The soft wings of Joy

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If my heart had wings - Review

In the VN world, Moenovel is known all around as the infamous butcherer of this game.

True, there are A LOT of typos, grammar errors and other aggresions to the English language. I read the butchered version and found it’s tolerable. You’ll get most of the meaning.

Furthermore, if you listen closely to the Japanese voices, you’ll find out the game is transliterated okay. It’s just that, probably, the people who did hadn’t a very good grasp of English.

The game has an interesting premise, a club that builds and flies a glider with an important goal in mind. It’s slice of life at heart, and it isn’t half bad. Sadly, the routes seem pretty weak compared to other games and in the end “If my heart had wings” doesn’t manage to score high with its heroines, even though they have potential.

Do I recommend the game? Well, keep in mind that the game is shipped without H scenes (there’s a restoration patch though, but I didn’t manage to make it work) and with a bad translation. Even if you take it all, this is just another regular eroge. So, in the end, it’s like dozens more titles that won’t leave a lasting impression on you, so you should look out for better VNs.

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Steins;Gate Zero review

This comes too much too late, as Zero was released at the end of the past year and most fans will have already played it. This either isn’t directed to people who don’t know about Steins;Gate.

I should start off by apologising precisely for this; though I love this franchise, I’ve never talked of it here on my Tumblr. Maybe another time.

It’s been some minutes since I finished it, and man, the true end feels baffling. I expected... more. Though I completely understand how it ties to everything, especially the original game’s ending. You will too, but if you’re like me, maybe you’ll be left expecting more.

(Up) Remember, all: enjoy the good times while they last. You never know.

Do I recommend Zero? Yes I do. But as a standalone, it has no worth. You should get the previous game first. Also, it has a lot of differences in tone from the original. Most of it has a more scholar-oriented approach. You’ll see universities, labs and scientists here, not like in the original. But it’s also filled with the same gripping action, conspiracy theories and evil organisations as the original. It far surpasses the adrenaline dose you get from original S;G. Here, there are a lot of bad guys out there.

There’s room for the quality, trademark slice of life and silliness too. It wouldn’t be Steins;Gate without it. There’s a ridiculous track that plays quite a lot along the different routes.

But probably, the main and much felt difference is that the first game was filled to the brim with Hououin Kyouma’s madness and abuse. You only get to understand how badass this guy is when suddenly you lack him. There’s a bit of him at some points, but it’s scarce.

So, is Zero a good sequel? Mostly I’d say yes. But in the end, it expands the first game a bit in terms of story and character development, and that is that. It’s interesting, but not really great. Especially the endings seem to lack quite some meat to them, and it’s sad, because the game has quality overall.

Are potential future Steins;Gate spinoffs going to be interesting? Well, I don’t know, but I suspect they’re not. They’ve already milked off the franchise well with this game. So unless they explore some other crazy worldlines -and that would be no longer “core Steins;Gate”-, like in Madoka Magica I guess, the material has already ran out. All in all, it’s good material, interesting and entertaining. But after playing the two games in two months, I’ve seen enough. I need a change of pace, maybe with Root Double which I already own. Let’s see what Nakazawa’s up to.

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Hoshizora no Memoria - Wrapup

Today I finished the last remaining route of Hoshimemo -Mare.

To be honest, Hoshimemo is a nice romance game. I feel it’s comparable in scope and completion to Little Busters, but I rate Little Busters above it. I’d give an 8/10 to LB and a 7.5/10 to Hoshimemo.

The drama was not as good as Key’s. I don’t know about the writers, so I can’t really compare.

The protagonist, You Kogasaka, was somewhat bland and boring. It takes more to aim for greatness.

The heroines vary, but overall they’re nice, even if they don’t exactly bring anything new to the table. Yume’s route had some nice touches, but it isn’t the best thing evar, don’t be misled. And for a route that we keep waiting the whole game, that’s a bit disappointing.

The writing was good, but was somewhat swampy in some places. Also, no real explanation for some important things, that are only hinted, such as Mare’s existence.

