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Ausf

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I've always thought this was an RPG from the cover art and always been disappointed that its not when I go to check it out 😅 looks interesting though.
As an anime, I enjoyed the story. I have no idea how it would work as an interesting game. Of course we've had this conversation about VNs before, where I was expecting more game/choice, and less story with worse art than anime, and very occasional interaction or player input.

I understand playing games like RPGs, where you have combat, and leveling etc. The story in that case gives your character motivation to complete the game, and if it's fun, and the story is interesting, you, as the player, want to play the game.

Likewise, compared to a novel, you just read it. I guess a VN is kind of like choose your own adventure? The interactive/choice part. I have read regular novels, and I think I'd prefer that to VN.

The biggest problem with anime being that you often don't get the full story. You get the first season, and while you get infinite shonen seasons with no story, you often don't get more than the first season of things you actually like.

Also, to get the most out of SG, there are four games, if you want the whole story.
 

silent_passenger

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As an anime, I enjoyed the story. I have no idea how it would work as an interesting game. Of course we've had this conversation about VNs before, where I was expecting more game/choice, and less story with worse art than anime, and very occasional interaction or player input.
The thing is, anime was based on the game - visual novel. And it wasn't the first time. Higurashi is the same and many others.
Likewise, compared to a novel, you just read it. I guess a VN is kind of like choose your own adventure? The interactive/choice part. I have read regular novels, and I think I'd prefer that to VN.
Yes, exactly. It is pretty much a "Choose Your Own Adventure" type of game. Although most Japanese VNs are notorious for a very few choices. In Japan, they call all such games "adventures". In the West, we call them either VNs or Kinetic novels (when there are no choices at all).
 

WhatNitrous

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As an anime, I enjoyed the story. I have no idea how it would work as an interesting game. Of course we've had this conversation about VNs before, where I was expecting more game/choice, and less story with worse art than anime, and very occasional interaction or player input.

I understand playing games like RPGs, where you have combat, and leveling etc. The story in that case gives your character motivation to complete the game, and if it's fun, and the story is interesting, you, as the player, want to play the game.

Likewise, compared to a novel, you just read it. I guess a VN is kind of like choose your own adventure? The interactive/choice part. I have read regular novels, and I think I'd prefer that to VN.

The biggest problem with anime being that you often don't get the full story. You get the first season, and while you get infinite shonen seasons with no story, you often don't get more than the first season of things you actually like.

Also, to get the most out of SG, there are four games, if you want the whole story.
Personally there are very few VNs I think should have sequels, some are actually story driven enough for that to be a good idea...and maybe this is my interest in AVN and not normal VNs that makes this much more true, but usually in AVNs sequels are one of two things.

1) Cash grabs - AVNs with multiple Seasons or Chapters that are really just separated for either size reasons or flat out to make people pay for two games that are really one game in truth. I mean lets be real, your not going to find many LOTR or GOT level AVN writers out there doing it just for the love of doing it.

2) Asset flipping - Again, money...now there are a rare few I actually liked the characters enough to see someone attempt this (and those ones usually don't), and maybe two I can think of offhand that I actually have more than one season...and at least one I've never even played but the characters are sexy as fuck.

I don't mind a spin off, cameo's from other games, etc...but usually multiple games is just for money reasons and of course that goes against everything I believe in as a developer and a gamer.

If theres a real story to continue...all good, but just like the AVN world is flooded with trash games for quick money, its also picked up this bullshit excuse to make more profit and I hate it.

Doesnt really matter to me now that I don't purchase them and would prefer to support the devs directly if they earned it (and I had the money), but it got under my skin when I bought them on steam and found out there was a season 2 that was really the other half of season 1 :rolleyes:

Ivo probably has had better experience here being a general VN player...but I get bored too easily with my ADHD sitting at a PC to play those 90% of the time and start wanting to program or play something with more action...theres a reason I praise ivo's writing so much even if its not polished for VNs as good as I believe it will be eventually, I really read the story with the fans or right before them and I always find it entertaining as hell 🤷‍♂️ a rare thing for me.
 

WhatNitrous

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Hence me adding a Kinetic Mode 'option'...for lazy smut hunters with no interest in story or people who lose their saves..but only as an option.

