Deardrops Review

5 years ago, Suganuma Shoichi was given the opportunity of a lifetime; To join a world renowned orchestra in Germany as one of their violinists. Having learned and studied the violin since a young age, Shoichi jumped at the chance to climb up in the world of Classical music and reach new heights. During his stay in the orchestra, Shoichi became an idol to the Japanese and was frequently called a noble and the 'Violin Prince' of Classical. However, years later, an unknown scandal caused Shoichi to fall from grace and forced him to give up the limelight, classical music, and the violin that he had spent his entire life devoted to. Having had everything he had ever known torn from him, Shoichi returned to Japan and his hometown and began to live and work at a live house named 696, where amatuer rock bands frequemtly play.

While working at the live house, Shoichi meets a rude and arrogant regular by the name of Gonda Eiji. Unbeknownst to Shoichi, Eiji's arrogant ways pull him into a series of events that thrust him back into the world of music. It is at this small live house where Shoichi is introduced to the world of rock and his life of emptiness begins to change through events involving strange friendships, rock, and a band involving the unlikeliest of members. Can DEARDROPS make it, or will it fall apart at the hands of its fickle and volatile band members?

Starry Sky ~In Spring~ Review

Starry Sky is the story of the only girl at Seigatsu Gakuen, a school that specializes in celestial topics such as astronomy, horoscopes, and other topics related to these fields. Since the schools inception, Seigatsu Gakuen was an all boys school, but recently they've opened the school to girls as well...Thus, our heroine joins the school's astronomy section with her two childhood friends, Kanata and Suzuya. This is how she becomes the first, and only, girl of the school. 

As she enjoys peaceful, fun days with her two childhood friends at school, her class gets a transfer student, and little does the trio know at the time, but his appearance ushers in a change for the group. The half French-Japanese transfer student is none other than Yoh, a boy the protagonist knew from childhood. While his transferring to her class was pure coincidence, he instantly favors protag-chan and makes it no secret he is utterly infatuated with her. At first, Yoh is cold towards Kanata and Suzuya, but slowly he begins to become part of the group, and in the process inadvertently begins to change the relationship between protag-chan, Suzuya, and Kanata. Yes, sadly, their days of peaceful friendship are changing with Yoh's appearance and feelings long felt begin to bubble to the surface.

The Starry Sky series features main characters based off of the astrological signs.  In Spring features Pisces (Kanata), Capricorn (Yoh), and Cancer (Suzuya).

Visual Novels on Steam

Recently, Visual Novels have begun to gain traction on one of the biggest game portals around these days; Steam. With the release of Steam's Greenlight, Visual Novels have finally been given a chance to get on the platform and gain more exposure for this niche game genre. Me and a  friend of mine have discussed a possible Co-Op piece on a particular great, and surprisingly well unknown, recent feature of Steam that I feel that combined with the recent VN releases, and future ones, on Steam will really help spread and expand this genre further. In preparation for the piece, I have done some research and compiled a list, with links, of Visual Novels that are currently on Steam, Greenlit, and currently up for vote on Greenlight. This list is sorted by developer name alphabetically. Please note that a vast majority of VN titles on/trying to get on Steam are Indie titles at the moment, and so quality varies. This list will be updated monthly unless no new VNs show up on Steam during that time.

1/16/14 - Added 3 new VNs recently submitted to Greenlight.

1/18/14 - Loren The Amazon Princess now on sale!

1/21/14 - World End Economica Ep. 1 has been greenlit!

1/25/14 - Cinders added to Greenlight.

1/27/14 - Dandelion added to Greenlight and Princess Battles removed from Greenlight.

2/5/14 - Sunrider greenlit and Fading Hearts now on sale.

2/19/14 Cinders greenlit and Koenchu added to greenlight

3/15/14: Backstage Pass & HuniePop Greenlit, Roommates & Swords of Edo added to Greenlight.

Sweet Fuse ~At Your Side~ Review

18 year old Saki Inafune is excited to be attending the opening of her uncle's, legendary game developer Keiji Inafune, new theme park, the Gameatorium, where everything is video game themed. As she settles down at the opening ceremony listening to her uncle's opening speech, he is suddenly interrupted by a strange voice and the image of a pig taking over all the screens over the park. 

Calling himself Count Hogstein, the pig begins a speech of his own, claiming that he will be taking over control of the park with the plans to destroy it. During Count Hogsteins speech, several people in "piglet" costumes ascend to the podium, tying up all of the park management. Inafune, along with several others in the crowd, believe that it is some sort of ruse or show until Hogstein blows up the ferris wheel, demonstrating that Hogstein's plans are very, very real. 

The Count then explains to the panicking crowd that he will select seven people out of the crowd to venture in the park to play a "Game" where the contestants will go through trials in each of the attractions in the park, one attraction a day for seven days, with their lives and the lives of his hostages, the parks management, on the line. Inafune, worried for her uncle, proceeds to volunteer to be one of the seven contestants in hopes of saving her uncle. Thus, Inafune is inexplicably thrown into a game of life or death with six strangers.

