Happy 2017 everyone. I’ll go over a few of the things I think should be mentioned about the year, some site changes, my goal for next year here, and then talk about how much better 2018 is shaping up to be. Fun, right?

First, this year was disappointing for me. My total games for the year added here is around 26, half of my biggest number ever. Now that’s not to say only 26 games came out, but that only 26 caught my attention enough to be played. Of those only about four really stand out in any way in my head. Eiyu Senki being the biggest game that came out and one of the few that wans’t RPGMaker/Wolf, Lulu Farea being probably the best surprise game I tried this year with probably some of the best writing out of anything this year, Karmasutra being a broken mess(a fate Shards of Eradine shares. Probably because Nutaku. Sadly that game is so broken I can’t 100% it for here), and Mutiny!! being the only heroine route based game this year. That last part really gets me as that’s the style I prefer. Instead of virgin/slut being the players only choice I’d rather chose who the hero/heroine is going to sleep with for that run, with the story focusing on the two. Whether that partner is an asshole or not doesn’t matter, I prefer choosing a route over h scenes or not as my thing and Mutiny was the only game I played this year with routes the way I like them. A few games had chose lovers for your protagonist but those ended as more like harem games where you switched as you went or whatever you want to call Tactics Elemental’s style of partners.

Moving on from my personal rants, this year was RPG Maker almost throughout which might be why I had such an issue with it. The few games that weren’t RPG Maker were Unity or Renpy and tended to be either incredibly short or broken messes.That’s not even starting on Sakuragamer and Dieselmine machine translating their titles onto steam, a move that basically killed Dieselmine’s stuff from ever showing up here again. I’m not touching stuff from either beyond Hell Girls, which is only on here because I didn’t know at the time how bad things would get with Sakuragamer.

Moving onto the site for next year, I’m getting rid of the Misc Other game page. It was a stupid idea created by me wanting to have non RPG’s here without focusing on them and I’ve decided to ax the thing. The games on their will be slowly phased into posts with maybe a bit more information then the blurps they currently have. Maybe. As for games, my goal is 30+ more things here which is actually not going to be that hard. I have a few Alibi things on Dlsite I wouldn’t mind playing, a few big RPG Maker games I wanted here but either didn’t have the time or didn’t want to play because content type(Peniban Quest and Amore Magic Academy being the main ones for that) plus the amount of official releases that are hitting western shores. At the very least Sekai should have Bell Chimes, ReLord 1 and Baldr out next year with maybe Baldr getting delayed,  MG is going to get Retarnia, Evanicle and probably Sengoku out and apparently Illusion is coming to the west with porn now via Fakku. That last one’s kinda iffy though, as in whether I’ll talk about it or not. A good number of Illusion’s stuff barely qualifies as a game. Mainly the Artificial Academy stuff which might as well be the Sims. Remember if the game doesn’t have unlockable content I won’t bring it here so depending on the game choice… Anyway 30 should be easy. Already have the first four lined up, if any of them ever work.

Honestly 2018 is looking way better VN wise then 17 ever did. MG and Sekai have a lot of VNs I want to read set up for release throughout the year. A couple good looking fan translations are set up for release including a Venus Blood game, a series I have no relation with but I know a lot of people love.

I guess I’ll end off by stating something that I’ve been doing for a bit. When it comes to RPG Maker games I can edit them very easily and I’ve been doing that. Usually its because some mechanic is to grindy or something in the game is broken. Or I’ll edit things when the game expects me to replay the entire game with different h scenes(usually virgin run versus slut run) being the only change. So if somethings off with my saves that’s why, I made them 100% or close enough. For non RPG Maker I’m still going through and properly 100% them, turning to cheat engine kind of stuff only when the grind becomes silly and tedious with no purpose other then the grind.

Another thing I want to repeat is that for me, 100% is just all outside game content being unlocked. Usually by this I mean cgs and h scenes, maybe a music player or some sprite viewer as well. Basically the extra things that have nothing to do with the core game. So for games with final extra dungeons that exist just for challenge I’m probably not going to do them unless they reward porn or costumes or something(though my saves will probably be setup to take them on like with Eiyu). I’m getting busy with personal projects for real job hunting and this is my hobby so I hope people don’t get to huffy about my saves not being “true” 100%s.

Anyway, on to a more personal subject, I’m going to rant about a vn for a while. It’s summary to be more precise. So have a happy new year and all that stuff, I’m going to bitch for a bit.

Anyway, Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki(Sakusaku) came out in October and I tried to read it. I generally like moeges so I decided to give this a shot. I read the summary and got an idea for what I was in for, only for that to mean absolutely nothing. And this added to how bland everyone was on top of a shinigami storyline just drove me to drop it. The second two points are my bias when it comes to this kind of stuff, buta summary pissing me off is rare. The reason? It’s basically false advertisement.

So genre is important. The easiest way to figure out a genre is usually to read a summary or synopsis the company gives out on a vn. That’s usually enough to go on and make your decision if you’ll like the kind of story being offered. Sakusaku’s story is about smiling. Now let me give you the summary as it is on VNDB-

Spring is the flowering season, the season of the cherry blossoms. It is the time for first meetings and partings, when the buds start sprouting.

Yuma is a second-year student at Mihaya Academy who listens to love problems from girls at the school and gives them thoughtful advice. This has made him quite popular and loved, resulting in a 21,000 yen (taxes included) ‘love bounty’ placed on him. The girls came to him with problems ranging from jealousy to infidelity. Having heard about so many troubles related to love, Yuma lost any desire he had for it.

One day, a mysterious girl appeared before him. She had never been in love, but she believed that it was a wonderful thing. She asked him if he would like to be in love, and that as a love fairy, she will help his love come true.

A girl who cannot fall in love. A boy who has no interest in love. If they end up falling in love with each other, how will the world change?

So about that smiling thing? The main focus of the actual common route? Not mentioned. Shinigami’s, a main part of the game’s serious story? Not mentioned. Yuma being sick of love? Not true, he just doesn’t feel like it’s for him and that changes easily enough. Like the entire summary is true, but all it does is give a very quick here’s the first day kind of thing and doesn’t really mention anything important. Anything that I as a reader want to know before I step in.

The biggest thing that bothered me was the bounty. You’d think that being pointed out, it would play a large role in the story. Like the reason the girls move to get with Yuma is either to get the bounty and they actually fall for Yuma while seducing him or the girls who knew him get jealous and start trying to get Yuma do to that. That would explain him disliking love and make a decently interesting cast. But nope, none of that happens. The bounty is just a joke. At best its why he interacts with the student council and why the harem gets grouped into one club instead of just being random friends. He literally forgets about the whole event because it just didn’t matter. Hell the entire love advice thing is barely touched on in the routes I read, it at best being some quick jealousy thing and at worst just filling Yuma’s time while the girls do something. It doesn’t matter. I basically set up a more interesting plot from this summary then I actually got. I didn’t look at the images or the opening or anything, I just read the summary and arrived at a completely different(and more original) moege then he smiles badly and the girls want him to smile good. That’s the actual game and it just infuriates me at how bland it ended up being. I know that’s mostly on me, but that summary is trash. It’s like the writer read the first day and nothing else and wrote based on that and nothing else. (Also first meetings? Three of the five heroines he already new, two since he was a baby. The other two already knew of him as well. Fucking a.)

I’ll stop now. I want to complain about other things but I ranted and feel a bit better. Hope the new year is better. It really is set up to be for this hobby.