Decline Visual Novel Recomendation Thread

[The Jester]

I couldn't recommend Utawarerumono enough

What kind of sick fucks read VNs without porn?

Heh joke on you I unironically read Nukige for plot.

 

[Raghar]

I couldn't recommend Utawarerumono enough

What kind of sick fucks read VNs without porn?

I play games and read decent novels. Typical VN is worse than free fanfic.

 

[R@tmaster]

I couldn't recommend Utawarerumono enough

More like:

 

[Elttharion]

Speaking of Uta, did anyone here play Monochrome Mobius? Worth it?

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Speaking of Uta, did anyone here play Monochrome Mobius? Worth it?

If you played the VN trilogy and want more, then yes. Not that you need to play this after the VN trilogy - you could play this before the Masks duology just fine), but rather that the game is rough and I would wonder if someone would stick it out without prior investment. Lemme find my review:

I have finished Monochrome Mobius, aka the prequel JRPG to Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception.


Gameplay: it's a basic turn based JRPG. If you've played any other turn based JRPG, you've played this game. The only unique mechanic to write home about is the action ring. There are three rings and which ring a character is on determines how often they get turns. Only three characters can fit into the middle ring, and only party member or enemy can fit into the innermost ring. Buffs and debuffs apply to one of the three rings, so there is some decision making involved as to whether or not you want to ascend to the higher rings so you get more turns, or stay below so everyone can benefit from buffs. This only really matters on boss battles. I played on hard difficulty, and throughout the whole game bosses would take away 90% of my character's HP in one hit, or even one shot them, so I found that the optimal strategy was to keep my low HP characters on the second ring, apply speed, attack, and defense buffs to that ring, and keep my AoE healer Munechika on the innermost ring and have her constantly the party to full.

You only have 4 party members in this game. One of them, Shunya, is presented as a mage/healer with two dozen magical abilities, but I found that there was pretty much no reason to ever use them. Shunya has to spend at least two turns to charge up soulgems before she can use a powerful magic attack or a powerful heal. Shunya is fragile and is likely to die before she completes that 2 or 3 turn process, and she has to start the charging process all over again after she gets rezzed. Oshtor and Mikazuchi deal far more DPS than her anyway. I found that Shunya was only really useful for getting off the essential damage mitigation buff and using items to refilling the MP of the other three characters.

There is a fifth character, Halu, who can be temporarily summoned and replaces the party for a few turns, like Aeons from Final Fantasy X or Valimar from Trails of Cold Steel. However, you have to use materials to upgrade his stats and abilities. These materials are harvested from nodes in the open world, and you are at the mercy of RNG for drops from monsters. Gathering materials is very tedious and a pain in the ass, and you need to use materials to upgrade the blacksmith. I wound up maxxing out the blacksmith but couldn't be bothered to farm to upgrade Halu, so I only ever used him to tank the final boss' one shot ability that took two turns charge up.

I would not recommend playing the game on hard like I did. There were 4 or 5 boss battles I got walled on for hours, retrying over and over, because there was nothing else I could do. The vast majority of EXP comes from boss fights, and if a character is dead when a battle ends (as was often the case), they don't get any EXP. Level grinding is very tedious and only gives you a marginal increase in performance. Some of the battles come down to just getting lucky with the boss not spamming one shot attacks repeatedly. My clear save says 57 hours, but Steam says I have 67 hours. That was 10 hours spent walled on boss fights.

This game could have benefitted from QoL features, like being able to give up a battle, or being able to skip battle animations. You can retry after you a lose a battle, but you don't get back any items you consumed during the battle, meaning you have to reload. I found that if I botched a boss battle attempt, it was faster to ALT+F4 and restart the game than to continue inputting commands and watching animations so I could eventually die and reload.

The soundtrack is okay. There are a couple tracks I really liked, enough to add to my favorite's playlist. Almost the entire game is fully voice acted. The only stuff that isn't voice acted are the sidequests (which is just "kill random hard monster" stuff), and the half dozen skits at Dikotoma's house.

