I had to force myself to keep playing, and I took quite a few long breaks from it, but I finally finished Heaven's Feel. I have mixed thoughts on it. Its low points were extemely terrible, but when it was good it was utterly fantastic.

What I liked:
*Shirou and Saber being proactive in the early days of the Holy Grail War. It was a nice change of pace to see them going out and looking for other masters.
* The atmosphere. It felt appropiately foreboding in pretty much all non-Sakura scenes.
*Shirou's relationship with Kotomine Kirei.
*Kotomine . This was definitely his best route. His backstoy and motivations were great, as were all of his fight scenes. Him manipulating everyone and everything was fun.
*Zouken. This crazy old dude was a good villain.
* Angra Manyou and his backstory.
*Ilya. This was definitely her best route as well. There was a lot of her, and every scene with her was great. Learning more about her family history as well as her role in the Holy Grail War was very interesting. I really enjoyed her relationship with Shirou.
*Rider. She had a great showing. I liked every scene she had.
*Evil Sakura on the final day. That was the only time I actually liked her. Particularly during her battle with Rin. When she gave her whole sob story to Rin and Rin was all like "Oh. I see. What of it?" I laughed my ass off.
*Rin. Once again, Rin stole the show. In this route, she was a major badass. She was a lot less tsundere than in UBW and showed off just how smart and powerful she is. This is the only character that got a perfect showing in all three routes. She is definitely my favorite character.




What I didn't like.
* Sakura. I hate her. I didn't enjoy her chacter at all. She got jealous and mad every time Sirou talked to another girl whether it was Saber or Rin. She was mad that Rin was in the house taking care of Shirou when he was injured. She was happy when Shirou got hurt because then he wouldn't fight anymore. She was happy when Saber disappeared (unforgivable!). Also, There is only so many uses of the word 'senpai' I can handle. I can just go on forever about how much I hate this character. Any time she was on screen was a chore to get through. Unfortunately that was more than 50% of this route. She is such a disappointment of a 'heroine' after having Saber and Rin.
* Shirou's obsession with

Spoiler

saving Sakura at the cost of innocent lives. He knew she could go on a bloody rampage at any moment but still kept trying to save her. It would be one thing if he would be the only one in danger from her, but he wasn't. Even after she killed a few hundred people he couldn't kill her. He was fine with her victims being people he didn't know, but what would he have done if Taiga happened to be one her her victims? Would he change his mind then?

* The pacing in the middle of the route. It felt like every day went like this: see how Sakura is feeling, make breakfast with Sakura, see how Sakura is feeling, make lunch with Sakura, see how Sakura is feeling, make dinner with Sakura, see how Sakura is feeling, patrol the neighborhood for 2 minutes and not find anything (unless you were forced to stay home because you couldn't leave Sakura alone), then go home and check on Sakura. It felt like this process was repeated over and over forever. Only when Shirou left to go to warn Ilya about Zouken did things pick up.

 

I agree with nearly everything you said, Heaven's Feel was probably the route I liked the least, even though there were pretty awesome moments (Ilya, Kirei's backstory and that last fight against Shirou were perfect). I would only add that I didn't like (read: I hated):
- Sakura's existence.
- How overpowered the new characters were compared to the previous ones. I get that you needed new challenges, but seeing Caster, Lancer, Gil and Assassin getting one-shot was meh.
- Saber's end.

Spoiler

Not killing her was one of the few dead end I genuinely fell into. I was hoping he would use Rule Breaker on her for a long time.

You probably know it, but if you get all the 40 dead-ends, you can unlock a new epilogue to the Fate route.

 

Did you skimmed through the game? Because honestly, that is the only reason I feel you could have come up with this idea that Yuuji wasn't ridiculously traumatized by his past events and that a military upbringing was all he had.

It was even a whole point in Makina's route when he tried killing her mom. He literally suffered through an emotional attack before the choice pops up and breaks down if he does kill her. Then we learn in Sachi's route that he comes from a terrible family with subtle hints of abuse. Of course it wasn't explained heavily in the first game but the signs were there from his childhood characterization that his home life wasn't good even before joining the terrorists.

This is all before the second game, where we learn the real shit that happened to him. And again, all of it was before he joined the terrorists. And if Asako hadn't spent four or five years rehabilitating him, do you honestly think he would have been even capable of going out in public again?

No.

