How has Rewrite been so far? I've always thought that it had great potential, but it didn't live up to what was promised.

Akane's route is great though, no question about it.

Will be interested to hear your thoughts once you're done. (Rewrite is long as hell though, one of the longest VNs out there)

 

Well, I did Lucia's route first and really enjoyed it, except for the MC becoming an idiot at the end for plot reasons. I'm about to move on to the next girl's route (and I feel oddly guilty about not helping Lucia in her time of need). I really like the voice acting, but humor is just brilliant. Trolling Yoshino never gets old.

I also just started playing Tsukihime and am doing the Arcueid route. Its pretty damn fun so far. The schoolgirls in this game though come off as stalkers though, especially Ciel. That girl just makes me uncomfortable.

 

Lol, yeah, the Yoshino rap-off was stitch-inducing.

Will you try G-Senjou after Tsukihime?

 

I didn't get to the Yoshino rap-off yet, but I just saw the Yoshino music video we made as 'thanks' for him helping the club make the commercial. It was glorious.

I'll try G-Senjou eventually. After I finish these other games.

 

I'll go ahead and recommend Grisaia no Kajitsu. It's an eroge, of course, so expect sex scenes. Most of them are decent and some... well, involve Makina.

It's insanely long, but the vast majority of the length is taken up by the 'common route', where there are only two choices, both of which only affect the unlocking of a certain heroines' route. The decisions that affect which heroine you go for all take place at the end of the common route. IIRC there's only three choices per heroine, the first to start on her route, and the other two to determine which end you get. So as far as choices go, it's a hell of a lot more sparse than something like Tsukihime would be.

The main thing it has going for it is an abundance excellent humour and what's probably the best MC I've ever read in a VN. The TL team for this did an amazing job at localizing the jokes without losing any of the subtleties.

The two sequels are also getting translated and, along with Grisaia, will have an english commercial release before too long. Until then, you can always find a torrent on nyaa and get the english patch from TLWiki.

 

Grisaia is good, but I find that most people overrate it. Angelic Howl was fantastic, but even it had objective flaws to it.

I just don't see how Yuuji makes a compelling, or a well-rounded character - he is, in fact, the main problem with Kajitsu. His backstory isn't even explored until Meikyuu, and so throughout Kajitsu we just don't understand what drives him, or what makes him the guy he is.

This is especially egregious because he is so (socially) stunted, and hard to relate to. The VN's excuse of him being a military man is just bad, because military men aren't like that - they don't think 24/7 about military solutions to ordinary everyday problems.

 

I can agree with you there, he isn't compelling, well-rounded or relatable at all. What he is, though, is fucking hilarious. His warped mindset and the awkward, ridiculous way he views, and reacts to, things is where most of the comedy in Grisaia comes from.

I disagree with your second point though. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Yuuji isn't a military man. He's a child soldier. Those military habits have been ingrained into him since he was, what? Six years old? Military is all he knows. And in Grisaia he's only 17/18, he hasn't exactly had the opportunity to experience anything else.

 

Grisaia can certainly be funny at points, but I think Yuuji's characterization is insufficient, given the serious and dramatic nature of events later in the story - which try to make us sympathize with him and his actions.

Good point regarding child soldiers, but even if Yuuji had been brought up in the military, it doesn't mean he should have become a robot. If anything, he should have picked up the attitudes and habits of professional soldiers - which simply don't involve thinking of retarded military solutions to everyday problems. When I was in the military, everyone could clearly distinguish between up-time and down-time.

Besides, child soldiers in real life (who have seen combat) have PTSD and are utterly desensitized to violence - which is an altogether different case from Yuuji, and far more emotionally compelling to boot. But that's not what Yuuji is shown to be like - he's not at all noticeably traumatized (though the sequels try to retrofit that in).

To be honest, perhaps the most traumatic thing Kajitsu tells us that Yuuji experiences, is being made to "learn" female anatomy from Kazuki.

TLDR: Kazuki best girl, should have been protagonist.

 

So I've been playing Fate/Stay Night today and the Fate route is a chore to get through. Shiro is extremely annoying in this route (apparently the DEEN anime got his character right, from what I remember of it). I'm only on Day 6 and already there have been about 30 sexist remarks in his dialogue and his internal monologue.

"Girls shouldn't be fighting."
"Saber shouldn't be fighting. I should do the fighting and she should stick to being my back-up."

There was even a line about him being happy a female friend of his was mugged because maybe that experience would teach her about her femininity.

Him saying all that shit when he is surrounded by women both smarter and more powerful than him is cringe inducing. I don't know why Saber and Rin put up with him.

I just want this route to end. Right now the only thing keeping me plowing through is the world-building and Rin. I love this character. Her voice actress and dialogue is always golden.

Hopefully the next 2 routes are better. Shiro does seem more tolerable in the UBW anime so I'm hoping that holds true for the VN route as well)

 

You're reading way to much into it, but yeah, it gets better. The Fate route is more about establishing Shirou and Saber then anything else, and things get a lot more tolerable once you understand their motivations.

 

Reading too much into it? Maybe. But since my last post there have been a few more "you're a girl!" lines as I've been playing. My eye is starting to twitch.