Note: Screenshots were taken in 2x resolution in an emulator, so the "actual" images are somewhat blurry, but its not that bad.  Thumbnails are just slightly smaller than native resolution. I just have an odd peeve with small resolutions and I couldn't bring myself to snapshot such...small images.

My issue with "Free-To-Play"

Today I would like to rant about the Free-To-Play model which is becoming more and more prevalent in gaming and visual novel mobile market. For those less...informed, Free-To-Play is a gaming model where the game is essentially free (Meaning you CAN play the whole game without spending a dime). Free-To-Play (Which shall from this point on be simply acronymed "FTP") was rarely seen a few years back, but since the popularity and success of FTP games on platforms such as Facebook (Where the first major "outbreak" of FTP games spawned; I'm talking about games like the well known Farmville), they have become more and more common on both the PC and mobile market, with the PC market mainly seeing online FTP MMOs and online games.

Now, I'm not talking about actual FREE games, like the ones you used to come across on Newgrounds or any other run of the mill flash game websites; There is a major difference between actual free games and FTP games.  Sadly, many casual players, who dominate the mobile market, do not know the one giant difference that separates the two and is cause for these kinds of games to be coined FTP instead of just free (Even though they often get marketed as "free"). These games work off of micro-transactions for "optional" items, but in the past few years, these "optional" micro-transactions have become less and less "optional". This, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart of my rant.

What's happening with Yumina Walkthrough + More

I'm sure some of you are wondering what's going on with my Yumina walkthrough, as I haven't updated it in over a month and haven't responded to comments lately. I still plan on working on and expanding the walkthrough, but I have not progressed past chapter 4 or gone back to try alternate routes since my last update. Real life has been a major part of it for me due to personal issues and having to take over some extra duties at work due to one of the other supervisors quitting and the fact we're gearing up for the holiday season. More than likely this is going to continue to persist through the holidays since we're going to start having to have more supervisors on one shift due to the increase in sales and front-end associates. Coupled with schoolwork and household obligations, my free time is pretty limited, and as of right now I don't have the time or mood to dungeon grind to finish up Yumina. I'm still playing story VNs for reviews right now though since it's a lot easier to spend 15 minutes on a story/light gameplay VN than it is a more hardcore gameplay VN like Yumina.

Because of this, for now my walkthrough is just going to cover events to get the chapter end h-scenes and not necessarily for character routes. One frequent comment I've noticed on the walkthrough is not getting on a specific characters route. I had mentioned before the walkthrough that this was primarily for the h-scenes, but I will say it again for clarification; this walkthrough is not for character routes, just for the chapter scenes. Following my main walkthrough will get you onto Ai's route, not any of the other girls. For those, you'll have to sacrifice the end of chapter scenes for the route you want, as I have yet to find a way to do Kirara and Yumina's events while getting Ayumu's skills.  The alternate routes listed for each chapter are your better chance for their character routes. I will eventually expand the walkthrough for exact route specifics and CGs, but for now, this is how it's going to stay until I have the time and mindset to finish up Yumina. 

I want to say thank you to everyone who has helped out people with questions in the walkthrough comments about the game. I sincerely appreciate it since I can tell this game is a bit frustrating and I haven't had the time to get through the game or help commenters. 

I have also been working on another VN related project that I feel like pouring my time into. I can actually take the materials with me to work or when I'm out of the house on errands, so I've had a bit of time to put to it while in waiting rooms and on breaks and lunch. As of right now, this project is going to stay a secret except from one other person I've contacted to help me with it as of right now.  Once I make more leeway on progress on it, I'll publicly announce the project, but for now my lips are sealed on the matter. I've poured enough time into it so far already though that I do plan on finishing it. With my tight schedule, I'm hoping to maybe have enough put into it to announce the project by years end or early next year. 

Yumina, tissues, and prices.

So my Yumina The Ethereal physical copy finally came in the mail. Along with it, JAST sent some goodies; A catalog (The Saya No Uta image), a If My Heart Had Wings booklet, some funky anime glasses or some crap thats freakily 4 shades lighter than me (And I'm white as hell), annnnd....A packet of tissues. (The JLIST thing) The tissues look soft as a mofo too.  This is my first physical copy purchase from Jast (I usually buy digital) and like, do they send tissues with every copy? Lol "Thanks for buying from JAST USA!  To say thanks, heres some complimentary tissues for those...sticky situations!"

I pulled out the tissue packet from the mail packaging and I think I laughed for like 5 minutes straight. I don't know.  Maybe it's because of the assumption (and usually right on the money) that if you're buying an eroge, you're probably a guy with intentions to spend some quality time with it and your hand mixed with the fact that uh...my "equipment" doesn't require tissues, but I found this funny as hell.  At least I'll have something to blow my nose with during tear jerking scenes! (Why did I not have you packet when I played Saya No Uta D=)

The catalog included pricing for JAST games planned and in the pipeline along with the tentative cover art, but don't have webpages yet, as well as a STEINS;GATE poster.  See full post for a pic of the poster (It's pretty awesome!) and the pricing with the cover art if you're curious. (I scanned in the catalog page to get the cover art)