JCAll

I don't get why steam doesn't allow eroge. All the crap on the system already, a little smut can't make things worse. Might class up the place, actually.

You mean because they're falling up?

Raidy is hard, but it's also obtuse. There's no healing except for potion drops from monsters, and magic ignores defense except from one accessory knocking half your life bar off, and more than once you'll go running back to lower floors of the tower to grind for potions in order to get past the floors with magic enemies so you can grind for XP on the higher floors. Oldschool. But that's the fun kind of difficulty, what you need the walkthrough for is that progression is obtuse. You search a room, there's nothing there, you search another room, there's nothing there, you go back to the first room, and it triggers the event you need to proceed, but it wasn't there until you searched the other room ha ha. Oldschool. The second game is much more forgiving. I'd tell you more about Dengeki Striker, but it's one of the games I'm currently playing, and I don't feel comfortable commenting too much on a game until I've beaten it and can judge it in full. I wouldn't be too quick to jump into TtT if there are other games you're looking at and don't want to take the chance, since even though I loved it the consensus is that I'm totally wrong. I have weird taste sometimes, but it did get an anime and sequel, so at least there are others weirdos out there like me. If you do get around to it, I'd like to know what you think. --- Daibanchou...sigh...let me load this sucker back up and see if I remember how to play it...oh yeah, it's coming back to be. First the game opens at the title screen that doubles as the Save/Load screen. You click advance at the bottom to start a new game or load a game, which doesn't start from that spot, it takes you back to the title screen and you can click advance to go to the loaded spot. That's the easiest part. You get a little scene, then it goes to the map. This is the region phase...apparently, it says that in the bottem corner...When you mouse over the territory you've conquered there are sometimes different things listed to the right that you can do in that area. You can do one of those events per turn. Some are important and marked with stars, some you do to trigger different events later, and some are meaningless fluff that just wastes your turn. Some events only become available if you have certain characters deployed in certain places, or with other characters, or certain fights won or lost on or by certain turns. It's 100% as complicated and trial and error as it sounds. Next we go to a big list of your units. This is the conversation phase. You can talk to one characters per turn. Sometimes it advances a character's story, sometimes nothing, there's probably some H in there somewhere but I can't be sure. Now, DEPLOYMENT! To battle! Every unit is displayed on the right, with their HP, XP, stats, and a stamina bar that shows how many attacks they're able to make. Not having them deployed restores Stamina, and I think HP, but slowly. Each area of the map will have a number on it indicating how many enemies are on that spot. You can mouse over to see exactly what's waiting for you. Clicking on a spot allows you to add or remove units from that ares. You can have up to 6 units on any one area that you control or adjacent to an area you control. Deploying and removing units is as simple as dragging and dropping. Finally clicking END at the bottom to go to the next phase. Now, the invasion phase. Click one of the highlighted areas that you have units in to fight for control of that area. Combat! At last! You and the enemy take turns kicking eachother in the shins. Your characters have an ATTACK button on their portrait, you can choose any ally deployed to knock shins with the enemy displayed, but sometimes the enemy won't be displayed and you just have to guess. Some attacks have range, and hit before the enemy, but if they attack from farther or at the same range you take damage too. Now the enemy gets to move. More combat! XP is then handed out and a good time is had by all. Finally we're taken to the save screen. Save if you want then click end at the bottom, and we're back at the title screen! Load if you want or click advance at the bottom to go to the next turn. Repeat until end of game. There're more than that. Later you can capture enemies by lowering their HP to the red without killing them and have them join your army, but units cost money so there's a balance to be had. Also later each territory you've conquered has a happiness rating that each unit raises by a certain amount, so you have to deploy people in a certain way. But basically, yeah, that's how you play Daibanchou. Don't ask about the other two Dai games, I haven't played them.