Story: I have mixed opinions. At no point was the story infuriating like Mask of Truth was, so that's a plus. There are a couple of stupid shounen anime moments that made me roll my eyes, but that was it. Most of the cast is likeable but no one who aggravated me like Kuon.

The real issue boils down the the game being a prequel to MoD. The story wasn't really what I expected from a prequel about how Oshtor became the right hand of the Mikado. In the VN duology, we are presented with a Yamato that is living in an uneventful time until the end of MoD. The only things really happening are bandits and some small scale political intrigue on a provincial level. A prequel could have been about how Ougi's father was ousted, and Oshtor taking in Ougi and going around exposing corruption and that is how he became an Imperial Guard. And we'd get to see Vurai's hatred of Oshtor build up. But we already had spent 100 hours in Yamato over the course of the two visual novels, so Yamato is rather boring. It's also hard to have tension when you know that everyone lives until the VNs.

Early on, it looked like the game was going to get around that by having Oshtor become a secret agent and infiltrate a hidden country to the far West of Yamato, Arva Shulan. The player would get to discover a new country, new lore, meet a new cast of characters who could die without interrupting the continuity of the VN, and so on. But you only spend a few hours there and the story goes back to Yamato. Worse, is the game then proceeds to have highly visible, massive events take place in Yamato. Cities are destroyed and the capital is invaded. These are events that cannot be covered up, and it is difficult to reconcile the dramatic events of this prequel with the uneventful backstory we get in the VN duology. So as a prequel, the game fails to fit itself into canon.

This could be reconciled by the sequel-bait ending, which implies that there are some sort of time shenagains going on. If in the next game, Shunya, Arva Shulan, and the destruction in Yamato are erased from the timeline, that would explain why people recall living in a peaceful, uneventful time in the VN, but then the devs are risking audience alienation by rendering the journey the audience was invested in for two JRPGs meaningless. This is a really convoluted way of making a prequel, and better ways were available. Ie, setting the game in Arva Shulan, or following the small scale adventures of Oshtor in Yamato like fighting bandits. Or setting the game further back than living memory and showing those destructive wars that Miko reminisced about in MoD.

There are also some wonky retcons that undermines the story of the visual novels. Spoilers for the VN duology:

Spoiler

I was not a fan of Raiko being "revealed" to be a physically strong combatant. I preferred when he was appointed as a Pillar General for his cunning, and commanded physically strong warriors like Mikazuchi, making him a foil to the physically weak Haku in the Masks duology. They're both supposed to be the chessmasters of the war.

Also not fond of Honoka insistence that she is incapable of betraying the Mikado. Takes the tension out of the Masks duology when you wondered if she murdered him, and also undermines her last words when she said that she resented the Mikado for cloning her as a replacement for his dead wife, but she also genuinely loved him anyway.

The story is unfinished. It's not a self-contained JRPG. It sets up a lot of stuff that has yet to be resolved. We might have to wait a few years to find out what happens, or find out how Vurai's beef with Oshtor got started.


Overall, the game was fine. I had fun, but after the story returned to Yamato, I wasn't super motivated to play it every day. Looking forward to the sequel.

 

[Elttharion]

Speaking of Uta, did anyone here play Monochrome Mobius? Worth it?

If you played the VN trilogy and want more, then yes. Not that you need to play this after the VN trilogy - you could play this before the Masks duology just fine), but rather that the game is rough and I would wonder if someone would stick it out without prior investment. Lemme find my review:

I have finished Monochrome Mobius, aka the prequel JRPG to Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception.


Gameplay: it's a basic turn based JRPG. If you've played any other turn based JRPG, you've played this game. The only unique mechanic to write home about is the action ring. There are three rings and which ring a character is on determines how often they get turns. Only three characters can fit into the middle ring, and only party member or enemy can fit into the innermost ring. Buffs and debuffs apply to one of the three rings, so there is some decision making involved as to whether or not you want to ascend to the higher rings so you get more turns, or stay below so everyone can benefit from buffs. This only really matters on boss battles. I played on hard difficulty, and throughout the whole game bosses would take away 90% of my character's HP in one hit, or even one shot them, so I found that the optimal strategy was to keep my low HP characters on the second ring, apply speed, attack, and defense buffs to that ring, and keep my AoE healer Munechika on the innermost ring and have her constantly the party to full.

