Are we dead?

The short answer is yes.

That’s not to say that we’re not still playing eroge – I for one still play them fairly regularly. However we’re just too damn lazy as individuals to write up something for the games we’ve played – again speaking from my own perspective on the matter.

Which leads me to say that this blog is pretty much dead. I haven’t been in contact with Aedes, the originally creator of this blog, for over 2 years. The same goes for Fuzzyhobo, another co-blogger. Aquaspirit is still pretty active on twitter. Though in saying that almost everything he tweets is a retweet so it’s hard to distinguish him from a bot of sorts.

So what can I say. Thanks for all your support and go out there to enjoy the perviness that is eroge. If you want to hit me up you can always reach me on twitter.

Otherwise if any of you are actually interested I’m going to rant a bit about myself and what I’ve been doing over the last couple of years.

So I’m going to label stuff nicely here so that you read whatever tickles your fancy. However first and foremost I feel the need to talk about the ATLAS guide I created back in the day.

ATLAS Guide

To get straight to the point: I have no intentions of ever updating the guide itself or the links. The main reason for this is that I don’t recommend using machine translators to play visual novels. 

So my ATLAS guide was originally something I made because a random guy on a manga site I used to frequent was asking how to set things up. Other people got interested and suggested I make something more public. From there interest in the guide grew and it was shared a bit. I believe this was around the time when a lot of gamers out there were trying to access the live market for eroge, so it was a fairly popular subject at the time and new tools were being introduced somewhat regularly. So this led me to enhance the guide, add more pages, jizz it up and junk.

However at some stage I starting learning Japanese, as I’m sure many of us have or at least have thought about, and eventually tried playing without using a machine translator.

Sure things were slow at first, but eventually my Japanese improved to the point that I was able to play eroge at a good pace using just a parsing tool like mecab. My understanding of games was a lot more accurate and the overall experience was more enjoyable. I still use this method of playing at present and actually had to refer to my own guide when I set up TA, ITH and Mecab. I was surprised at how little progression there’s been in the hooking and parsing tools since I left and came back to eroge scene. When I left I thought VNR might take over, but it seems to be dead or dying? Much like this blog (LOL).

So the reason I’m not going to  update the guide is because I don’t recommend using machine translators. Plus the laziness and the fact that I can’t even remember how to use a lot of stuff myself. 

However I’m not going to be an arrogant prick and say “Don’t use machine translators you lazy asshole! You should learn Japanese because of blah blah…you would be better off just holding ctrl blah blah…”. Occasionally when I go on reddit or on a forum I’ll see a guy saying something like this, giving everyone the business. WHAT ASSHOLES DICKS, seriously.

Learning Japanese takes a lot of time which I’m sure not all of you have. And the whole story about being better off just holding ctrl is total BS. If you can’t read Japanese at all then you understand nothing. If a machine translator gives back even a single word remotely correctly in a sentence you at least have some level of context.

Again I’m in no way recommending machine translators. However if you’re using machine translators and you’re having fun, then who cares what I recommend. End of story.

So enough about that. Now I’m going to switch things up and talk more about me.

Real Life

So I am currently a NEET in real life, so I’ve had a lot of time for various hobbies. It’s also one of the reasons why I’ve been more active recently and why I’m making this post; I have lots of free time to spare. It won’t last…probably…hopefully

Visiting Japan

So some of you may know that I visited Japan recently. If you didn’t know, then you know now I guess?

I visited various places in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. The whole experience was great and I plan to go back again soon. Here are some of my thoughts about things. I’ll split things off into nice easy to read paragraphs so that you have an easier time reading that thing I’m putting here for you to read.

Transport

Man the transport in Japan is so efficient. Got meself a suica card and basically just hopped on whatever I wanted. The signs in the train stations are easy to follow and a lot of things are in English as well, including some announcements on trains.

Using google maps however was a bit of a pain. Sure it gets the route right, but the GPS is screwed up most of the time.

Food

Man the food is just so…accessible in Japan. From my Airbnb in Tokyo

I heard that food was really expensive so I budgeted 5000 yen a day for food, but I ended up using like half of that almost every day. In saying that I was actively going for cheaper options for food. Ramen would be like 1200 yen and I would hit up those conveyor belt sushi places where all plates were 100 yen each.

