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Key games not for everyone?


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So, recently I've gotten some time in my hands and have been quite bored, so I thought I would try some old VN, so I perused VNDB and saw two VN's that I've heard about, but never got interested in reading, them being Clannad and Rewrite. Clannad I've tried to read about a year ago, but barely spent more than 5 hours reading before I stopped. The reason being that the "Jokes" were just a bunch of mishmash of random stuff and they occupied quite a good amount of the text and tend to go on for quite a while. I thought maybe it wasn't something specific from Key, but only for Clannad. Today I've started Rewrite and lo-and-behold, random stuff again. While I do enjoy a little bit a wonkyness every now and again to alleviate the tension from the story, when it happens on a frequent basis, it just leads me to become bored.

 

But both of these games have great scores, at the same level as Fata/Stay and Muv-Luv. Do these games get more serious after the first few hours? Do I just have to push through the hours and hours of boring random Straight Guy jokes? Or the fact that I don't enjoy these type of jokes just means these type of games are not for me?

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Most Key games are going to have a long, comedic common route (especially Clannad and Rewrite) before you jump into the heroine routes where the drama starts. I know people that love the comedy but don't like the drama much, and I know the opposite. It's not just Key VNs, Grisaia no Kajitsu and Muv-luv Extra, etc are the same as well. I'll just say you'll miss out on a lot of good VNs if you don't like the comedy aspect and decide to skip them for that reason.

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If you managed to read Fate and Muv Luv you can go through both Rewrite and Clannad all right.

 

Uh... Fate didn't have the whole "Straight Guy" routine. And Muv Luv, sure, the first part was kinda meh, but once it kicks in, it was the best VN I've read.

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As desi said, Key games tend to have long common routes that have lots of SoL-y bits. I've been on both sides of the fence since I enjoyed Little Busters', Kanon's and Rewrite's common routes whilst really disliking Clannad's. I would recommend you stick with it though since the drama-y bits that come later are definitely definitely worth it. I remember I wanted to completely skip Muv Luv Extra because it was so bloody boring, but I'm glad I didn't... same story here.

 

So take home message is some people like the SoL-y bits some people don't (and it can vary from Key game to Key game too)... even if you don't, you probably don't want to drop the VN since you'll be missing out on some of the best VN content later when things get more serious. This is especially true for Rewrite and Little Busters since refrain (Little Busters) is NOTHING like the previous common bits and neither is the Rewrite true route (or its character routes for that matter).

Edited by Chocolatemilkgod
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As desi said, Key games tend to have long common routes that have lots of SoL-y bits. I've been on both sides of the fence since I enjoyed Little Busters', Kanon's and Rewrite's common routes whilst really disliking Clannad's. I would recommend you stick with it though since the drama-y bits that come later are definitely definitely worth it. I remember I wanted to completely skip Muv Luv Extra because it was so bloody boring, but I'm glad I didn't... same story here.

 

So take home message is some people like the SoL-y bits some people don't (and it can vary from Key game to Key game too)... even if you don't, you probably don't want to drop the VN since you'll be missing out on some of the best VN content later when things get more serious. This is especially true for Rewrite and Little Busters since refrain (Little Busters) is NOTHING like the previous common bits and neither is the Rewrite true route (or its character routes for that matter).

 

Urg... Fine... Let's finish these common routes... >.>

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^ As choco said, i remember when i started playing Muv Luv i was like "fucking shit, i want to read something else instead", if i hadn't pushed my way through it i would've missed the awesomesauce after it.

Sometimes the novel just don't gets better g-senjou, but hey, at least at the end you can say you gave it a try.

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Uh... Fate didn't have the whole "Straight Guy" routine. And Muv Luv, sure, the first part was kinda meh, but once it kicks in, it was the best VN I've read.

 

Fate arc is 25-30 hours of repeated kitchen sketches and Holy Grail war rules, if you were able to go through that or the first part of Muv Luv to get to the interesting parts you can probably do the same with Rewrite or Clannad until the comedic parts are over imo. It will take a while, but it should be feasible.