 

Should try and track down the Realta Nua patch, which adds the voice acting and some improved art from the console versions. Doesn't fix most of the problems, but it's an improvement over vanilla.

Grisaia's common route is hilarious, but I didn't like any of the heroine-specific routes. Obviously this is subjective, but the change from humor to drama didn't grab me at all on any of the five routes.

Also, I've heard that the Steam version of the game censored not only the sex scenes (which are gratuitous), but many of the game's dirty jokes as well. I'd avoid grabbing it until the translators release an uncensored version because a lot of the dirty humor is hilarious.

 

I know about Meikyuu and Rakuen, thank you very much - nor did I skim Kajitsu.

My point was in response to The Arid Legion's, regarding military upbringing. I argued that his military upbringing was not sufficient to explain his abnormal behaviour - I'm sure you agree with me on that, given what we know of his abusive childhood and the pedo-terrorist . Perhaps my joke about Kazuki made you think I'm understating how traumatic Yuuji's childhood is, but I'm not - I don't think we're disagreeing here.

My larger point is that Kajitsu is weak, and not a very good story, because Yuuji is neither compelling himself (a subjective flaw) nor is he properly characterized - his motivations and backgrounds are not fleshed out (an objective flaw).

Of course Meikyuu rectifies that to an extent, but to say that is to concede that Grisaia doesn't work very well as a story in itself, in the same way one could say that Muv Luv Extra sucks balls without Unlimited and Alternative to provide the larger context of why such pointless SOL are necessary to the story.

 

So just a reminder to anyone, absolutely anyone reading the FSN VN and F/HA VN, that what you are reading are just FAN-TRANSLATIONS.

This means that a lot gets lost in transition between the original iterations and the english translations, because of the jargons, cultural interpretations, and more than that the MirrorMoon sometimes mistranslated a lot of stuff.

Also on F/HA, the thing with this iteration is that it's not a sequel, it's a FANDISK, which means while Nasu wrote some stuff on it, it was written by a collaboration of writers who sometimes did not capture the original essence of the characters they were making a story about. So expect a lot of OOC.

Also a general observation, Nasu is an awkward social shut-in who didn't know how to write romance and didn't get how to make romance with some of the characters work. Evident even with Tsukihime. Personally I never got into any of the romantic relationships he writes about because they just seems to cringey, even Nasu admits this when asked about Saber and Shirou's relationship. Shiki and Arc are...marginally better, but holy fuck you gotta be sick to actually start a relationship with someone who sliced into 17 fucking pieces.

Then again Arc is a vamp, so there's that.

But yeah, romance wise the VN's don't hold up well. Saber and Shirou was awkwardly handled, as I have said. Nasu couldn't find a way to make it work without the whole "GIRLS SHOULDN'T FIGHT"(which I always hated and made me dislike Shirou all the more in the beginning.)

I can kinda get into Rin and Shirou but not really? Because I like them more as friends than anything. Rin brings out Shiou's snarkier side, and well Rin always gets backhanded by Shirou's blunt honesty. UBW was the route that tempered my dislike for Shirou into more of a tolerance, because I can understand his motivations in Fate route better than the route itself.

Sakura and Shirou.....where to begin.

Um.

Nah, I don't really feel like getting into that. Sakura is my least favorite heroine but that's not saying I dislike her. I just found her being the heroine in the route as not as good as Rin, who was the best out of all three.

Overall, I would rate FSN as 7.2/10. World building wise though, FSN is the reason I got into the TM fandom more. It was the one that built the more magical and fantastical aspects of the Nasuverse and the reason why TM has a cult following that's staying strong even after all these years. I mean, Noble Phantasms? Better explanation of Reality Marbles? A deeper understanding of the magical structure of the world? Heroes from all ages that you can possibly summon with the right tools?

It got me into it simply because it threw a carrot in my face and I'm still chewing on said carrot because it was one big fucking carrot. So many things introduced and so many things to explore.

so yeah, if you're the kind of person who likes a world with multiple facets and interesting concepts, then getting into FSN means you gotta be prepared to be addicted to exploring the things it slams in your face even on your way out.

 

I played the Realta Nua version, with a patch that put in all the Japanese voices. upgraded art, etc. I got the patch from the Beast's Lair forums.

