simply because the dip in quality (outside of visuals) is so sharp it isn't even funny. From dialogue and narration to voices and music, it is unbelievable how little comparative effort this company puts into its non-Baldr games. That said, this is actually quite a decent charage... though I do have some serious complaints. I'll go ahead and get those complaints out of the way first.   Cons First, for all that the sound effects are great and the actual slashing effects are good, that isn't a substitute for good combat narration. I found it really hard to get into the fights, simply because the writers quite obviously either didn't have the capability or the desire to add in the kind of detail that is exciting to fans of action stories. Making it worse was the degree to which several of the ending fights were anticlimactic or made deliberately comical. After all the buildu...

Because this VN uses the same basic structure as G-senjou no Maou, the 'common route' is actually the 'true route', so I felt a need to evaluate each heroine route separately from it. People who have read my comments on the forums will realize I despise the structure, because it has a tendency to be an excuse for h-scenes and inconsistent half-assed side endings (Eustia and G-Senjou are both perpetrators of this particular crime). Keeping that in mind, I'm going to strive for something resembling fairness in evaluating each path individually, then go back and evaluate whether they managed to be consistent despite using this particular story-structure. This VN is a fantasy one with mild action (so far) based around the protagonist's struggles to fulfill his objective (I won't spoil it for you if you weren't crazy enough to read that spoiler-stained summary on vndb). Because of the way the story at the beginning introduces the protagonist and the settin...

This VN, like most of Rosebleu's VNs, is a fantasy/comedy VN. In this case, it is based in another world, where the protagonist was summoned and helped defeat the Demon King with his ex-girlfriend the Hero Scyana, the perverted swordmaster Hairen, and the berserk cleric Fran. The story actually begins after all these events have occurred and the protagonist has broken up with Scyana (for good reason), and he has started to attend an academy in the kingdom's capital city. As is to be expected with a Rosebleu game, the introduction of the character dynamics and the background story is both interesting and hilarious. Like most games by this company, they tend to rely on tried and true running jokes in human form that are introduced at the beginning of the story, such as the Dragon Race's reaction to Ururu in Tiny Dungeon. The actual story is quite simple... not that the actual process isn't interesting and emotional. Quite the reverse, actually... ...

Loli-Clephas recently emerged from Clephas' mouth, beginning a reign of terror in which billions have already perished, their blood staining her massive metal teeth, their flesh sliding down her throat. As the universe trembles at the unleashing of this, the most beautiful and terrible of all the monsters ever conceived in the depths of the Abyss, Clephas himself is busy playing VNs for his VN of the Month blog, having allowed his female self free reign to indulge her hungers for the first time in several billion year   Unfortunately for the otakus of the world, because the true Clephas wasn't paying attention, Loli-Clephas began her invasion of the 2D realm, devouring all of the heroines that the true Clephas hadn't claimed as his own, leaving a barren wasteland of VNs, role-playing games, and strategy-rpgs void of heroines, only white spaces and a few drops of animated blood left behind. Even now, Akibahara's denizens weep with despair, as the...

A few words before I dig into the common route. Minato-soft is known primarily for its comedy/drama large-scale charages, Majikoi and Tsujidou-san. These two are characterized by a unique style of characterization that goes more for comic relief than is standard with most VN-makers, as well as a tendency toward over-powered heroines who can take on the world by themselves (all three main heroines of Tsujidou, Momoka in Majikoi, and Kirsti in this one). This one is no exception, so those who played Majikoi will probably be unsurprised by the 'feel' of the character and character interactions. Common Route On the other hand, unlike other Minato-soft VNs, this one's common route takes up over half of the game as a whole (close to to two-thirds). With another company this would probably not be so much of a downer, but considering the degree to which Minato-soft wrote each main heroine route on a medium to large scale in each of its previous works, this was more than a little ...

