Visual Novel

This is a great year to be a Type-Moon fan. Why? First and foremost, Mahou Tsukai no Yoru is coming out on September 30th (the Type-Moon website got a facelift as well), which just happens to be the same day that the DVD of the Unlimited Blade Works film is released, coincidence? Either way, it has been five years since the last major original Type-Moon product, Fate/hollow ataraxia (well, it technically was still just a fandisc, but I think its quality and size merits this) hit the stores, no more milking their existing properties (okay, so the Rakkyo films were a nice treat), yay!

According to Nasu, there will be three parts to Mahoyo. Part one, the one that will come out this September, is based on the story written by Nasu before Tsukihime, while the next two parts will be all new content. Looking at Type-Moon's past release record, I wonder how long it'll be before the fans can finally see the last part, that, and Tsukihime 2... (considering there are still fans patiently waiting for news of DDD volume 3).

On December 25th (Merry Christmas!), Light released the final (and supposedly complete) version of its Dies irae game, Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~.

The complete version comes with two new routes, including the long-awaited Kei route (yay!), but is still missing a Rusalka route (boo!), which can't really be helped on some levels. However, due to the various release of this game, it seems which version contains what is becoming a bit confusing... so here is a small post that will hopefully clear things up.

First of all, let's take a look at all the versions of the game currently out there:

Eh, super busy as usual, so much for regular updates.

Anyway, while browsing the web today, I stumbled upon something fascinating.....

NARCISSU 3 IS COMING OUT THIS MONTH!

When I first saw stage-nana's website, I was like wut, it's coming out when? April? Wow I sure missed this one. The official title is narcissu 3rd -Die Dritte Welt-. In case you haven't played the first two games in the series, go do yourself a favor and play them now, and don't complain about you can't because they are free and are available in English, Chinese, Korean, and apparently Thai (thanks to fan translation, of course). Edit: Oops, totally forgot the English patch for Narcissu 2 isn't out yet!

When speaking of Japanese visual novels, probably the first thing that comes to mind is H scenes or something similar, and most of them are fairly expensive to get if you live in the U.S. (of course no one would ever get them through some torrent site or anything like that!) So, being the poor gamer that you are, if you're looking for a meaningful story, quality artwork and good sound track, look no further than Narcissu, a free visual novel by the doujin group stage-nana.

What You can't read Japanese? Worry not, the game has already been translated to English by insani. As for the story, here's a brief summary:

Gish 2's official website was recently updated with something of an intro. Although it's not clear who's the creature that's doing the talking, it sure seem like something out of a Lovecraft novel. From what can be seen so far, comparing Gish 2, which looks dark and adult-like, to Gish 1, which seems cute and cuddly, is like comparing Silent Hill to Serious Sam (um how does that work out anyway?). Also, after having recently completed Nitro+'s Saya no Uta, I have reasons to believe that the creature on the frontpage is a distant relatives of Saya's.

Which brings us to the topic of this post (yes, it's actually not about Gish 2). Last night, staying up till 3am or so, I finally finished a extremely short but thought-provoking work called Saya no Uta (Song of Saya) from Nitro+, a Japanese eroge game maker known for works like Demonbane and my personal favorite, Phantom of Inferno.