The underlying story is very thorough, but that only ends up making it convoluted and unharmonious.

Overall I’d say it’s an enjoyable -but not great- game. I don’t see me replaying it in the future, though.

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Mike Oldfield’s “Saved by a bell” review

Would you like to look through my telescope?

The Milky Way’s a fine sight to see.

All around the Universe we try so hard to view,

what’s new.

Make a trip down to Sagittarius,

and take a spin by some nebula.

I hope the sky stays clear for us*,

tonight goes on so far, in stars.

(Chorus)

Saved by a bell, suffering Hell***,

but you were too blind to tell****.

Saved by a bell, suffering Hell,

and you made it through so well*****.

Shining like bright diamonds, the galaxies,

Jupiter and Saturn spin by.

Passing by companions, they all go drifting by.

They fly.

Carry me down to see Aquarius,

we’re hoping to meet a shooting star.

I can see, there’s gonna be a message from afar**,

How close we are.

(Chorus repeat x2)

Funny enough, after some 20 years of knowing about this song, I realized its meaning while I was dreaming the other night. So I’ll share with you:

(*): “I hope the sky stays clear for us”: an indication of hope for Mankind’s future.

(**): “I can see there’s gonna be a message from afar...”: the discovery of intelligent life, answering to our radio signals [”message from afar”] and coming to visit us.

(***): “Saved by a bell, suffering Hell”: Mankind, on the verge of destruction, will be saved in the nick of time by a superior civilisation that will send the message above and come rescue us.

(****): “But you were too blind to tell”: Too blind to tell how much are we damaging our Home.

(*****): “And you made it through so well”: In spite of all, there’s hope for salvation. We can hold on by our own means until the saviors arrive.

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Hoshimemo’s Heroines - #4, #5 Komomo, Kosame

Kosame has the best background story so far in the game. It’s interesting how she’s esentially alike to Fullmetal Alchemist’s Alphonse Elric. But here, it accounts for far less drama. Of course, Alphonse is leagues better a character than Kosame, but her route is still tender and valid. A little fanservicey though... you’ll know if you play it.

The moon drives people mad... from love.

I guess You (main character) didn’t take into account the reproductive factor, or he just didn’t care. Because I don’t think that a Matsuwarumono can have children.

Komomo is also pretty sweet, as it is a pleasure indeed to bring down such a tsundere-at-heart’s facade and get to the good.

Good, good. Let the moe flow through you.

So far, Hoshimemo’s routes feature drama everywhere, but while it’s not very heavy drama, I wouldn’t recommend the game to people that are looking for a happy-go-lucky read, with sunshine and lollipops -though there is plenty of sunshine in Hoshimemo, as it’s set in summer.

The people that dislike drama bash the game, saying it’s forced. But I feel it’s not. It’s just a difference in taste.

However, the drama here only serves to make a rounder happy end. As the game focuses on You moving on from his past (at least in the routes I’ve played).

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Hoshimemo’s Heroines - #3 Asuho

One may be tempted to think that Asuho’s route is bad, and it has been bashed before.

Indeed, the drama is not very good, but it still turns out a decent romance route and her a valid heroine. It’s an enjoyable ride.

Asuho is another “dog” girl a la Kud, but she’s the genki type. She’s pretty charismatic and I guess any of us would like a girlfriend like that.

Awww.

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Hoshimemo’s Heroines - #2 Chinami

So far so good with Hoshimemo, the writing is really above par.

Chinami’s route is more typical than Isuzu’s, but not bad by any means.

It has the underlying concept of family, and with the introduction of the character “Fairy-san”, we have a deeper lookout on the game’s true story.

Even though I slacked heavily with this route, it didn’t feel too long. You play until the end of August (in-game). It features a couple of vanilla H-scenes, and the matter of the (half) siblings going out isn’t too developed.

Oniichan Oniichan Oniichan! I’m mad!