Know that feeling. Spent hundreds of hours on Kamidori. After getting every possible item, beating every possible monster, and maxing everyone's stats I was sad that I had nothing left to do. Anyway, let's see what I've played. Daibanchou (dropped it before because GUI was too hard to figure out) - Took me hours of saving and reloading before I got through the first part. After I finally figured out how to use everything, I got the the third chapter when everything opened up, got completely overwhelmed, and quit. Wish I could explain it for you, but I'd have to reinstall it. Dengeki Striker - Yeah, it's fun, if kinda dumb. And it got an updated rerelease, which is always good. Lightning Warrior Raidy 1+2 - Only play if you enjoy old school dungeon crawls, enjoy pain, or just don't mind save/loading before every level up so you don't get terrible stats. Other than that, keep a walkthrough handy, watch out for enemise that use magic, and enjoy the lesbian femdom. Princess Waltz - Really good game as I've said, and the card battles are fun, but it's over so quick that the battles never get great. Princess Eris - It's nice, for an hour or two, but it's really just spank material, there's no real plot. And if you like it you'll be pissed that the other parts of the trilogy never got translated. Saya no Uta - Creepy, creepy, creepy, evil. Tears to Tiara - I'm the only person that likes TtT apparently. It's sort of a RTS-RPG, but the maps are kind of small. It plays a lot like the Blue Dragon Plus on the DS, if you've ever played that. Fight battles, get loot, accidently get married, level up, never use magic defense until the post-game bonus dungeon where everybody magics you to death from full screen away in a nanosecond. The usual. But how many game can you have Satan bang loli elves? The Sagara Family (is this any better than Pick me Honey?) - It's really just cute, nothing else. Yumina The Ethereal (no, I haven't played it yet at all >_>) - You should, it's a good game. There's no real good walkthrough for it though, not that I can find. Zanmataisei Demonbane (heard this was pretty damn good...) - It's a great game, but the art is terrible. And maybe it's the the version I had but the videos were a pain to get to run. Worth it though. Don't do Al's route first, she's the best and you should save the best for last.

I'm sure that messing with people was just a bonus.

Yep, that's the reaction of someone who played Bible Black alright. I wonder why Sei games gets no love in the states anymore. I'm running low on recommendations, but how about Brave Soul. It's a B- HJRPG, but it's inoffensive and has a cute catgirl. Plus, it wasn't made in RPGMaker, which is always a positive for that kind of thing.

Do remember it's entirely possible that Shin KM might be picked up as an official release. In that case there won't be a patch for the Japanese version and you'll have used your hard drive space for nothing. Just glancing through the list...I don't see Bible Black. God, I'm old. But I liked the anime when I was younger, and the VN is a fun way to kill an afternoon or two.

I thought Tears to Tiara was great, myself. Also thought Princess Waltz was decent, but didn't give you enough experience to level up the Card battles with to actually make them fun. It'll probably be a while before Shin KM materializes, so you can probably skip that.

Why not download it all and burn it off on DVDs.

Which is the best kind of love. ... Except giant tit incest, obviously.

Hypno-training My Mother and Sister looks like a great nukige. It has all my favorite VNDB tags.

I really ought to go back and read some of MangaGamer's older stuff, but I played "Sandwiched by my wife and her sister" on a lark once, and it was so godawfully written that I've been avoiding anything that came before ~2010.

And not the hilarious technical problems like Romanesque, the depressing hope he doesn't shelve it kind.

Maybe this will be the beginning of a surge in popularity for Trap VNs. Lv1 is a revolutionary!

Well Aroduc's new Project is well and truly fucked.

Well, everybody off the loli train, we're not going anywhere today.

If a=x and b=y then a=y. I know this is out of context, but that's the exact opposite of how logic works. Don't take stock market advise from VNs.

Ah, Super Monobeno II Turbo. I can dig it.

Translating a fan disk for a game that hasn't been translated? I'm not complaining, all aboard the loli train and all that, but that just seems weird.

I'd have to see her in pajamas to be sure.

I'm all for pajama parties, but not sure how I feel about "No Sexual Content".

And the translation for the sequel is almost done apparently.

It's crap, but it's my kind of crap!

New update from Aroduc. Hilarious glitches all around.

Hara Min might be one of the weirdest announcements I've seen this year. Awesome.