 

It's mostly him having an odd way of displaying chivalry. He values others more than himself, so he would rather fight and die before letting Saber be hurt fighting in his place, even with her being exponentially stronger than him. Her being hurt even a little is worse than him dying, so he would rather she not have to fight. It's not restricted to Saber either, he thinks this way about everyone. He would die in a moment for Tohsaka, Shinji(for now), Kirei(for now), Saber, or a random person off the street. It's a little more pronounced with Saber because she's a young-ish attractive woman that he has a crush on, so culturally he should be the one who defends her even if she is able to herself.

As for the mugging femininity thing, yeah I've got nothing. Been a while since I played the VN, so I'd have to reread the scene to be sure.

 

Yeah, it gets irritating. It'll stay that way until most of the way through the Fate route, with some token bits of it in with the other routes. Even then, at the end of the day you're still reading a male protagonist in what amounts to a harem eroge.

That said, that bit of his character is exaggerated a little bit in the Fate route for reasons that'll be fairly obvious in hindsight. If it starts irritating you to much, take a break and come back later. I know I did, several times.

 

Yeah, I remember being quite annoyed by that bit when I read it too. Then I decided that he didn't want them to fight because of what Sauce Bauss said, and it was the only half plausible reason he could find without saying "I would die rather than letting you break a nail for me". It got tolerable then.

 

Many people do, indeed, find Shirou annoying as fuck.

I think I wasn't as affected by it because it was the first VN I played - and the novelty of the world made Shirou's personality less abrasive.

 

I finished the Fate and UBW route.

Fate actually got a lot better after my last post. Once Rider, as well as Berserker and Ilya entered the picture I really started getting into it. (Thank you, Ilya. If I didn't already love you,

Spoiler

killing Shinji would do it for me.

When she wasn't forced into being Shirou's love interest, Saber was awesome. As my main exposure to the Fate franchise was Fate/Zero, I really loved the continuation of her arc.

But it was Rin that stole the show. She was badass and, without a doubt, out-shined Saber and Shirou. Her trolling everybody was great, the art and voice actress made it perfect. I kind of wish she was the main character.

As for Shirou? I still don't like him. I like how his backstory was explored, but knowing why someone is annoying doesn't always make that person less annoying. Especially when it gives rise to such lines as "I am not a burden to Saber! I'm going to fight in her place, so its okay." :facepalm

The story with Kirei and Gil was great, even if they both felt weaker than they did in Fate/Zero. Given that F/Z was a prequel that was written years later, I'll forgive that.

The sex scenes were hilarious. In the first one, Rin sexually dominating Saber was funny. The second one with Shirou and Saber were pretty bad. The writing and art was bad, and Saber felt out of character.

All in all, it was a pretty good route. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I think I ended up shipping Rin/Saber instead of Shirou/Saber though. Are there any Rin/Saber fics out there?



UBW was pretty fantastic. It made me realize just how much the anime left out. Saber had more of a presence than I thought she would, considering she's barely in the anime. And the confrontation between Shirou and Archer was much more in-depth.

As before, Rin stole the show. That character is just great fun, no matter what. I did feel that she was a bit 'weaker' than she was in the Fate route though.She had to be saved by Shirou at least 3 times. She was also a bit more tsundere than in the Fate route. They probably did that because she's the love interest this route. Still, she was the best character along with Archer.

Archer was great. While I"ve been long since spoiled about his identity, it didn't take away from how I felt about the character. His motives for hating Shirou and his ideals made sense. To be honest I was rooting for him.

Shirou..... Well, he was much better here than he was in the fate route. There was none of that annoying "Girls shouldn't be fighting" crap. In fact, the only sexism related idiocy I remember him was relatively tame. Something along the lines of girls shouldn't be going to batting cages. Still stupid, but compared to what I had to put up with in the previous route, it was nothing. And he actually let Saber fight without complaints.

However,

Spoiler

Him sticking to his ideals even after seeing his future was annoying as hell. It was basically like:

Archer: "This is your future. They way you live your life leads to this fate."
Shirou. "Yeah, I know, but Imma do it anyway. Kiritsugu believed in this ideal so I'm going to as well."

That just annoyed me.

Since he's the main character, Shirou won of course. Main character privileges do wonders. (Just look at Shirou beating Gilgamesh)

Luckily, by the epilogue it seemed that Shirou would start to lead his life a bit differently thanks to his memory of fighting Archer and Rin's influence on him. I did like how Archer told Rin that if she stuck by Shirou's side, Shirou would probably not become Archer.

.

Overall, this route was fantastic. However, I"m enjoying this game in spite of Shirou, not because of him. The setting and storyline, along with all of the other characters (Rin, Saber, Archer, Kirei, Lancer, Caster, Gil, etc) are the draw for me.

The UBW anime really suffers due to the lack of internal narration by Shirou. Things I rolled my eyes at in the show (like Shirou's sudden fixation with swords) were really well done in the VN.

Anyway, I'm about to play Heaven's Feel now. I hear its the best route, but I'm not sure how many "Senpai"'s I'll be able to take.

 

I found Heaven's Feel even harder to get through than Fate, but keep going because the end really is the best part of the game. Heaven's Feel also has some of the best Bad Ends.

 

Heaven's Feel is supposed to be the best, though in terms of heroines Sakura is almost certainly the worst of the lot.

Cyclops

Bad End 30 (the Mind of Steel ending) is worth checking out.

http://www.neoneko.net/downloads/Flowchart.pdf (a useful flowchart to avoid dem bad ends).

 

Relevant and useful picture that I saved at some point a while back.