Sometimes you just wanna fap and skip the reading crap :LOL: but I wouldnt even be intereated in helping someone make a kinetic novel that had no choices. Bleh...might as well make animated porn and call it a day.
 

Ausf

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The thing is, anime was based on the game - visual novel. And it wasn't the first time. Higurashi is the same and many others.
Yes, and both SG and Hig got multiple anime seasons. They're also kind of similar, with the whole time travel and repeating choices thing. Does that work better in games? You're supposed to fail, and then repeat with different choices, until you got the best outcome.

I think back then there were also fewer things. Every season we get heaps of things now, but in the '90s and 2000s, there were fewer shows on at once.
Although most Japanese VNs are notorious for a very few choices. In Japan, they call all such games "adventures". In the West, we call them either VNs or Kinetic novels (when there are no choices at all).
Yes, this was my first experience of them. I enjoyed a few anime based on VNs. So I tried a VN, and was disappointed in the lack of interactivity and choice. Even when there were dialog options, they didn't seem to matter. That's why I didn't get into them.
 

Ausf

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Personally there are very few VNs I think should have sequels, some are actually story driven enough for that to be a good idea..
In the case of SG, and Hig, that ivo mentioned, without too much spoiler I hope, you travel back in time and fail repeatedly. That's the story. So it's almost infinitely repeatable. If you just got the happy ending first try, it would be forgettable. Of course, since you're constantly going back in time, you never get the perfect ending?
 

WhatNitrous

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Yes, and both SG and Hig got multiple anime seasons. They're also kind of similar, with the whole time travel and repeating choices thing. Does that work better in games? You're supposed to fail, and then repeat with different choices, until you got the best outcome.
Thats the annoying kind. Bad choice and good choice period...no real right or wrong or branching directions.
I think back then there were also fewer things. Every season we get heaps of things now, but in the '90s and 2000s, there were fewer shows on at once.

Yes, this was my first experience of them. I enjoyed a few anime based on VNs. So I tried a VN, and was disappointed in the lack of interactivity and choice. Even when there were dialog options, they didn't seem to matter. That's why I didn't get into them.
Its also not easy to branch a story 80 times with far reaching affects...for each path its basically a separate book (and pictures--which take forever to push out), so theres only so much you can do in a realistic timeframe...but again, the way your describing it, you picked a bad VN to try.

Usually ones based off other things are the worst...because they are following another story or need a set outcome...and thry have the other to make sales for them so they don't even need to try. Even in the AVN scene ones based on Anime are 99% trash and end up abandoned.

Even though they had a story...they didnt use it, romances, actual plot...just smut with the characters 🤮
 
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WhatNitrous

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In the case of SG, and Hig, that ivo mentioned, without too much spoiler I hope, you travel back in time and fail repeatedly. That's the story. So it's almost infinitely repeatable. If you just got the happy ending first try, it would be forgettable. Of course, since you're constantly going back in time, you never get the perfect ending?
Sounds like Lust theory, but not AS bad...and ironically I enjoyed it the first time in the first game because they did it right. In the second game you literally repeat the same day of scenes over and over locked out of options until you choose others...its terrible, the first one made it so you had options at all times and you picked what went right or wrong, the second was set in a fixed block until you figured it out and ruined the concept entirely
 

WhatNitrous

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I've bought games like the Naruto fighting series i dont really enjoy for the animated scenes and story that came with it...but I don't care for the other way around where its just the characters...and god only knows who wants to see Naruto fucking Hinata, yet theres been at least 10 trash AVNs based on it :LOL:

All abandoned to boot...they.couldn't even rip something off and finish a game lmao.
 

Ausf

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Thats the annoying kind. Bad choice and good choice period...no real right or wrong or branching directions.
I watched the anime, so not sure about choice, but it was like Final Destination. Even if you solved one problem, you just end up with it happening in a slightly different way. Also, each time you, and the time repeater, learned new things, that carried over, but everyone else was unaware that the MC was time traveling.