Over all, I'd give the game maybe an 8.5 out of 10 at most. And that's being generous. I'm surprised I'd rate it that high given how much I hated Shirou in the Fate route and how much the pacing and Sakura in general pissed me off in HF. Its the supporting cast and world-building that makes me rate it so high.

You know, it was actually thanks to you that I really got into Fate/Stay Night in the first place. I read Fictional years ago and loved it. Afterward I tried to watch the DEEN anime but couldn't get past the first few episodes. So it was stories like yours that made me like the Fate universe back then. When the Fate/Zero anime came around is when I really started getting into the franchise as a whole. If I hadn't read Fictional, I doubt I"d have been as eager to check out the rest of the Fate/Stay universe. I'd have missed out on a lot. So thank you for introducing me to this universe and showing me how cool it could be.

---------- Post automerged at 02:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:56 PM ----------

The Heaven's Feel movies have the potential to be better than HF in the game. All they have to do is cut out the majority of the repetitive Sakura scenes and kitchen scenes and focus on the actual story.

With all of the Sakura scenes they'd have to make like 10 movies. Without them, they can tell HF in around 4 or 5.

 

I don't think Grisaia is bad - all things (especially Angelic Howl) considered, it's rather good.

I think we both agree that the main issue is that Yuuji's motivation and personality are left unexplicated until Meikyuu.

That said, on the other strengths you see Grisaia as having - I feel it's quite strange, since the weakness that most readers seem to quote are: 1) long common route that grows repetitive, 2) poorly written routes outside Amane and Michiru (not surprising, given that common/Amane/Michiru were written by the main scenario writer, and the rest hived off to other authors), and 3) weak endings (especially for Yumiko).

I'm quite baffled as to why some people think Grisaia is so damn good. There are plenty of other VNs which I don't rate that highly - Rewrite, Forest, Katawa Shoujo - but I can still empathize and see what it is that they think made them love and acclaim these VNs above all others.

For Grisaia I just don't see that - it is so obviously flawed in objective ways, that I'm not sure how one could get over them.

If you don't mind - out of interest, aside from FSN and GnK, which other VNs have you read?

---------- Post automerged at 08:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:00 PM ----------

Time to read G-Senjou, so you can die happy.

 

Cyclops: I would generally think that the HF movies could be told in like, 3 to 5 movies. If they cut out the cooking scenes and the repetitive Sakura parts.

 

This.

Also, if you read Japanese, Baldr Sky and Eustia are probably both better than FSN.

 

If you can read Japanese, you shouldn't even waste time on Eustia. Subarashiki Hibi (which is coming out in English very soon), Dies Irae, Oretsuba - the list of top-tier untranslated VNs is endless.

 

You only read FSN for the battle sequences and the odd cast of characters. Don't take Shirou too seriously and it's great. I mean, the idiot's endearing in an odd way - he's atypical for sure, but that's what makes him interesting to me. I've not read too many VNs, but of the ones I have, he's one of the most memorable protagonists. He's a nut, capable of saying and doing strange things that make sense to how his character is designed. A lot of VN protagonists are otherwise so obnoxiously normal they're like a self-insert (which isn't a coincidence considering the usual suspect that is the target audience).

Fate route is boring, but UBW/HF climaxes are so amazing to read and satisfying conclusions that it's worth the experience. Parts of the story are a hot mess, but all is made amends by the end. I just wish the universe were expanded more seriously in AH.

 

Yes that's true, Shirou is annoying but at least he's more unique than some of the VN protags that I've read. He's not completely 'blank'. I learn about him more as the VN progresses, not just about the woman he was pursuing, unlike other VN where I was just a spectator and plotdevice to the development of the heroine in the route.

 

I actually didn't like Subarashiki Hibi that much. I haven't read the other 2 though because they're super long.

 

Aiyoku no Eustia is pretty boss tbh. I've played the only translated part and it's good.

There's also for the lulz Sengoku Rance if you want a really, really really hard VN/sRPG.

 

Blasphemy. How can you not like Wittgenstein Yuri?

Out of interest, what else have you read?

 

White Album 2 is probably the other "top-tier" VN I've read. It was so frustrating... and barely worth haha.

I didn't like the middle chapters of Subahibi. Once we got to Jabberwocky it was pretty good. Didn't have a wow factor.

 

Clannad finally got released on Steam after their wildly successful kickstarter.

Hopefully this success will make more VN's get an official release in NA.