visualnovels

Happy New Year!

I spent the last month playing a bunch of different indie VNs

of the Devil Episode 2

I had high expectations and they got surpassed, can't believe nth Circle did it again! I binged the new ep over the span of a few days immediately after release.

While Episode 0 dealt with a serial killer case and Episode 1 with a murder in the (mega-) corporate sphere, Ep 2 is all about the mob.

The case is definitely a step up both in terms of scale, complexity and production value, they even added in new character themes for Morgan and Emma :D I felt thoroughly entertained right from the start. There was already some neat set-up for future developments as well,

They also already announced Episode 3, the waiting begins anew.

Z.A.T.O. // I love the World and Everything in it

I picked this free denpa VN up after a recommendation by an IRL friend and finished it in 2 days. It's short but a great experience, so I immediately went and bought the digital artbook afterwards to support the dev. Apropos, the dev is a somewhat well-known Vocaloid producer, as I found out later.

It's set in a closed town in the USSR and the protag is a school girl with a very peculiar world-view who gets bullied regularly. The story revolves around the disappearance of her friend and I won't spoil more. If you're a fan of Serial Experiments Lain, this is an easy rec!

Artificial Selection (Demo Version)

This one's an "anti-killing game" VN with escape room mini games.

The setting is only revealed bit by bit but it seems to be some sort of near future surveillance state. The main cast are all criminals who have to participate in this game in order to rehabilitate themselves, though we don't know which crimes in particular they committed yet.

I haven't fully formed an opinion on the game yet, except that the protagonist reminds me of some sort of nervous hamster (affectionate). His ugly-cute smile has won me over, also.

I've also very much fallen in love with the game's UI! Kigyo is a Ren'Py wizard and I've probably spent an hour analyzing all the little design details!

I'm not sure why I hate myself this much but I spent New Year's Eve (or rather the rest of the night) reading Narcissu 2nd. Tears were shed.

It blindsided me quite a bit as I expected a continuation focused on a point of view protagonist of the first story only to get a prequel starring Setsumi (the other main character from 1st) and Himeko (a new character with similar but different role to the former) instead. It also focused on a pretty different kind of sadness - not of those passing but rather those who witness the process. That's kind of how I interpret it anyway.
Despite this change of perspective, the writer managed to express the emotions just as well as they did with the first one. They are really good at this and considering there are a few more stories in the series, they have plenty to share about this topic.

My head is filled with a jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions, and I had no time to process them yet so all I'm going to write is this: Narcissu 1st & 2nd are beautiful stories and I love them deeply. I also hope to never read them again. I'm going to need long break filled with much MUCH lighter stuff before I get back to another serious title. While stories like these are great, they are also pretty devastating as I'm a big wimp when it comes to such topics and can only take so much before ending as complete mess.

Speaking of other stuff, the last third of the year or so served as a warm up to slowly build up towards larger VNs. I'm still not ready to go all in but my main goal for this year is to finally get to Steins;Gate (and of The Devil! I think I'm finally close to being ready for that as well). I don't expect to tackle them in January but I'm sure I'll get there in 2026.

Edit: I opened Narcissu to check something out and just hearing the music made me cry again. I'm not going to check anything any more. (╥﹏╥)