What the hell is this?

Is this some weird anime porn game? It sure looks that way. And if so....let me at it.

@smackifilia: It's a particularly bad and short visual novel. Not voiced or animated with basically only one actual choice. Some fanservice with no actual nudity or sexual content. It's appropriate for all ages. There are cat girl breasts, but you're better off looking at deviantart than wasting your money on this.

There are far better visual novels for your money, and if you're looking for weird anime porn games, it's not even that.

A game Jeff, and Vinny </3, should QL is what!

*sigh* i'd try recommending some visual novels if these topics weren't always so damn condescending ;-p ... anyways like Truthtellah says this isn't anything I would recommend if you are looking for a quality visual novel. The medium is steadily growing and much better options exist, particularly if you have a Vita.

I'm sure Jeff and Dan will do it justice.

The subject of next week's blog.

I was surprised by how respectful they were during the One Piece quicklook.

I don't know what's worse, the way they use glistening boobs to trick dudes into paying closer attention, or that it always works on me :(

I think if Dan wasn't there willing to go with the wackyness and give it a try Jeff would've been a lot more destructive about it. Which was a good thing, it looked fun and it made the QL fun too.

It seems like Dan has a level of excitability comparable to Vinny.

Yup. Same with that Long Night QL, too. In fact Jeff even said it looked ''kinda cool'', which... goes against all rules of reality, but Dan evidently has that effect :P Long Night still looks a janky pile of rubbish, but I was surprised at how fair they were judging it as opposed to ripping into it at every turn.

Well... At least World End Economica -complete- got funded on Kickstarter!

And Planetarian is coming to Steam!

We'll soon have really good visual novels straight from Japan soon enough on Steam

God bless my pocket book wariness.

SAY NO MORE. SOLD.

I don't know but the trailer on Steam is really bad. Like just tits and ass and poorly mixed music.

If the translation is anything like the first episode, I'd stay far away from it

May as well just wait for the 18+ patch, which was supposedly OK'd by Valve.

ha. Well, google some better visual novels. There are plenty with cat girl breasts. This one is for all ages and lasts for only about a hour. It's a real ripoff taking advantage of many people's very understandable love of cat girls and breasts.

@wolfgame said:

Well, I'll recommend some anyway.

Phoenix Wright is a visual novel but no one seems to acknowledge that.

Beyond that, I have thoroughly enjoyed Fate/Stay Night (which is unfortunately hard to find legally) and Katawa Shoujo (which is free).

Did you actually buy this?

Fortunately not, but someone I know did. And after a hour with basically no choices, it was over. It's about as budget as you can get. Seems like all the money was spent on the artist making a few character poses and none on actually making a game.

(Sorry to disappoint that I didn't pick it up personally. I had a bad feeling about it, and unless the 18+ patch changes the whole thing, it seems like I made the right choice.)

I like that this is listet as a "Top Release" on the site. July is really dire this year.

@bocam: This terrible video may give people a decent idea of it:

I was actually kind of amused by this guy's reactions since he has never played a VN (or pronounced Sakura before), but it gives at least a glimpse of how little interaction there is, even for a VN.

@corruptedevil: yea, i'm realizing I kinda came across like a jerk, I support your suggestion on Phoenix Wright, that one is also available on Ipad. That version has the trilogy combined together and all things considered it is a very nice version. Steins;Gate also came out recently and is very good. If someone felt comfortable with the idea of sex in these games I would suggest Kara No Shoujo and EF The first Tale. It's been awhile since Mangagamer has had a sale so it might be worth waiting a bit, but both of those are available on their site.

EDIT: the sad thing is this game was actually delayed from the developer from its original planned release a few weeks ago so further improvements could be made. I feel bad for them in a lot of ways, they were already making a game for a very niche audience and now word is quickly spreading that even fans of the genre are likely to not enjoy it.

@wolfgame: That's mainly their own fault with it only being an hour and marketed as an eroge game when it not.

welcome to my anime nightmare

Honestly, your nightmares don't sound half bad. This may be a bad game, but it has some okay, if-generic art.