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However the quality of everything was great and I was trying to force myself to eat four meals a day while also having at least one big dessert a day. My biggest regret is not eating more beef bowls while I was there.

Alcohol is also very cheap there, which resulted in me getting very very drunk one of the days. Thankfully I was only out of commission for a single day and could move around the following day.

 

Convenience stores and Vending machines

Convenience stores are literally everywhere. Hell there was one literally next to the apartment complex I was staying at. I was basically stocking up my fridge with pudding and eating them every day. I also bought a lot random breads from there for breakfast and after dinner snacks.

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Vending Machines are also everywhere, but I only really saw the ones for drinks and smokes. In Akiba there were some with anime goods, but I never saw any that were super dodgy selling used underwear or anything.

I did however see a gacha machine selling sex toys…and it was next to other gachas selling normal anime goods.

English

So a lot of people told me that you don’t need to know Japanese to have a good time in Japanese: that the Japanese speak great English. I found this to be both true and false.

Yes it’s true that you don’t need to know Japanese to have fun in Japan. Train signs will usually have English, a lot of menus will be in English, and a lot of stuff you can order by just pointing to it. Hell you don’t even need to talk to the staff at a convenience store.

However I found myself using Japanese every day. Smaller restaurants and traditional sweets stores usually don’t have any English menu or a person who can speak English. Hell I think one of the family restaurants didn’t have an English menu – I didn’t ask so I don’t for sure.

 

In particular knowing how to read Japanese helps with knowing the flavors of different things. Sure it’s not a deal breaker, but knowing what you’re choosing is nice.

Even if they can speak English, it won’t be good. For sure I’ll need to slow down and repeat myself. I went to an electronics store, I think it was yodobashi, and asked them to price match something. I started out using English, because like, why not right? So the guy tried to talk to me, but eventually it came to a halt. So the next day I went to a different store and did the whole process in Japanese and I got it all stored. Yeah my Japanese was rusty in some places, but I got the job done.

Skirts and Girls

So I was under the impression that the average skirt length in Japan was pretty short. What I found was that was both the case and the opposite. So some skirts were very short, but then some other skirts were oddly long? So I guess it averages out to be average length.

No I do not have pictures for detailed analysis on this, so please don’t ask =D

So time and time again people tell me that girls in Japan will be interested in you if they hear you speaking English. Like there’s some switch in their minds that makes them wet once they hear you saying hello in English or something.

Maybe that’s the case if you’re white, black or something that’s not Asian. Being Asian however I can say that I didn’t get approached or notice any girls licking their lips and moaning when they were looking at me. If anything I think they didn’t have the confidence to speak to me BECAUSE they saw I was speaking English. That’s my story and I’m going to stick to it.

Arcades

Wow there are a lot of arcades in Japan.

Super WOW, there are actually people in them!

 

I don’t know about other countries, but arcades in New Zealand aren’t really that popular. So seeing how lively they were in Japan was quite nice.

I would see guys putting in money over and over to slowly move the position of a prize in a crane game. Then he would win it and do the same thing over again. I spent like 1000 yen and got nothing =(

Otaku Stuff

What’s a trip to Tokyo without visiting Akiba? It’s funny because a friend of mine told me he went to Akiba with family.

I actually started playing koikatsu when I got back to NZ =3

Akiba is not family friendly =3

 

There’s a lot of “questionable” stuff in plain view. Obviously you’re not going to see anything too extreme along the main streets (I think), but go up a floor in that store and you’ll be seeing a lot of R18 stuff.

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Spent a lot of time just browsing the stores. Something that surprised me was how popular BL is as a genre over there. Like I’ve always known it was a genre, but it struck me as a very niche market. So I thought it would be hidden away in the corner the store somewhere or you would need to visit a specialty store. Nope, it’s displayed in plain view just like everything else. Popular area as well.

Another thing that was surprising was that there were so many different types of people buying otaku stuff. Like I’m talking businessman, woman of different ages, high school students, etc. It was nice to see such diversity because it was my understanding that otakus were frowned on.