First, for those of you who are fans of the Steampunk Liar-soft games, this isn't one of them. Rather, it is based on an alternative version of the 1920's where curses, magic, and monsters exist and the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 never happened. Japan has come away from its first major military contacts with the outside world as the victor over Russia, which is making its bloody transition from Empire to communist state. Garan, one of the two protagonists, is a tengu... as arrogant as tengu are by legend ('to become a tengu' is a byword for someone whose ego has gotten way out of hand, incidentally). He is arrogant, dismissive of mortal concerns, and naturally believes himself to be the ultimate creature in existence on the face of the Earth. In opposition, Kitora is a gentle girl who works selling meat-waste that is used as cat food door-to-door. Kitora is... a bit of an airhead who is very slow to anger and whose anger doesn't last long. ...

First, the announcement. After careful - extremely careful - consideration, I have chosen Nanairo Reincarnation as VN of the Year 2014. The runners-up were Semiramis no Tenbin and Bradyon Veda . 2014's top ten, based on quality with a 70% emphasis on story elements, a fifteen percent emphasis on sound, and a fifteen percent emphasis on visuals. 1. Nanairo Reincarnation 2. Bradyon Veda 3. Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai (yes, I didn't list this one as a runner-up, because I was physically incapable of doing so) 4. Semiramis no Tenbin 5. Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa 6. Satsukoi 7. Houkago no Futekikakusha 8. Hello, Lady 9. Kami no Ue no Mahoutsukai 10. AstralAir no Shiroki Towa Story element evaluations were split fifty-fifty between intellectual and emotional impact. Ideally, any given story should touch upon the intellect and the emotions, leaving an 'imprint' behind.

I've been playing this one off and on since it came out, but I went ahead and finished it today. To be honest, this game's difficulty level is about three levels higher than either of the previous ones, whereas the actual gameplay isn't improved all that much from the second one. The addition of a town-building element just made the game tedious, rather than adding anything to it.  Story wise... a good beginning, some good moments in the center, and a last part that falls flat on its face. The final antagonist is too flat, and the last boss battle is fairly anticlimactic. I'll be blunt and say that the second game did a better job in terms of story. I honestly can't give this game a good rating.

This is the second part of my marathon of the Bunny Black series. In this one, it is some years after the events of the first game, and the protagonist and friends find themselves at war with a faction of angels... Now I'm going to be straight here... the game system is a lot less refined than the one in the first game, at least in terms of the battles. There is far too much guesswork involved, and as a result, you can find yourself in severe trouble at times, even if you came prepared. This is probably the reason why a lot of fans of the first game were disappointed with this one. For dungeon-crawler games, the first one was a decent meal with dessert and this one is like breakfast at a truck stop diner. I also found it far more annoying this time that monsters start at level 1 when you hire them, since it is actually much, much slower to level in this one. Story-wise... it is actually several levels above the first one, if you ignore how abrupt...

Bunny Black is a VN and dungeon crawler by SofthouseChara, a company known for complex and well-designed game systems based in fantasy worlds. Bunny Black is one of their earlier games, and it is a lot more focused on the actual gameplay than the story. However, the gameplay is actually quite well-designed, with the ability to purchase monsters to serve as the other members of your party, the ability to choose how you will advance Darcs (the protagonist), and a mission system reminiscent of many other games of the type, where you go to the bar/item shop and take on missions to advance yourself in rank, explore the dungeons, and obtain items and money. To be honest, this game requires a ton of grinding for the early part of the game, both to obtain the rank necessary to use more powerful monsters and the levels necessary to survive battles. However, once you reach around level 35-40, and have a solid party, you can enter the dungeon known as the 'Gate ...

Vendetta After playing this route, I am severely tempted to immediately abuse my authority as the master of this blog and just name Silverio Vendetta VN of the Month for February. However, that really would be an abuse, so meh. Vendetta's route... let's just say it blows you away. The battles, the twists, and the overall awesomeness that accompany them are almost equivalent to that of Marie's or Rea's route in Dies Irae in impact. The way that so much of the cast evolves during the course of this particular path - Zephyr in particular - is just... superb. In terms of narrative quality, this by far blows away the other two routes, which is no surprise, considering that Vendetta was marked as the true heroine from the beginning. As a heroine, she frequently comes across as being contrary or paradoxical in nature, but at heart, she is anything but. When it comes to Zephyr, she is love incarnate... though it is sometimes tough love (frequently...

