Thursday, October 10, 2013

MG Gundam X announced


Looks like another of my wish has been granted again yay! I have been waiting for a MG for Gundam X to come someday and at long last Bandai is eager enough to announce the release for it. Nothing much we know about the MG Gundam X other than it is scheduled to be released on January next year and will cost 3800 yen. I doubt the Divider unit is included in the MG kit and we will probably see a separate release for Gundam X Divider. I wonder if Air master or Leopard will got MG treatment as well but i hope it does because personally Gundam X series is one of my favorite AU Gundam titles other than G Gundam.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Osananajimi wa Daitouryou


Over past 2 weeks, I have been marathoning VNs to make up the time when i left the VN world for almost a year. This time i completed Osananajimi wa Daitouryou or My girlfriend is president which should have been My childhood friend is president if it is properly translated but had to admit the former title does rings better. I saw this VN for the first time when i lurked sankaku years ago where there is an article about VN with female Putin as one of the heroine and the bad guy is the Pope which is not the exact thing in the game but close enough. Basically the story is about a guy who suddenly find himself as a Vice president and his childhood friend is the President of Japan herself due to some interference by Aliens and things happen from there.

Overall Osananajimi wa Daitouryou is your run of the mill slice of life VN with Alien as the theme and tiny doses of politics. The story is nothing particularly special but it does redeem itself with tons of references from popular games and anime here and there. There are 4 routes in this game and the paths selections are quite simple compared to other VNs. While I don't really have particular favorite character for this VN, if i have to pick one i would say Ezekiel or more known as Ell is the most adorable one while Yukino, the main character childhood friend is probably my least favorite though she kind of resemble Sumika from Muvluv save for terrible cooking skill. Despite  Osananajimi wa Daitouryou is mediocre VN, by no means it is terrible but just don't expect anything outstanding from the reading experience. I may give fandisk a go as well just for a sake of completion.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Yami's completed VN List


 I am writing this post as a self reminder for the list Visual Novels that i have finished reading. With this i can see my mileage of the Journey through one of the biggest Genre of gaming in Japan that have produced some great works from time to time.

In no particular order
  1. Snow Drop
  2. Little my maid
  3. Utawarerumono
  4. Princess Waltz
  5. Tsukihime
  6. Kagetsu Tohya
  7. Planetarian
  8. Yume miru Kusuri
  9. Shuffle!
  10. Tears to Tiara
  11. Ever 17
  12. Saya no Uta
  13. Kikokugai
  14. Muvluv Extra/Unlimited
  15. Muvluv Alternative
  16. Muvluv Alt Chronicle 1
  17. Muvluv Alt Chronicle 2
  18. Muvluv Alt Chronicle 3
  19. Zanma Taisei Demonbane
  20. Kishin Hishou Demonbane
  21. Edelweiss
  22. Clannad
  23. Rance 2
  24. Rance 5D
  25. Rance VI: Fall of Zeth
  26. Sengoku Rance
  27. Fate stay night
  28. Katawa Shoujo
  29. Chaos;Head
  30. Umineko no naku koro ni
  31. Umineko no naku koro ni Chiru
  32. Osanajimi wa daitoryou
  33. Hourglass of Summer
  34. G Senjou no Maou
  35. Hourglass of Summer
  36. Cross Channel
  37. Kara no Shoujo
  38. Miku kiss ~mirai no kimi to, subete no uta ni
  39. Danganronpa
  40. Sakura Taisen
  41. Sakura Taisen 2 
  42. Sakura Taisen 3
  43. Remember 11 
  44. Hanachirasu
  45. Private Nurse

Yami's personal thoughts about Visual Novel


I think this is the time for me to discuss my own opinion about VNs as well as sharing some of my personal experience considering it has been 3 months after the poll that i put ended. But before that i just finished Miku Kisu - mirai no kimi to subete no uta ni which is a fanmade VN sold in comiket few years ago. As i expected this VN is not as good as the commercial VN in general but did quite good job in pandering Miku fans which unfortunately i am not. While i find the story cheesy, at least my perspective on Japanese VN broadened yet again.

So back to the topic, firstly from 33 polls from the polling that i put which for some reason reduced to 22 but anyway majority of the people who have polled at least play 1 VN title or more. I have played more than 30 VN titles up until now, which i don't know whether it is consider a lot or not but from this journey i have reached the conclusion that Visual Novels is one of the best medium for storytelling compared to other gaming genre. The first time i read a Visual Novel is when i was in grade 10 or 11 at high school which i did out of curiosity and that first title was Snow Drop which was mediocre but made me interested enough to keep going on. From there on i keep reading VN titles, some are really good some are mediocre and some are utterly terrible. But nevertheless i do find the experience of reading Visual Novels are really enjoyable. There are differing ways to judge a quality of Visual Novels, some people buy the VN just for the drawing but for me the most important thing for a VN is storyline without a doubt. From my observation the VN that have good storyline tend to have their story to be character driven because surprisingly Visual Novels allow some good character interactions in their medium.

There may have been general perception that VNs or Bishoujo games are only about pandering readers with pornographic material which are sad prejudice toward this gaming medium. While it is true majority of the Visual Novels will contain adult material as they are marketed toward young adults as main consumer base and it is inevitable for developers to put adult content as an incentive to attract the buyers. It is true that there are VNs that focused on adult content called Nukige which i have played some but tend to avoid them and 3D adult simulators like the ones from Illusion games perform better jobs. Anyway most of the VNs from my experience have good balance of story and adult contents. Nevertheless there are handful VN developers that make VN title with no adult content which their effort are commendable and back then Hirameki spearheaded to introduce VN Market to the west with these VNs but unfortunately they went down under (though i find it because they poorly execute the concepts and those interactive DVDs got too much problem). While most of the VNs are in japanese fortunately some of the good titles are translated and developers like Mangagamer try their best to bring more VN titles to the west.

Some of the VN titles that i considered to be good are Ever17 which got really good story especially toward the end, then Yume miru kusuri while i tend to avoid slice of life in general the writer of the script is something else and finally Saya no Uta, it is short but it got some twisted yet beautiful story at the same time. But probably you will prefer to touch these titles after reading couple of VNs in general. Phoenix Wright and Kyle Hyde Saga are quite good game titles as well if you are interested to get into reading VNs despite both of them are not really considered to be VN. As a closing word i will keep on reading VNs in the future and someday probably mastered good command of japanese to play the game in their original language and probably i am going to write another similar post like this in the future.

So what is your first Visual Novel and your favorite one?