I was waiting for this thread to pop up after this game found its way to the new games sidebar

GOTY for sure

Why do all of those fourteen year old girls have huge pimples on their weirdly large breasts!?

...is a thought that popped into my mind. Why would you ever buy this?

This is kind of the worst impression anyone could ever get from the visual novel genre.

I enjoy visual novels a great deal but I was super wary about this as soon as I saw it; even just looking at the cover artwork gave a strong impression that it was a throwaway game with cardboard trope characters and generic non-eroge fanservice designed to rope in desperate otaku for a quick buck. I'm actually sad that it sounds like I was right.

@wolfgame Kara no Shoujo is probably my favorite VN but I'd also add the disclaimer that anyone playing it should be prepared for some pretty extreme violence and dark themes. It's definitely not for everyone.

If I'm understanding correctly this ain't no anime, if your definition of anime is "cartoons made in Japan." Sakura Spirits is an original English visual novel that was created by a western company called Winged Cloud. I also have no idea what people are talking about when they mention an 18+ patch cuz this game is, surprisingly, an "all-ages" visual novel and the developer has never made an adult title in the past.

That's the hentai tit shine. Not that I would know.

So you could make fun of it, if I know the Internet?

Give me a recommendation! I have a Vita!

I would personally recommend both Trigger Happy Havoc and Virtue's Last Reward on the Vita.

WHERE ARE THE LLAMAS?!

That QL actually made me sort of curious about watching the anime. If only the guys that made the game as "Spider-Man as a pirate" or something, I may be a bit interested.

Do Phoenix Wright and 999/VLR actually count as visual novels since they have puzzles? If they do, those are the only ones I've played, and enjoy them all a lot. But this kind of garbage is always what I think of when I hear the term.

@rxanadu: Maybe it's just me, but I will almost always recommend reading manga over watching anime. The exceptions are when the anime comes first, but personally I find anime really boring for the most part, especially in cases like One Piece where they have to put in filler arcs so the anime can keep running once it catches up to the manga. I loved the Fullmetal Alchemist manga but found the anime intolerable.

However, I do recommend Anime Do-Overs, like Hellsing Ultimate. The first Hellsing series deviates from the manga pretty early on, and for what it's worth I still enjoyed it, but Ultimate re-did the series so it's accurate to the manga. Which, all told, is fairly short (10 volumes, as opposed to many shonen manga's 40+).

HI THIS HAS BEEN ANIME CHAT THANKS ALSO CATGIRL TITS

You're a cat girls with breasts.

One Piece's filler arcs are incredibly short though and some have been creative like the episodes where they are samurai instead of pirates or the one episode where Chopper became a superhero. Fullmetal Alchemist had a redo with Brotherhood which followed the manga more closely if you don't mind checking that out.

@sethphotopoulos: Those sound alright. I've been put off of shonen anime adaptations ever since Naruto, though, and then Bleach was just as bad. That 4Kids version didn't help, either, and I completely fell off of One Piece until this year. I read the manga until that bit where the shark-guy fought Zoro or something, then Shonen Jump changed Zoro's name to Zolo and I dropped out. Then I got a tablet earlier this year and Shonen Jump digital, and it's just complete madness and I don't know who anyone is or what's going on but it's entertaining as hell. There's a guy who's clearly Zatoichi, and Rebecca the gladiatress who I would guess is related to Nami somehow? I'm a bit behind so no spoilerz.

I also got Pirate Warriors 2 which I play now and then and like it. I haven't seen Brook at all in the manga, or Nami.

I'm not sure where you are if you haven't seen Brook or Nami in the manga.

After (three seconds of) careful consideration, I feel it is my duty to play this game and blog about it. Specifically because everybody hates it.

$7.49 on Steam, i'd be stupid not to get it.

@sethphotopoulos: It's the current thing with the tournament and toy people and Usopp has befriended some elf-things? Also everyone is using XXXXX-oland nicknames for some reason. Like Usoland or Luffoland. And there's a giant babyman named Senor Pink that Franky shot with a hair-cannon.

Ok. I'm still in Punk Hazard which is an arc or two behind. If you had skipped a lot to get to that point you would be confused. Glad to see you're enjoying it in spite of that.