So I’m not much for material possessions, so I thought I wouldn’t buy otaku goods. However I ended up buying some Rem figurines. The stupid thing is that when I bought these figurines I hadn’t even watched Re:Zero yet. I only watched it after coming back to New Zealand.

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Maid Cafes

Yes I visited a maid cafe. I mean, it’s part of the Japan experience right?

I went to Home Cafe because a friend recommended it, saying they spoke English there. He doesn’t speak very good Japanese so I trusted his judgement.

THEY DID NOT SPEAK ENGLISH.

That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time. The maids where cute, well most of them anyway, and I got to see them do that little dance performance as well. It’s also true that maid cafes aren’t just for lonely salary men; I saw some couples in there.

However they’re not really my thing. I’m glad I tried visiting one, but I don’t like the idea of paying an entrance fee and eating overpriced food to get someone pay attention to me.

This wasn’t actually mine. It belonged to the dude sitting next to me

I did however have a good conversion with these two guys sitting next to me. They didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Chinese, but we had fun speaking in Japanese to each other.

Hobbies

So that’s enough about me trip to Japan. Here’s what I’ve been up to with my various hobbies. I’ll put bullet points here because I want to keep things short and punchy:

Reddit

Haha the only reason I put this here is to share the fact that the only subreddit I frequent is /r/justnomil. It’s basically a subreddit where people talk about the horrid things their mother in laws do to them. I recommend it if you feel the need to hate more stuff in this world.

Gaming

• Persona 5 – Loved this game. The game play, the different heroines you could get into relationships, graphics, story were all just fantastic. Might go back for a new game plus one of these days.
• PUBG – Man I suck at this game so bad. How do people shoot so accurately? I shot BEFORE them but still end up getting killed. Half the time I’m either camping in a bush or running for the safe zone.
• Horizon Zero Dawn – I love games where you use a bow. The fact that you get to use it to take down giant mechanical dinosaurs is a huge plus as well. The actual story for the game was pretty short, but I spent a ton of time on side quests. So overall it was a great game.
• Trails of Cold Steel 2 – I played 80% of this the week it was released and only recently finished off the remaining 20%. I really like the gameplay and having turbo mode on PC definitely helps. My one annoyance is the lack of any fan service. If you’re going to make their skirts so short at least give us a bikini scene or something.
• Ni No Kuni 2 – Runs weirdly on PC unless I set it to high priority in the task manager. Graphics are nice, but game play just feels like button mashing. Story is way too simple. Will probably drop this to play more eroge.
• Binding of Isaac – Has always been one of my go to games. I lost my save so I had to replay many many times, but I still love it.

Anime

I don’t quite watch as much anime as I used to, but I still try to keep up with whatever’s popular. Here’s some of the ones I’ve watched recently which left more of an impression on me.

• Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan – Man this anime is funny. This is something I like to keep running in the background when I’m doing other stuff, like reading manga or playing a light game. I mean the guy changes the weather just so he doesn’t need to share an umbrella with a girl. Gotta love it.
• Isekai Shokudou – I really liked this one because of all the different cute girls that popped up and the reactions they had to food from Earth. Anyone know any remotely similar eroge that’s like this? I want basically the same thing, but with sex.
• Overlord – Isekai gaming world stuff is sure popular these days. This is an take from a different angle, an angle I quite enjoy. Liked season one and season 2 was pretty good as well. Read some of the light novel as well and looking forward to season 3.
• Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii – I prefer the manga adaptation of this, but anime is still good. It’s a setting that I can relate to very closely, being an otaku that worked in an office myself. Unfortunately I didn’t have any cool otaku friends at my workplace.
• Boku Dake ga Inai Machi – I loved this anime. Time travel in general is something I love, which is why I like Steins Gate and Back to the future. Only thing that upset me was the girl he ends up with.
• Kimi no Na wa. – Yeah kind of odd, but awesome none the less. Man that ending…gets me every time. I actually visited the steps from that scene while I was in Shinjuku. Again, looking for an eroge with a route like this =3.

They’re steps…that’s about it

Web Novels

Most of these I started reading because I read the manga first. I read them in English because I was too lazy to read the raws, despite the questionable translation quality for some of them. Reading the raws for Tate no Yuusha was enough for me thank you.