SG is also very funny, which is a big part of why I liked it. I don't think Hig was especially funny, more the mystery and drama that made it interesting.
the way your describing it, you picked a bad VN to try.
I tried a few different ones, not based on anime, since I wanted something new. They were all similar. All Japanese. All fan translated. Part of it was my expectations, but ultimately, it just wasn't for me. Not that it was bad exactly, it just wasn't something that interested me.
 

silent_passenger

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Yes, and both SG and Hig got multiple anime seasons. They're also kind of similar, with the whole time travel and repeating choices thing. Does that work better in games? You're supposed to fail, and then repeat with different choices, until you got the best outcome.
Higurashi is essentially a kinetic novel, although Ryukishi07 calls it a sound novel because of all the sounds. Steins has choices, so the story can go in different directions from the default storyline in anime.
Yes, this was my first experience of them. I enjoyed a few anime based on VNs. So I tried a VN, and was disappointed in the lack of interactivity and choice. Even when there were dialog options, they didn't seem to matter. That's why I didn't get into them.
If they have choices, they will heavily influence the story, but yeah, choices are rare. Song of Saya has two main paths and 2 or 3 choices throughout the whole game, depending on the chosen path. Or Sakura No Mori, where the first choice is after 90 minutes of reading the story.

And sometimes they're intentionally confusing. I'm often mentioning my favourite VN Divi Dead, where you need to be at a certain place on a certain day, which you couldn't possibly know without a walkthrough. But that's for a secret ending, and they wouldn't be secret if everyone knew how to get there, I guess. 🤷‍♂️
In the case of SG, and Hig, that ivo mentioned, without too much spoiler I hope, you travel back in time and fail repeatedly. That's the story. So it's almost infinitely repeatable. If you just got the happy ending first try, it would be forgettable. Of course, since you're constantly going back in time, you never get the perfect ending?
No, you can get the perfect ending. Most VNs are created with the idea of many playthroughs, where you explore different paths until the end. Sometimes, some paths are even hidden until you finish the game by choosing a certain other path, like in Zero Escape: The Nonary Games.
So, it's similyr to good RPGs in that regard - based on your choices, you'll get the ending you wanted.
 

WhatNitrous

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I watched the anime, so not sure about choice, but it was like Final Destination. Even if you solved one problem, you just end up with it happening in a slightly different way. Also, each time you, and the time repeater, learned new things, that carried over, but everyone else was unaware that the MC was time traveling.

SG is also very funny, which is a big part of why I liked it. I don't think Hig was especially funny, more the mystery and drama that made it interesting.

I tried a few different ones, not based on anime, since I wanted something new. They were all similar. All Japanese. All fan translated. Part of it was my expectations, but ultimately, it just wasn't for me. Not that it was bad exactly, it just wasn't something that interested me.
You can always give ours a try ;)
 

Ausf

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No, you can get the perfect ending. Most VNs are created with the idea of many playthroughs, where you explore different paths until the end.
Yes, the game might have multiple endings, and the anime might show some of them. What I meant was, you can keep making new games or seasons infinitely, because even if you get the perfect ending, you can just start the process over again, meaning infinite sequels.

No idea if you guys have heard of Mushoku Tensei, but I read the novels, all 26 of them, and I thought I finally got to the end where I was satisfied with the ending, and didn't really care too much about the side stories. Until the final chapter where they brought up something in the first one, that changed everything and then made me want to know what happened. Damn sequel bait.
You can always give ours a try ;)
The last game I seriously played, was Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and despite being a big fan of the first one, was nothing but disappointed in the sequel. I do have your game in my IG showcase library though.

I was also disappointed with Mechwarrior 5, well less disappointed, and more just not wowed by it. It had some good points, as did KCD2 I guess. I didn't bother playing the MW5 Clans sequel, since it was just more of the same. In 4 for example, there was an announcer that talked over the tournament on Solaris. They created a DLC with the same voice actor, but the DLC was trash. The Solaris tournament was much less involved than the game from twenty years ago.

Then recently, I got the original Fallout game, and thought I'd mess around a few mins in character creator, and ended up putting 100 hrs into it. Even though I played it to death when it came out, I still found myself wanting to go back for more. It's hard to know what will draw you in.
 

WhatNitrous

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Yes, the game might have multiple endings, and the anime might show some of them. What I meant was, you can keep making new games or seasons infinitely, because even if you get the perfect ending, you can just start the process over again, meaning infinite sequels.

