Sixteen questions for eroge/visual novel fans~

Anything to drive away boredom~

To kick my self off rolling again I found some questions that all visual novel/eroge fans should answer from one of the many blogs I read daily. I personally find this the easiest way to start up my blogging activities again. Below are just my honest answers to said questions. I'm also willing to admit that I'm a newbie in regards to non mainstream visual novels so don't get all pissy at me for not mentioning more obscure titles and always enjoy~

1.Who is your favorite female visual novel character?
This is a really hard decision to make because there are so many female characters I do like. Since I'm only able to pick one it would be saber from fate/stay night.

2. Who is your favorite male visual novel character?
Hands down I pick Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko.

3. Which character is the cutest?
Given her personality traits I would have to choose Rika Furude from Higurashi

4. Which Male or Female character is the hottest?
Since I prefer the mature ladies I would have to go with Akiko Minase for Kanon

5. What is your favorite visual novel soundtrack (or song)?
Out of all the visual novels I've played it would have to be clannad.

6. Which is your favorite visual novel opening animation?
I'm going to have to go with Stein's;Gate PC port op.

7. What is your favorite scene in a visual novel?
You all know how much of sick twisted bastard I can be so this is pretty easy for me. I choose the Corpse Party chapter five prologue which left with some soupy feelings.

8. What qualities in a VN character do you gravitate most towards?
There is only one quailty I really search for and that's a main character who is actually given a personality or human traits/flaws.

9. Which character in a VN is most similar to you in terms of personality?
I really hate to say this since I am unable to explain why but I'm alot like Matoko from School Days.

10. Who is your favorite VN Artist? 
Itaru Hinoue who did the first three classic key/visual arts games.

11. Who is your favorite VN writer?
 That would have to be R7 you dumb ass.

12. What is your favorite thing about visual novel/eroge?
Overall it's the way in how the story is presented to you into a format that only works within this given form of media.

13. What is one thing you would eliminate from all VNs to make them more perfect?
Childhood friends that never age.. dacopo I'm looking at you.

14. Do you think you’ll ever stop playing VNs?
At this current state in my life I gotta go with no.

15. Are you open about the fact that you play VNs with people you know?
Yes I'm actually open about the fact I play these type of games with my close family and online friends.


16. Which visual novel was the biggest let down for you?
None as of yet.
 

Now follow the golden fairy out~

We are the Little Busters! Now 100% english!

Wooh! Little Busters has been fully translated.
But people with the ME/EX versions will have to wait for another translation...

Translation Notes:

The past few weeks after translation "finished" have been incredibly busy thanks to testing, debugging and general fixing, but finally...

Team fluffy is delighted to announce the release of the Little Busters! complete translation patch.
The impatient one may proceed to download it here

Four and a half years after the original game was released, three and a half years after the translation project started, and two years after our 50%, A.K.A. common route patch, this product of our labor allows you, the player, to experience the game in full, from beginning to end, non-stop, in English.

This patch contains every character route, every minigame and everything else translated.
It also includes our recommended set of fonts.

No machine translation was hurt during production.

We apologise in advance in case this disturbs your family's holidays.

and for those people with EX/ME

In order not to delay the release of the main patch above, we skipped some of the polish from the EX/ME script. We have tried to make these as enjoyable as possible with the translated material presently available. Thus some of the more critical new lines amidst the otherwise translated scripts have already been translated, but not all of them.

1. These extra patches give EX/ME working minigames, but in return they have a certain amount of untranslated lines here and there, for systemic reasons.
   
2. There are also known issues that would've been too much work to fix for this release - the biggest one is one where lines with the same Japanese text receive the same translation everywhere in the script. This causes some errors in minigames, but also makes some lines appear rather weird at places in the script.
   
3. You will not find new content in the routes with this patch, because that is the greater part of the problem itself. Instead you will get THE original Little Busters! routes in all their glory. All new content beyond that will have to wait for its appropriate releases.
   
4. Muscle Sensation doesn't work in this patch. Sorry, there's just no way around this until we get around to properly re-translating the Kud route.
   

Little Busters! Ecstasy First Press Limited Edition owners do not need to install the Little Busters! EX 1.01 patch to use our translation.

I know this isn't really a review but I will have my top ten anime of the year list up soon.

-Daggerd

Little Busters English Patch

Memorial Edition

Ecstasy

Little Busters on VNDB

Looking For Help WIth The Air VN

This is more of plea this time around everyone " I really need some help with this". Thanks to some very kind anons from @chan's /jp/ board.  Due to digging around I was able to get hold of the seen.txt that has around 30-40% of the Air visual novel translated. Despite there being problems with the font "as seen above", the game is playable for only one route which is fine. Now my plea is this.. since this did get a C&D from Key/Visual Arts, the project has long been abandoned since 09 from TLWIKI. 

I do have the all of the seen.txt as just stated that the translators where using before the C&D and I would love to see this taken off the ground again. So far I have only tried this patch wit the standard or orignal version of Air vn "which is 18+ and has no voice overs". So it will take some major time to make it compatible with the all ages and memorial edition, if that's even a possibility. Sadly as I stated before in some other post I don't know how to program nor do I know how to encode, so I need people that know how to do this.

Forever Wandering

Yeah I might be asking for alot however I willing to promote, host any files and beta test to see this project get done. I do realize that this will take a lot of work to do but I have some faith that it can be done, if enough effort is put in. Hell Kannon, Little Busters, Clannad, Planetarin, and One, All have patches. It's not out the realm of possibility people. I personally have watched the Air anime, movie and read the manga. Only 1/3 had a happy ending "guess which one", so I want to see if it's possible to obtain an happy ending in the visual novel as well.