Amatsu Oboro Chitose Chitose is a nearly pure-blooded descendant of the people of Japan, a nation that has come to be worshiped as a god by many, because of the way its technology altered the face of the world and civilization. Her sub-family of the Amatsu, the Oboro, were the ones who were obsessed with justice and noblesse oblige, which shows really obviously in her daily actions and reactiions. My first conclusion upon finishing her path was 'I am so glad I did Milly first'. Why? Simple. Chitose's path is a lot more obviously action-packed, with more terrible battles and insane twists and turns. It reveals the core elements that Milly's didn't touch upon, which makes me wonder why they didn't just go ahead and lock in a Milly>Chitose>Vendetta progression. Chitose's path does leave a few elements revealed in Milly's path untouched, but the sheer action-packed brutality and melodrama is on a different scale...

Common This VN was made by the same team that did Zero Infinity and Electro Arms, and it shows (in some ways). They have definitely improved their character balance and the way they present them, as well as the overall storytelling. The common route is fairly long (think about ten hours for me, about the same amount of time it takes me to completely finish a small charage), and it covers a rather large amount of content (there is no wasted time in this game at all, and yet it still manages to be as long as any of the other VNs by this team). For those who are unclear about the setting, it is based a thousand years after a disaster that ends our civilization, due to a huge breach in the dimensional walls that basically renders our most important technologies worthless, giving us the power of Astral instead. First, the protagonist... Zephyr. He is the antithesis of a hero, to be blunt about it. His nature is very base (he isn't a rapist though), with a tenden...

Mayura Mayura is the second of the two secondary heroines... the protagonist's osananajimi who, predictably enough, has hidden her love for him since childhood (*pukes sand*). Anyway, having gotten my Minori complaints out of the way in previous posts, I won't bore you further with this. Mayura's route is your basic 'genki osananajimi' route combined with Minori's love of excessive drama. There are plenty of hard-hitting moments, that I'm sure that romance lovers will follow with excitement. The route itself is well-written (I'll give Minori this, for all their flaws, their writing is usually pretty good). If I have a complaint, it is that, once again, there is perhaps a bit too much focus on Touwa, though that is perhaps unavoidable, considering how much of the game is about her. Mayura herself is a lively otaku with a particular fondness for 'sentai' (think Power Rangers) and heroism in general. Mayura is perhaps the best s...

First, for those who haven't already read it, these are my thoughts on Minori: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/46/entry-341-clephass-rave-minori-vns-and-why-i-dislike-them/ Read that if you want to know where I'm coming from when I talk about Minori, because I don't like repeating myself, unless it is to brainwash people into playing Dies Irae.   Common Route I'm going to come out and say this... this is a typical Minori common route. It feels like every other Minori game (other than Eden*) I've played, and I came away from it as pissed off and depressed as you might expect. Self-hating protagonists are all well and good, but self-hating protagonists who hate themselves and fail utterly to learn from their mistakes are irritating as hell.   Haruka ... now if you expected me to rave and hate about Haruka's route as much as I did in the previous post about Minori, you are in for a surprise. Haruka actually manag...

To be honest, my first thought after playing this game was: 'Yeah, this is a Looseboy game.' Needless to say, I don't always consider that a compliment. Looseboy has a tendency to prefer being opaque even where being opaque doesn't really serve all that well, as anyone who played Sharin no Kuni or G-senjou can tell you, if they can bring themselves to discard fanboyism. Why do I say this? I say it because if I don't manage to get past that particular lump in the throat, I won't be able to properly comment on this VN. First, this VN, like most Looseboy VNs, starts as a soft school story with a dark undertone that gradually overpowers the rest as the story goes on. This is his style, and anyone who played his previous games will be familiar with the pattern. I will say that this one does it moreso than any of his other VNs, as there is a lot of insanity going around... The mystery of the story is actually fairly hum-drum, though it is more occ...

Kariya Wakana Wakana is the game's single sub-heroine, who is only accessible after you have finished both parts of Nene's route. It is slightly shorter than the other routes, naturally, and it splits off a lot earlier in the common route. This route is entirely devoid of the fantastical aspects that were central to the drama of the other paths, setting them aside for standard love-comedy drama. Thankfully, this doesn't include a lot of meaningless ichaicha (in fact, the route ends really quickly after they become lovers). At the same time, Wakana serves as a contrast to the other heroines, in that there is no real sense of severe tension to the story, even temporary, and it ends with no real sense of accomplishment. That's not to say it is a bad route... it is just that it seemed out of place in the context of this VN's themes and story.   Conclusion I can safely say that this charage is a potential VN of the Month entry, which is nice, c...