You only have 4 party members in this game. One of them, Shunya, is presented as a mage/healer with two dozen magical abilities, but I found that there was pretty much no reason to ever use them. Shunya has to spend at least two turns to charge up soulgems before she can use a powerful magic attack or a powerful heal. Shunya is fragile and is likely to die before she completes that 2 or 3 turn process, and she has to start the charging process all over again after she gets rezzed. Oshtor and Mikazuchi deal far more DPS than her anyway. I found that Shunya was only really useful for getting off the essential damage mitigation buff and using items to refilling the MP of the other three characters.

There is a fifth character, Halu, who can be temporarily summoned and replaces the party for a few turns, like Aeons from Final Fantasy X or Valimar from Trails of Cold Steel. However, you have to use materials to upgrade his stats and abilities. These materials are harvested from nodes in the open world, and you are at the mercy of RNG for drops from monsters. Gathering materials is very tedious and a pain in the ass, and you need to use materials to upgrade the blacksmith. I wound up maxxing out the blacksmith but couldn't be bothered to farm to upgrade Halu, so I only ever used him to tank the final boss' one shot ability that took two turns charge up.

I would not recommend playing the game on hard like I did. There were 4 or 5 boss battles I got walled on for hours, retrying over and over, because there was nothing else I could do. The vast majority of EXP comes from boss fights, and if a character is dead when a battle ends (as was often the case), they don't get any EXP. Level grinding is very tedious and only gives you a marginal increase in performance. Some of the battles come down to just getting lucky with the boss not spamming one shot attacks repeatedly. My clear save says 57 hours, but Steam says I have 67 hours. That was 10 hours spent walled on boss fights.

This game could have benefitted from QoL features, like being able to give up a battle, or being able to skip battle animations. You can retry after you a lose a battle, but you don't get back any items you consumed during the battle, meaning you have to reload. I found that if I botched a boss battle attempt, it was faster to ALT+F4 and restart the game than to continue inputting commands and watching animations so I could eventually die and reload.

The soundtrack is okay. There are a couple tracks I really liked, enough to add to my favorite's playlist. Almost the entire game is fully voice acted. The only stuff that isn't voice acted are the sidequests (which is just "kill random hard monster" stuff), and the half dozen skits at Dikotoma's house.

Story: I have mixed opinions. At no point was the story infuriating like Mask of Truth was, so that's a plus. There are a couple of stupid shounen anime moments that made me roll my eyes, but that was it. Most of the cast is likeable but no one who aggravated me like Kuon.

The real issue boils down the the game being a prequel to MoD. The story wasn't really what I expected from a prequel about how Oshtor became the right hand of the Mikado. In the VN duology, we are presented with a Yamato that is living in an uneventful time until the end of MoD. The only things really happening are bandits and some small scale political intrigue on a provincial level. A prequel could have been about how Ougi's father was ousted, and Oshtor taking in Ougi and going around exposing corruption and that is how he became an Imperial Guard. And we'd get to see Vurai's hatred of Oshtor build up. But we already had spent 100 hours in Yamato over the course of the two visual novels, so Yamato is rather boring. It's also hard to have tension when you know that everyone lives until the VNs.

Early on, it looked like the game was going to get around that by having Oshtor become a secret agent and infiltrate a hidden country to the far West of Yamato, Arva Shulan. The player would get to discover a new country, new lore, meet a new cast of characters who could die without interrupting the continuity of the VN, and so on. But you only spend a few hours there and the story goes back to Yamato. Worse, is the game then proceeds to have highly visible, massive events take place in Yamato. Cities are destroyed and the capital is invaded. These are events that cannot be covered up, and it is difficult to reconcile the dramatic events of this prequel with the uneventful backstory we get in the VN duology. So as a prequel, the game fails to fit itself into canon.