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Euphoria brief review

When Euphoria got to the West, supplied and shipped by Mangagamer, everyone was talking about it. The sheer sexual violence of the game was pretty shocking. A French friend I made online did mention that he was unable to progress through the game because of the distasteful scenes.

Well, guess what. Like every great visual novel, Euphoria’s setting is multi-layered. The things you see for most of the game aren’t all there is. Nor is it a game where you “romance girls by raping them”.

My absolute top of the pops was Rinne’s route, I loved the creepy atmosphere (and she remains my favourite character). However, the game never gets so high thereafter. The explanation on the game’s background is okay, even good, but it doesn’t justify skimming through long scenes of torture (that I couldn’t relate to, of course).

Creepy? What do you think?

The title still remains an enjoyable ride (no pun), but I can’t help but think it could have used its tools better, because it ends up being a twisted love story and a full eroge at heart.

Oh, I also loved Kanae, what a bitch.

She’s got a secret, and you won’t like it.

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Hoshimemo’s Heroines - #1 Isuzu

A character whose catchphrase is “you should jump off a bridge” is probably a terrible one, right?

Well, most probably. Isuzu’s route’s first half was pretty great, though she doesn’t really shine that much in the common route. The second half is pretty much filler time, even though it kinda manages to wrap it all up decently.

If you don’t agree Isuzu’s route has lots of filler, please consider that this feeding scene was done no less than three times.

At least, her disagreeable personality gets justified, and in a tsundere, that’s nearly a wonder.

And finally... decent H scenes. Pretty realistic as it’s virgin sex, with next to natural reactions (especially from her), nothing fancy, and not overboard porn star talk.

So far Isuzu gets a big thumbs up.

[bmashina]

Self-propelled gun STUG-4 drags armor sled with the infantry somewhere near Leningrad

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It's a StuG III. Six wheels and distinct back.

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Zero Time Dilemma - I’m bashing it

I just got what I think will be the true ending of this game. And I’m really disappointed.

The first few hours, okay, what we got here is a full-fledged Zero Escape game -albeit the differences and without knowing the gist of the plot.

But this, I think, will pass down as a disappointment and the first truly mediocre game in this respected series.

I guess Uchikoshi has been afflicted by the dreaded “GRR Martin syndrome” and I will explain why. Basically this means he’s on the hunt for dollars and using his success to bring us a gimmick of a game.

I kinda was expecting it to be disappointing, as tying all themes and plots together was very hard to do. But I saw positive reviews the first week after release, and got the game thinking “hey, this is a Zero Escape game, can’t go wrong”. Well, this is very wrong.

You should be hugging all the people who didn’t like the game instead.

First thing that bugs me off is that this game is lazy as fuck. It had a short development time, that made me suspect about its quality. Not only the puzzles, escape rooms and some other things tend to recycle and pay homage to the previous games a lot. It’s that the game is pretty short, and low on content.

I speak as one that doesn’t break his head on the puzzles, searching for solutions and even inputting whole codes without them being revealed by the game previously (with some exceptions). I just want to have a go at the plot, that for me is the selling point of a Zero Escape game. I enjoy more the novel scenes than the escape rooms. And especially the characters...

Characters? See what they did to Junpei’s character? They basically shat upon him. Junpei hardly gets anything done in the game and just lazes around.

Likewise, if I remember VLR correctly, Phi had a major secret going around for her. In ZTD, we learn her secret, but it’s kinda not what we were expecting. It comes across as bullcrap.

Another bad point, Mr. Uchikoshi, is that you have to call upon the alien technology wild card. Baaaad. They accomplish major things with this, only not on the grand scheme of things. Okay, Zero Escape’s lore was already controversial with things such as Ice-9 and the Titanic/Gigantic thing (I haven’t gotten an explanation about Ice-9 in-game, but I have 2 more endings to clear). But this is a little too much, isn’t it?

Moreover, the main plot I strongly disliked. It feels crazy instead of compelling. And I guess that this is just a bridge game for another entry in the series. Guess what, I won’t be buying it. ZTD has killed all the hype I had for this series and this director. Not buying anything more by Uchikoshi. I’ll just have to try my luck elsewhere. I just wanna say, that Steins;Gate did better in just one game. Plus, you’ve got S;G Zero for more.