Shiiba Tsumugi Tsumugi is both a transfer student and the game's reverse trap. That said, she has a definite fondness for cute things, and the way she dresses is a special circumstance, so don't go in thinking she is a boyish heroine. She's actually quite the reverse. Her path is probably the most focused on the protagonist so far, with an even stronger focus on a certain aspect of the setting that is vital to all the paths. Since I'm avoiding spoilers here, I won't spell it out, especially since it isn't stated in any of the summaries. Tsumugi's path is well-written, with a surprising lack of excessive ichaicha, mostly because of the sheer difficulty of achieving an 'ichaicha-state' due to her personal problems. At the same time, the romance is surprisingly straightforward and 'normal', which means that you won't run into anything you wouldn't expect from two young people falling in love for the first time, whe...

Togakushi Touko Touko is the 'oneesan-senpai' of the group. She takes pleasure in teasing others, making jokes, and generally maintaining a light atmosphere. Her path is perhaps the least straightforward so far... mostly because the issues are a bit less than predictable if you aren't used to seeing potential difficulties based upon minimal setting cues. I will say that I did like her as a heroine... but I didn't like her as much as Meguru or Nene. The simple reason for this is that her presence in the common route is so faint, so you don't really get the attachment to her in advance that you get with Meguru or Nene. In fact, I'm fairly sure about seventy percent of the people who read this VN will say 'I liked her path, but I'm not sure if I really got attached to her.' This leads to a definite lack of emotional impact for the crises in the later part of the path, at least in my case. Look forward to Shiiba Tsumugi, next ti...

Inaba Meguru Meguru is the 'lively and cheerful, puppy-like kouhai' of the story. She is also the most 'fashionable' of the heroines, and the one who is perhaps the most like a 'normal girl' as far as this type of VN goes. The fact that Yuzusoft managed to make her character work is a mark of how high quality their stories are. I will say that the ichaicha in this one is a lot more tedious than it was in Nene's story, though. A lot of it is that both Meguru and Shuuji are really dense about their own feelings, and they are really slow to progress once they do get together. The drama in this story is about evenly split between Shuuji's and Meguru's issues, with Meguru's main issue resolved fairly early in the path and the protagonists' issues resolved slowly over the course of the path as a whole. While this is generally nice and the ending is decent... the fact that so much of the story is endless ichaicha kind of made...

Common First of all, this is, like most Yuzusoft games, a high-quality charage, though a charage first and foremost. As such, there is definitely a lighter atmosphere than you'd expect, considering the protagonist's personal difficulties and those of the heroines. Problems are resolved quickly and with no real secondary disasters, and they are generally resolved to the satisfaction of the characters involved, if not in the most ideal of manners. In other words, you won't be reading this VN for superlative story... but what is there is good nonetheless. The characters are interesting, the actual use of the tachie is as brilliant as always (Yuzusoft's tendency to choreograph rapid tachie expression and posture changes into each spoken line is alive and well here and used to extremely good effect), and the crises do have enough emotional impact for you to care to at least a reasonable degree.   Ayachi Nene Nene's route is... really the mai...

Shirataka Sumire By the time you hit this path, all the VN's secrets will be pretty much revealed, so this isn't a path about revealing secrets. It is simply the path that follows the character most central to the story as a whole. Sumire is the club president of the Lifestyle Club, a club devoted to finding reasons to live, joy in life, etc. She is also perhaps the person who enjoys life the most... and also the one who is the most desperate to do so. I won't spoil it for you, but even after having played the immensely long Tsubame path, this is a path that is worth reading, if only for the two extremely adorable reasons that pop up in the epilogue. The omake serves to wrap up a lot of loose ends that were probably bothering you (I know they bothered me, since they weren't available when I first played this game), including but not limited to true endings for Miu's, Serika's, and Miyako's routes. You have to finish all the paths, inclu...