This could be reconciled by the sequel-bait ending, which implies that there are some sort of time shenagains going on. If in the next game, Shunya, Arva Shulan, and the destruction in Yamato are erased from the timeline, that would explain why people recall living in a peaceful, uneventful time in the VN, but then the devs are risking audience alienation by rendering the journey the audience was invested in for two JRPGs meaningless. This is a really convoluted way of making a prequel, and better ways were available. Ie, setting the game in Arva Shulan, or following the small scale adventures of Oshtor in Yamato like fighting bandits. Or setting the game further back than living memory and showing those destructive wars that Miko reminisced about in MoD.

There are also some wonky retcons that undermines the story of the visual novels. Spoilers for the VN duology:

Spoiler

I was not a fan of Raiko being "revealed" to be a physically strong combatant. I preferred when he was appointed as a Pillar General for his cunning, and commanded physically strong warriors like Mikazuchi, making him a foil to the physically weak Haku in the Masks duology. They're both supposed to be the chessmasters of the war.

Also not fond of Honoka insistence that she is incapable of betraying the Mikado. Takes the tension out of the Masks duology when you wondered if she murdered him, and also undermines her last words when she said that she resented the Mikado for cloning her as a replacement for his dead wife, but she also genuinely loved him anyway.

The story is unfinished. It's not a self-contained JRPG. It sets up a lot of stuff that has yet to be resolved. We might have to wait a few years to find out what happens, or find out how Vurai's beef with Oshtor got started.


Overall, the game was fine. I had fun, but after the story returned to Yamato, I wasn't super motivated to play it every day. Looking forward to the sequel.

I had heard before that the story ends in a sequel bait and from what I have seen I worry that the game didnt sell well enough to guarantee a second entry. Meh, I think I will grab it anyway. Thanks for the review!

 

[karoliner]

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Currently reading through the visual novel trilogy World End Economica, written by Isuna Hasekura, the author of Spice & Wolf (light novel/anime about a wagon trader in fantasy medieval europe and medieval economics). It's about a runaway in a futuristic city on the moon who makes girls cry and day trades stocks on his laptop. It does not have voice acting. I like the transitions/fades between scenes. The music is neat.
























I've been here two days and my landlord is already inviting me up to her room to drink some booze and join her pity party.

 

[Abu Antar]

I gave a Chinese VN a shot, The Adventures of Fei Duanmu. I quit reading after 2.5 hours. I'm the first one to tolerate poor translations of games, but when the main activity of a game is actual reading, it has to be good. Maybe I'll go back to it some day.

World End Economica was a decent trilogy.

 

[Arthandas]

Actually, you lost by buying this shitty, overpriced, buggy, and censored release.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I just finished World End Economica 1.

Spoiler

Last chance to turn back

Spoiler

Rage from the depths of my soul

I TRUSTED YOU

I briefly suspected Barton when Toyama and Serrault turned up desperate with one week left to pay back the loan, but then when Hal emailed Barton asking for some time and Barton said no problem, I dropped it. And then when Hal ran to Barton for help and Barton was giving Hal a mock negotiation and then passed him the "insider info", I believed him hook line and sinker. Noooooooo

In retrospect, it all makes sense. Barton drove Hal around showing him how he scoped out places and talked to sandwich stand workers and paid them extra money to get info out of them. Barton could have easily disguised himself as a lower class citizen and walked up to that old lady in the neighborhood and did the same thing, and if he had been doing this regularly he could have seemed like someone from the neighborhood to her and she would have said "oh everyone is entrusted their savings to Hal", and that's how he would have gotten Hal's name. And then he tried to slow down Hal and prevent him from building up the $800,000 in time by tricking him into focusing on the virtual contest at the expense of the real world investment, and then had Hal lose a day of trading by visiting Barton the second time. If Hal hadn't focused on the contest and hadn't lost that day of trading, he might have made the $800,000 in time.

What an ending. Glad I picked this back up. On to part 2!

 

[Dark Souls II]

So can anyone recommend a VN that feels like Dark Souls II? Umineko seems to have a similar vibe from what I can tell, but I hesitate to start with it without completing Higurashi first (I dropped Higurashi on episode 5, are Higurashi episodes 5-8 even worth it?). Also, it must have lolis. I won't read a VN without lolis.