I might be asking for to much but come the hell on.. It's no impossible, nothing is. If you want to help me out on this just leave a comment here in the GB or send an email to my gmail account. So hmm... sorry for the long dry out plea but this is something important me even with my limited skills. Even you can't do anything but just spread the word then do that for me every little bit helps. Well I will catch you all around later, here is to hope/successes of this project.

-Cecil The Dark Knight

Update One: Adding a link to the seen.txt so any body will be able to use it.

Updated Two: The seen.txt works with all versions of Air to certain point, the main problem is the h-scenes in the regular edition are going to need a separate translation. The same goes for the memorial edition since the script is changed with different routes/scenes/endings/.

A Review of the Clannad Visual Novel "True love, tragic loss, with the will power to make it Right"

The Official Xbox cover

This following review contains some minor spoilers on major aspects of the game. If you do not want to spoil yourself or skip past these spoilers I have highlighted in red for you all

This will be last big review so please take it slowly and just enjoy

I also have made info dump for those new to clannad. Also keep in mind this is an overview of the entire game not a review of a characters route.

Now Clannad's main story revolves around a high-school senior delinquent named Tomoya Okazaki who just all around hates where he lives the few people that are around him. This is due in part that his mother died in a horrible accident when he was young, and his father has never gotten over it to this day despite that ten years have passed. Tomoya's father also did happen get physical at one point with him thus making hugely estranged to the point that Tomoya avoids his father as much as possible now of out anger/disgust he has towards him.

 It wasn't until one day walking to school late he happens to see a beautiful girl named Nagisa Furukawa. She was talking to her self saying "Do you like this school??" She continues to talk to her-self "I really really do, but nothing...can remain the same forever." Tomoya interrupts her by saying "You just have to find it, right?" This little conversation he has with Nagisa will change the course of his life forever.

Depending on what you choose to do from this this point onwards will determine if you end up the main hereon Nagisa or another female character such as Tomoyo from your choice alone. They are needed to set up the essential plot points for everyone but there is one huge thing that leaves a lot people with their heads scratching, which is "Other World". This is a place where nothing can grow, nor can nothing give birth/live a lonely desolate world.

To explain this more simply think of this as Tomoya's feelings that are in his heart through at the course of the visual novel. It is suppose to represent how Tomoya is closed off and doesn't want anyone in his life. This is due in part of how much he has been hurt before in the past with his mother dying when he was a child or just being an overall delinquent wanting to forget his past or pain that he has went through in his life. I also want to point out due to time restraints I have only played two routes so far that would be Ibuki fukko's  and kotomi ichinose arcs.

The other world that is mentioned countless times or dream world changes depending on how you choose to play that also represents his actions of what good deeds or wishes that Tomoya grants for each person. By helping out people in every route or arc "hence the glowing orbs of light". There happen to be only two livable creatures in the "other world" a young girl and a small robot that is unable to speak. Both of these characters represent two very important characters in the physical world that leads to sad twist of fate later on that can only be changed by your actions alone.

I realize that I am praising clannad  to much however there is one thing that will keep some people away. No it's nothing nasty or sexual, it's the level of difficulty for the visual novel. Even for a seasoned veteran like myself was frustrated at points of what to do " I actually had to go online and use a hint guide to unlock certain points.". So to be nice I will go ahead and tell all of you one major thing. In order to get the best ending possible.

Moving on past the insane level of difficulty is something that I do happen to love which is the characters. I have stated three of the main characters but some others such as Tomoya's friend named Sunohara, who has to be the biggest comic relief character of all time and brings down some of the drama to make it bearable at some points. Even he Sunohara has his own arc in the game as well that is serious to discuss why he is living in the males sports dorm despite not being on any team. 

Kotomi and Tomoya..

The other honorable mention goes to Kotomi Ichinose who is a child-hood friend of Tomoya's . I do realize that this not original but it's handled very well over the course of her character arc which is worth a play through. The growth with Tomoya deserve a huge mention because of the way it was written/handled and the fact she is one of my favorite characters from this series so please excuse my bias here since her arc came second on my roster before spot checking this review.

One huge positive for this visual novel is the music score for this game. No visual novel even being produced in 2004 came close to the music score clannad has. Each piece is hugely diverse as well, from a fully voiced OP/Ed. Then it moves to something as simple as a character bgm, which could have piano or violin pieces of music. It truly displays the emotions for what's going on at the moment, I will flat out just say the music for Clannad it bumps it to a higher level beyond any normal visual novel still being produced to this day.

One last thing to mention is the artwork or visuals for Clannad. Unlike most that I am used to playing it is very bright, well drawn but there is one thing that does bother and that's the huge eyes. Despite this small flaw, everything is well drawn and holds up very well to other visual novels on the market  Each character has a very unique design or trait that does feel organic, despite some copy-paste tropes/designs from previous titles. One huge draw back is how they eyes are drawn and the over use of class room sprites. The eyes alone keep people a majority of people away, however you will overcome this once the story, characters and music absorb you into it's world making you want more.

Well that's all I have cover on  the clannad visual novel for now. Despite some of the flaws that I have mentioned the are not bad enough to hold this visual novel back from being a classic in this day and time. I really do wish there was a legal way to play this game besides using torrents/mounting software at this point in time. You can import the original or voiced version  two hundred dollars usd, however I highly doubt any of you want to spend that huge amount of money on just one visual novel. 

-Cecil The Dark Knight

Artwork: 4/5

Characters: 5/5

Story/Plot: 5/5

Music: 5/5

Game-Play: 3/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Age Rating 15+

English Patch

Walk-Through