Yes it’s a lot of isekai stuff. I was on a binge recently.

• World Teacher Isekaishiki Kyouiku Agent – A guy who decides to train students in a new world. Somewhat OP protagonist who’s smart and loved by cute girls. Now that’s my idea of a story. The manga skips over way too many details and isn’t updated very frequently.
• Isekai Shokudou – Read this because of the anime. More characters, deep look at the characters’ backgrounds, more recipes. This was one where I was annoyed a bit at the translation quality.

Manga

Only two really stand out in my memory, but they’re good ones.

• Grand Blue – One of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my life. It’s a diving manga, but 90% of the time they’re just drinking and stripping. Even re-reading it makes me crack up.
• Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai – I had previously read this before, but recently I re-read from the start. I did not remember it being so funny. A guy and girl going head to head at trying to make the other confess to them. Haha, gets me every time. And you gotta love Kaguya as a character. They really need an eroge with a heroine that’s as tsundere as her =3

Eroge

The Current Market

Wow there are a lot of translated games these days. Games I thought would never get translated now have official translations (e.g. Princess Envangile, Fureraba, Leyline). Even Sekai de Ichiban Dame na Koi has a translation in the works!

However I’m still skeptical about the translation quality though. I recently finished Evenicle and the overall translation quality was pretty good. However they changed “onii-chan” to “Aster” (the protag’s name), which really grinds my gears.

In the live market it seems like the industry has slowed down in general. Less games are

Some of my thoughts about random companies:

• I’m surprised that AXL still exists to be honest. I’ve kept an eye on their games and they all look average. I still enjoy their game OP songs though.
• Disappointed that Maybesoft looks to be dead. Their last two titles were top notch.
• Was Key’s Angel Beats VN adaptable a flop? I never played it, but it I didn’t hear nearly as much stuff about it as I thought I would.
• I believe Sprite is going out of business? I heard good things about Aokana, but I really didn’t like koichoco. So I’m not hugely disappointed, but my heart goes to other Sprite fans out there.
• Hooksoft games are becoming more and more stale. The only game I really liked from them was Melty Moment. Tried their latest title, but it was very average. More comments below.
• Haven’t heard anything about August recently. Can someone tell me if they’re dead?
• Yuzusoft and Sagaplanets seem to be remaining strong in the industry.
• Studio Ryokucha’s death wasn’t too surprising, but was still a bit disappointing. Somewhere in my heart I was hoping that would make a game to turn things around.
• Giga is a like a broken record at this point with a long line of games that are pretty much the same.

What I’ve Played Recently

Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart

This wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it would be. Sure there were lots of laughs, I mean the guy turns into a cat when he gets kissed! You give me a comedy fill slice of life game built around that and I’ll play the shit out of it.

However they decided to add in drama in most of the routes, which made things weird a lot of the time was just weird. It was like going from a comedy setting to something super serious. I think the drama in Kuroki’s route was the worst because of her bitch of a mother. The ending of that route also sucked balls.

Favourite route was Shachi’s. Minimal drama and her reactions become super cute. There was still some BS in there, but it was tolerable.

Overall: 60/100 (saved by comedy)

Evenicle

I literally just finished the translated version of this and I can say I loved it as much as the first time I played it. The weird thing was that I originally intended to replay this in Japanese and then randomly found out a translation was coming out in a couple of weeks. I can see a lot of people playing this and my hopes are that this increased interest to the game will increase the likelihood of a sequel.

I love the classic JRPG feel this game has and while the story line is fairly simple the comedic dialogue keeps things punchy. The skill which auto kills weak opponents is something I think more RPG games should be doing, and the option of turbo to move around the map faster is always a nice addition.

Overall: 90/100 (funny enough this matched my original score I gave)

IxSHE Tell

So the protagonist is the student council president that removes a ban on love within the school and then suddenly gets confessed to by several girls. It sounds nice I know, and that allure is what made me start playing this.

It was average….very very average. I only finished two routes, but I couldn’t make myself play further. Because the girls confess to him all at once you lose the initial development where the two characters slowly realize their feelings for each other. On top of this a couple of the heroines just confess to him on what appears to be either whim or out of pride. So it’s liked a forced harem. Events were all pretty stale – not like the warm fuzzy feeling I’m looking for in these types of games.