 

[Arthandas]

VN that feels like Dark Souls II

Fucking newfags...

 

[dutchwench]

So can anyone recommend a VN that feels like Dark Souls II? Umineko seems to have a similar vibe from what I can tell, but I hesitate to start with it without completing Higurashi first (I dropped Higurashi on episode 5, are Higurashi episodes 5-8 even worth it?). Also, it must have lolis. I won't read a VN without lolis.

For a visual representation of how it feels to play a Souls game, Kuroinu. For something more gameplay-oriented, Rance 5D. Start with that one to have no clue about what's going on in the setting, enhancing the Souls atmosphere.

 

[spookyheart]

So can anyone recommend a VN that feels like Dark Souls II? Umineko seems to have a similar vibe from what I can tell, but I hesitate to start with it without completing Higurashi first (I dropped Higurashi on episode 5, are Higurashi episodes 5-8 even worth it?). Also, it must have lolis. I won't read a VN without lolis.

As in dark and grim edgy type of stuff? probably corpse party since like dark souls you could die at any moment.

 

[The Jester]

So can anyone recommend a VN that feels like Dark Souls II? Umineko seems to have a similar vibe from what I can tell, but I hesitate to start with it without completing Higurashi first (I dropped Higurashi on episode 5, are Higurashi episodes 5-8 even worth it?). Also, it must have lolis. I won't read a VN without lolis.

Black Souls 1 & 2, more of a JRPG with porn than a VN.

 

[Fargus]

I see the World End Economica being mentioned here. I have all of them on steam from some sale. Maybe i should give it a try...

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I see the World End Economica being mentioned here. I have all of them on steam from some sale. Maybe i should give it a try...

I am half way through part 2. Really enjoying it. It is more tightly written than most VNs I have played. Little to no filler. Part 1 starts a little slow but then it becomes engaging.

 

[Elttharion]

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Finished World End Economica part 2. Was good. It's been a while since I was this enthralled by a VN. It's very good at explaining financial concepts that I didn't understand at all even when taking college courses. You understand it better when you have characters you care about being threatened by or trying to capitalize with these mechanics to achieve their goals. It is also the only game story I can think of off of the top of my head where you interact with a lot of suits such as moneylenders, shareholders, CEOs, bankers, etc, and they aren't demonized as strawmen capitalist caricatures.

Currently half way through part 3. Things were looking so good

 

[Nifft Batuff]

If you think things are bad now, wait for the next generation of businessmen, trained on VNs.

 

[Abu Antar]

WEC episode 3 was better than the second part, imo.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have finished World End Economica. It was great up until the last 10 minutes. The ending was a little underwhelming. It is abrupt and there is no epilogue for a send off. Some of the music was nice but the tracks were too short, being about 60 to 90 seconds in length.

Spoiler

The second and third games were building up to their reunion, but Hal and Hagana only got to spend two scenes together. You never get to savor it. There is no epilogue and you don't get to see if Lisa and Serrault got their happy ending. We never found out if John Eagle survived the apocalypse or fled to Earth. Chris turned her back on the Church to focus all in on climbing the corporate ladder, but then in the credits CG she is apparently eating there again? And I was not convinced that Barton was repentant. I'd be worried that he would be back to his old ways and create another ponzi scheme/crush more people and then leave our heroes out to dry again. I was also expecting that Christianity would have established more of a presence on the moon after 8 years. Lisa and the Church being in that blockbuster movie surely would have spurred more interest in it. What about Hal's housing project? Or the other cities that were envisioned? Did he use his billions to kickstart those? Did Toyama and Chris' father and everyone else who got evicted by Barton come back to settle in Hal's new houses?

Overall very good. Up there as one of the tighter VNs I've read.

 

[n0wh3r3]

Got Iwaihime recently, I might start with it today... Thoughts?

 

[Kuruwin]

Got Iwaihime recently, I might start with it today... Thoughts?

It's shit. I have already forgotten the specifics but part of it's problem was the artstyle and the story clashing. It's pretty much underwhelming all around though and eventhough it's not a long game, it's still manage's to drag on.