Board 8 > Anonymous;Code

(+) Yeah! (+)

Came out today, will be starting tonight. I don't know....if we usually have topics for big VN releases? Historically I've come to just about every VN late to the party.

This is the first new IP in the Science Adventure series in over a decade, excluding the Occultic;Nine novels which I think are...unfinished? I've been excited for it for years. Hopefully it lives up to my own self generated hype.

For as big of a Steins;Gate fan that I am I really need to get on reading the rest of the Science Adventure VNs.

Well, let us know if it's decent. I don't want to be the one to test the waters knowing how wildly inconsistent the series is.

I don't get my copy until Tuesday unfortunately

Absolute horror moment here where someone just straight up started talking about 4chan by name.

Just realised this is the first time I've ever encountered an English dubbed visual novel, unless I'm forgetting something.

Going to give it some more time before getting into any specifics, though I am enjoying it so far.

It feels like this game has multiple character designers though. Doesn't all mesh. The lead girl in particular, wierd outfit or otherwise, feels like she has less detail than the other characters in an attempt I make her look....softer? It's wierd.

Deeper in now, with the first real section where they a expect you to start using the saving and lading gimmick.

It is.....incredibly unitutive. Actually doing it is not a problem, just knowing when to to get the various outcomes is mostly nonsense.

The game infrequently goes into the handrawn comic panel cutscenes for action intensive scenes and major events, and the character designs look so much better here than in the standard parts on the game.

It's particularly jarring when I've got a scene approaching the halfway points where the main girl ends it triumphant and looking cool, and then 10 seconds later she's popping up in the comms back in her bland Moe design.

Right now the game has been solid. All of these SA series tend to start slower and pick up steam, but I'd say so far this is presenting as a bit harder to take seriously than the rest, but I know better than to judge it until I have the whole picture.

Tag for impressions

Really don't want to say anything super negative until in all the way through, I'm case it switches.

But right now honestly I can't help but say the game is kind of.....dumb. Like "I hope a lot of this stuff is a big fake out/bait and switch" dumb. Some of it feels like self parody.

If it's like this on purpose right now like some other VNs I've played have done before, it's spreading out the rug a bit too thin before yanking it out from under me.

I still have not lost hope, though, and I want to make it very clear that at no point am I saying it's bad.

I am deep into chapter 8 of 10, into what is probably the ultimate focus of the game's climax.

My take right now is that I am very engaged in the ongoings by their sheer absurdity and very much am enjoying myself as a result, but it's more of that trainswreck style enjoyment. There was a brief moment where the game started doing things that made me wonder if I would care about other entities in the Science Adventure series less in retrospect, but thankfully I was able to get over that.

Mid chapter 5 I was frankly wanting to stop playing with how much boring info dumping was happening and just kept going out of obligation, but I'm definitely not BORED anymore, that's for damn sure.

It does feel like a bit of a shark jump, but watching Fonzie make the jump is fun.

In the last chapter. The stakes have never been higher and my interest has never been lower.

Sorry but even if they pull out some baller ending I can't imagine it's going to drastically change my opinion. I'm obligated to finish though, so time to to get to it.

That seems well within my expectations for the series.

Well I'm someone who really likes this series, so I can't imagine how much worse it'd be for you lol.

I guess just a little preview of some of my issues now.

The cast of this game is just shockingly flat. I hava no connection at all to the MC or the female lead after one cool moment for her. Juno is probably one of the worst characters I've encountered in a VN I've played.

The game reaches levels of absurdity no other entry in the series I've experienced (note that I haven't played it watched Chaos;Head) could hope to achieve, but it somehow does so as flatly and boring as possible. The actual throughline of the story sounds pretty wild on paper, but it just isn't working for me at all. I think the setting and general feel of the game is not lining up for me aesthetically. Lots of hacking and techno babble, but not like... Science or horror techno babble like S;G or O;9 or C;C, it's actual techno babble. I'm never going to care about 4chan or lifi signals to this degree. Even R;G made it's hardware deep dives about fun robot building, but maybe the game version of that would have been grating too.

It's just boring a lot of the time, at times when it shouldn't be. How do you make a 7 foot tall zombie priest with a Wolfwood battle cross and fire powers with tons of screen time so completely flat and uninteresting???

It kind of feels like it wants to be the second coming of Stein;Gate rather than something truly new, and it doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of that entry.

Oh, also, as is to be expected there's multiple antagonist factions and characters at play throughout, but BOY OH BOY is the central one....just...fucking wow do I not like them.

Sounds like I might pass on this then, unless someone else comes in super positive on this.

Honestly the only game i've played from them is steins;gate and while I liked it, I don't need to play more similar stuff atm

I had to step away for unrelated reasons, but I'm working thorough the true end now and my opinion isn't going to change. I would say it's the worst VN I've finished, but that's not an extremely damning statement because I typically don't finish VNs I don't like. I still can't recommend it, but it's not so bad that I'd say to not even try it out at all if your interested, besides the financial burden. It's more just....painfully middle of the road. I could easily list over 15 VNs to play just on PS4/5 over this, and even if I narrow it down to "pure" VNs I could easily give you 5, maybe even 10 just from what I've played.

But, you know, I'm not an authority! Some people apparently like it, it's reviewing decently. I wouldn't be surprised if that's. mostly due to the presentation, though. This is a high budget VN and localization. It's just a shame that this is what that high quality effort went towards.

Steins;Gate Kosher Happy Meal Edition completed.

https://youtu.be/TTRwSYVzuRk?si=9KhJlBansynx0lMZ

I think the worst thing I can say is that I don't even really have anything to say. After an initially fun montage buildup to the True Ending, the actual thing was pretty dull, which considering what you're doing is pretty amazing.

Not a bad game. Just the middest, most innofensively unimpactful one I've played.

I was kind of thinking of finally playing Chaos;Head or Robotics;Notes 2 after this, but I don't think I wanna do another Science Adventure right now.

Maybe I'll just replay Umineko.

Though I have plenty of VNs on my PS4 and Switch I haven't played yet that I should really get to.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Though I have plenty of VNs on my PS4 and Switch I haven't played yet that I should really get to.

Finished Mahoyo yet?

Naw, never started it. I ended up saying screw it and bought it rather than playing the demo since nobody could confirm if saves transfered.

Sounds like now's the time