Overall: 40/100 (I think this game would do better as a harem manga than an eroge)

Making Lovers

This is one of the best charages I’ve played for a very long time. The protagonist is a bit older so you get a different flavor of things from your typical high school setting. The way they make the guy have a different part time job depending on which girl you go for is a little ridiculous, but that’s a pretty minor thing given the type of game this is. Like Smee’s previous title Pure Connect there’s is a lack of development towards the relationship between the two characters as there’s not much of a common route. However it’s not too bad in this game compared to Pure Connect.

I can say that I enjoyed all the routes except for Mashiro’s. I mean it wasn’t bad; she’s just not my type and I didn’t find many of her events amusing. I mean the ridiculous play arguments that you have with Karen are cute and Mako’s different voices are hilarious. However Mashiro didn’t have any element that really stood out to me other than being an oddball.

Overall: 85/100 (A very solid game with lots of comedy)

Kin’iro Loveriche

This game was better than I expected. I’m usually wary when I play a game with a princess heroine because it usually goes overboard with kidnapping, her trying to get killed, or the protagonist trying too hard to become someone worthy of her. Don’t get me wrong, the protagonist does still try to become worth of the princess, but it’s not too over the top in this game. Actually the drama in this game stays at a fairly good level overall and I can say that Sylvia may be one of my favourite princess heroines ever given how chill she is.

I can say there was a good amount of flirting in each route and there was some comedy splashed into there as well. Always a dynamite combination in my book. In saying the confession scene for Reina’s route is a big no no for me. The relationship itself was fantastic and I’m not denying the big event that lead to Ouro confessing. However I don’t like forced confessions – I want things to be a bit more natural. The Golden Time route was not something I was expecting, but I have to say it was done fairly well. What disappointed me was the lack of a route for Ayaka

Overall: 80/100 (There were a surprising number of threesomes in this game)

Also I love the ending song for the game. For some reason it really pulls at my heart strings.

Kari Gurashi Ren’ai

For a game which tries really hard to add in the funnies I didn’t like this as much as I thought it would. It has all the right components and I really felt that the game started off strongly. You had hints of jealousy mixed in, a wacky MILF, over eager younger sister figures, etc. I think what was missing for me was the amount of romance in the individual routes.

To be honest I can’t remember anything particularly bad about this game, but at the same time I can’t remember anything particularly good. So all in all a slightly above average game. It’s a shame because all the characters had so much potential.

Overall: 65/100 (I can’t think of anything to say here)

Eiyuu Senki

A game where you conquer the world in the name of world peace and various famous historical figures are somehow women. The dialogue for the game is nothing fancy, the story is fairly plain, but the gameplay was pretty nice. I had to have the manual open constantly in order to remember which weapons were strong against what.

With the number of different girls in this game it’s not surprising that not all of them get H-scenes. I do believe the Eiyuu Senki Gold has H-scenes for almost all the girls, but the game wasn’t good enough to compel me to go for a remake. Despite having lots of different girls in this stew the game does still show some nice lovey fuzzy scenes from time to time.

Overall: 70/100 (Sengoku Rance without all the rape)

Riddle Joker

This is another game that had so much potential that just didn’t live up to my expectations. A very standard common route as far as common route go, but there are some elements lacking. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it could be because of how level headed Satoru is as a protagonist.

I think Mayu’s route probably was the best content wise for me. It had revelations, lots of flirting, and satisfying conclusion. Nanami still holds a place as the cutest heroine, but there was one particular in her route that didn’t sit well with me. Ayase’s interesting because of her hidden personality and I would have loved to see her interact in that way with the rest of the main cast. Sadly I didn’t get my wish – her route did have the most story I believe. Finally Hazuki’s route overall was a flop for me and left me more pissed off than anything else.

Overall: 70/100 (Dracu-riot is still my number one when it comes to Yuzusoft)

 

End

So that’s basically everything I have to say about me really. If you actually read the whole thing you must have even more time than I currently do =D

Anyway I’m currently in the works of finding a new job so it’s very unlikely I’ll be posting anything again in the future.

– Aero