[tangobunny]

Twitch people playing Zero Time Dilemma keep saying things like, “Oh Spike Chunsoft!  They’re the DanganRonpa boys!   Yeah we knew them before they were cool!   Yeah, this game was definitely inspired from DanganRonpa’s success.   What?   There were previous games?   Wow, this company really keeps churning out the same DanganRonpa style game over and over, huh?”

Twitch people are silly.

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People plz. Uchikoshi, ZTD's director, has been making games since the first Playstation era. Even Spike Chunsoft is a modern concoction.

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(NSFW) Euphoria - 1/5 review

Euphoria doubles as a test to see whether you’re a sadist or not. I mean, if you get some kind of reaction from all the shit happening in the game, then you’re one. If not, congrats, you’re normal. Me? I’m more on the M side, really.

(Up) Current target. You can probably tell what’s happening in this scene. Or maybe not.

This is a game where you romance girls by raping them. Neat. At least that’s the case with my first route: the teacher. A forgettable route that offers little insight on the game’s background and with an uninteresting heroine. I didn’t empathize at all with Sensei... even if she underwent very harrowing experiences. She simply brushed it off like nothing happened. Do you call that strong or simply stupid?

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I’m rewatching my DVDs of “Kimagure Orange Road”, and you notice instantly many things that have come to be ingrained in romcoms.

The first tsundere ever, Madoka Ayukawa, the best love triangle in existence, albeit a bit imbalanced, accidental kisses after boy collides with girl upon turning a corner, the adolescent living in a house alone with no family (in this case, Madoka), and, I have to say, more extreme sexual innuendo jokes for adults (perpetrated by Kyousuke’s friends).

You even see blood (!). Definitely the 80s were different (and wilder).

[anime-scarves]

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Look at those Matilda tanks!

[tangobunny]

I just bought the Ratchet & Clank HD Collection!  I think this is the very first time I’ve actually used the PSN Store to buy a game because it’s cheaper.

Usually I stick with physical versions of console games so I get a case, manual, and a lack of DRM nonsense and hard disk space management, but given that console games these days don’t even have manuals, and it costs over twice as much in stores, I went with the PSN route.

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Manuals...? You're an old schooler.

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Hoshizora no Memoria - Sneak peek

Okay, I’ve just gotten to my first decision point in this game, so I’m barely into it.

(Up) I like astronomy too. Lemme look through your telescope.

It’s cringeworthy how the protag clings to the girl from his past... I’ll explain. This guy used to live in a small town, where he met his first friend/love/obsession, then became separated with her because of his family moving to the city. Years after, when he’s a junior at high school, he returns to this town of Hibarigasaki. And the first thing that comes to mind is finding the girl in question and possibly romancing her, since they were on the verge of going out when they were separated.

So this is a story that could very well happen IRL, but this protag comes across as a stalker of massive proportions. In visual novels, this kind of setup feels natural, but if you pause to think, it’s very, very creepy. His love interest seems to be a mysterious girl, AKA a shinigami, or supernatural being. It’s okay, since most girls would probably creep out/have gone on with their lives and most probably would have found another boy. Well, keep in mind we’re talking high school here, but still.

He goes *day after day* to their old meeting place, but so far comes empty-handed and confused. What about moving on and romancing some other girl from the cast, pal?

(Up) Nice art we have here, but will it be enough to save the game...?

Stalker tendencies aside, we have a cast of characters that’s not bad per se. Unlike in some other novels, those elicit some emotions; but not always good. So far I’ve laughed with some of Isuzu’s and Chinami’s antics, but curiosly not with Asuho, who seems very plain and simple. Kosame and Komomo are different kinds of character, since they’re not very outright designed to make you laugh.

I hear the drama on this game will be kind of heavy, I only wish I don’t make too many facepalms. Stay tuned for more updates on Hoshimemo.