 

 

I wonder if mr. "since pokemon games are in kana if you know the language well you can read whatever in kana" and other such bullshit is getting the implications now. I'd guess he doesen't, but I'll lurk the chat to find out.

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But both of these games have great scores, at the same level as Fata/Stay and Muv-Luv.

A great score only means that the majoritiy of voters liked it a lot and you won't be always a part of that majority, just saying. So if you don't like the random humor of Key and find the common routes a pain in the ass then why deal with it? Doesn't make sense to read hours of text you don't enjoy. Although it's definitely true that many VNs have annoyingly long common routes to get you used to the characters before they turn into more serious shit as soon as you reach a heroine route. The real question is though, is a book with an epic end still enjoyable if the remaining 80% of the story are garbage?

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A great score only means that the majoritiy of voters liked it a lot and you won't be always a part of that majority, just saying. So if you don't like the random humor of Key and find the common routes a pain in the ass then why deal with it? Doesn't make sense to read hours of text you don't enjoy. Although it's definitely true that many VNs have annoyingly long common routes to get you used to the characters before they turn into more serious shit as soon as you reach a heroine route. The real question is though, is a book with an epic end still enjoyable if the remaining 80% of the story are garbage?

 

Ain't that the real question. I absolutely hate any book or VN that has a weak ending, no matter how good the story was up until that point. Although I wouldn't read something that is clearly crap from the get go, even if the ending is good, I would read it if it stats good, then decays, but picks up towards the ending with a strong finish. So I guess my problem with these VN is that the begging is just... Boring, I believe that they should start with a good story, with some drama up to a point and then start with all the comedy nonsense.

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The whole aspect of the comedy/slice of life start to a VN is that:

 

1) It lets you get a feel for the characters of the story, letting you get attached to them and understanding why they react to certain dramatic situations the way they do.

 

2) Starting of with drama or having drama early on wont really make much sense as this is usually when the characters get to know each other and become closer, otherwise its like saying:"Hi my name is Kaze, nice to meet you" and then the other character says "MY PARENTS ARE DEEEEAAAD!!!", this is true in real life too, you usually don't just meet someone and then tell them everything about you or cause drama because you have some dark secret to tell, even though you haven't known this person for more than a week.

 

3) I know there are other games that start off with drama, but most of them have drama going straight through with little to no jokes, these types of games are also usually in a completely different category then the one your talking about, a slice of life is usually meant as something the reader can connect to and relate to, like going to school and making friends, hanging out,etc and then drama starts when the characters get closer and closer which is usually something you build up.

 

but this is just imo.

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Ain't that the real question. I absolutely hate any book or VN that has a weak ending, no matter how good the story was up until that point. Although I wouldn't read something that is clearly crap from the get go, even if the ending is good, I would read it if it stats good, then decays, but picks up towards the ending with a strong finish. So I guess my problem with these VN is that the begging is just... Boring, I believe that they should start with a good story, with some drama up to a point and then start with all the comedy nonsense.

Well in that case you'll have to fight through one Key game and see if you enjoyed it at the end. Fighto~

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Well, just finished Rewrite, every ending including Oppai. Must say, wasn't a big fan of the whole premise and there were only a couple of endings that I enjoyed. Over all, fine way to waste time.

 

Fate was hard read due to excess cooking and housekeeping scenes. Haven't read Ataraxia yet though.

 

Ataraxia is not all that great. Although the Rider scenes are FTW.

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I'm one of the people who likes the comedy in the stuff I watch, read and play. For me I can't really get into a series of something if there is no humor at all. An example is Madlax. I love action in my series which Madlax had, but it didn't really have any humor or cute scenes what so ever to make up for the lack of action. This made the series really boring for me. I finished it, but I wouldn't watch it again. the best part of the series was the Opening song. Sadly this was apart of Bee Train's girls with guns series and I love Noir and El Cazador which had the things I enjoy in it that Madlax lacked.

 

I also like stuf with some kinda of happy end to it. I had my fair share of depressing endings in a few anime, that I really don't want in the VN's I read.

 

But yeah, I hope one day you're able to get through Clannad and Kanon. oh and read Ever17 too, It's not a key game but it's good.

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