No idea if you guys have heard of Mushoku Tensei, but I read the novels, all 26 of them, and I thought I finally got to the end where I was satisfied with the ending, and didn't really care too much about the side stories. Until the final chapter where they brought up something in the first one, that changed everything and then made me want to know what happened. Damn sequel bait.

The last game I seriously played, was Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and despite being a big fan of the first one, was nothing but disappointed in the sequel. I do have your game in my IG showcase library though.

I was also disappointed with Mechwarrior 5, well less disappointed, and more just not wowed by it. It had some good points, as did KCD2 I guess. I didn't bother playing the MW5 Clans sequel, since it was just more of the same. In 4 for example, there was an announcer that talked over the tournament on Solaris. They created a DLC with the same voice actor, but the DLC was trash. The Solaris tournament was much less involved than the game from twenty years ago.

Then recently, I got the original Fallout game, and thought I'd mess around a few mins in character creator, and ended up putting 100 hrs into it. Even though I played it to death when it came out, I still found myself wanting to go back for more. It's hard to know what will draw you in.
Cant argue that 🤷‍♂️ i'm surprised I enjoy OUR VN sometimes :ROFLMAO:

Yet like you i'll dive into something that I should love lately and just...meh. I really think the games are getting worse and its not just my want to play to some extent, but I definitely dont have the passion I did some years back...obviously my life constantly crumbling down doesnt help, but who can say if it wasnt really...I'll never know unless I break free to find out.
 

silent_passenger

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Then recently, I got the original Fallout game, and thought I'd mess around a few mins in character creator, and ended up putting 100 hrs into it. Even though I played it to death when it came out, I still found myself wanting to go back for more. It's hard to know what will draw you in.
For me, story - 9 out of 10 times. That's why my favourite game genres are RPG, VN and adventure (point and click and others). And, in terms of genres in general, horror, SF and fantasy - because I read/saw/played so many titles that only those three genres can offer me something I haven't seen yet. Of course, 99% of them turn out as trash, bad copies of more successful predecessors, but in those 1% there are original stories worth suffering those aforementioned 99% of garbage.
 

Ausf

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I mostly watch anime for the story, although I read occasionally too. With Mushoku Tensei, I saw the anime first, and decided to read the novels after. The same with Game of Thrones.

I tend to enjoy medieval settings, and my most played game on Steam is Warband, and most of that was in Game of Thrones mods.

When I was a kid I played more games, because there were more games. Anime was less common. Now there is plenty of anime, especially the isekai kind, that I like, but everyone seems to hate on. I remember school setting being more common decades ago, which didn't and still doesn't interest me, but everyone else seemed to like it.

On PS2, I got story in games from RPGs. Downloading one game meant a lot of time spent for the download, and back then there were data limits. Now of of course there are no limits, but most things are terrible.

My favorite story RPG from the PS2 era was Radiata Stories. Amusingly, there was a bunch of cut content on the disc, and people are even in the last few years releasing new info on it.
 

WhatNitrous

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My favorite story RPG from the PS2 era was Radiata Stories. Amusingly, there was a bunch of cut content on the disc, and people are even in the last few years releasing new info on it
On PS2 I can't even think of haha. PS was suikoden and ff7, possibly Digital Devil Saga part 1 from shinmega (sorry that was PS3 as a PSOne classic), others I played later from japan would have been star ocean and tales of games...on nintendo it was destiny of an emperor by a mile, for snes it would have been ff2 and 3 (4 and 6), and for PS3 it was Star Ocean The Last Hope and the original Assassins Creed games. Funny that I only enjoy history even slightly in video games and despise it most orher times.
 

Ausf

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star ocean
I played one of those, since it was connected to RS in some way. There was a crossover costume. It was on two discs. I finished the first one, but instead of learning the combat system and leveling, I bought high end gear by discovering the map and selling the gold bonus items. Anyway, I got stuck halfway through, and couldn't go back to level, and just gave up. It did not seem like it was worth repeating half the game to continue the story.
I played on PC. Wondering why I couldn't use phoenix down during a certain cutscene, and spending way too much time chocobo racing.
 
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