Just curious what the oldest game is that you’ve played, and whether you enjoyed it or not. I’m less interested in the technical experience, so you can use the original release date, even if you played a more modern implementation.
For me, Fate/stay night just barely beats Clannad, by a few months. Both were released in 2004, and both show their age a little bit (Clannad in its convoluted branching, Fate in its resolution options), but are perfectly playable. But of course both are super popular classics, so I wonder if you all had similar experiences with more obscure or older titles.
for me it is Tsukihime (if you enjoyed fate and especially it’s darker side this will be right up your alley) it is made by Type moon as their first VN and definitely shows it’s age now; but if you can look past it’s technical issues it is truly a masterpiece. I read the original VN which was released in 2000 and my profile pic is of one of the girls from that VN.
there’s the “sequels” plus disk and Kagetsu Tohya as well as a spin-of fighting game you might have heard of called Melty Blood. and this is the VN responsible for spawning the creature known as neco arc.
PS: I made a community specifically for Tsukihime and it’s directly related media if you want to discuss it here (!tsukihime@iusearchlinux.fyi) and I made a post going over where to start reading if you are interested in picking it up.
Tsukihime is definitely on my radar, every time I see the “not quite Saber” girl it catches my eye, in almost an uncanny valley sort of way lol. If the UX is approximately as good as Fate then it would be no problem, although it seems like it’s not voice acted, which is a bit of a shame. I know Fate wasn’t originally voice acted either, but to me the voice acting work is one of the best parts of the game.
In any case, it’s always fun to see a dedicated fan of a single series, and thanks for your suggestion. And as a slight aside, I’ve still gotta figure out my profile picture for this site. I don’t quite know what kinda impression I want to give yet =)
I had to retype this entire comment as my browser froze near the end of it
, anyhow here we go again.every time I see the “not quite Saber” girl it catches my eye
That’s gonna be Arcueid (the non-neco neco-arc), she’s the poster girl of the VN. Her design is similar to Saber in more ways than one and it is even more ~~horrible ~~obvious in the remake.
If the UX is approximately as good as Fate then it would be no problem, although it seems like it’s not voice acted
OG Tsuki does not have good UX, ONScripter is downright primitive compared to Kirikiri and has next to no real styling options. Another thing to note is that Tsukihime was originally made right off the heels of Kara no Kyoukai with little budget. Tsukihime pretty much built Type Moon as a company to the point that the name “Type Moon” itself is a reference to Tsukihime. That said all of this is something you’ll quickly get used to and by the time I made it to the second hook (~2h in) I was too captivated by the story to really care about this aspect of the VN.
That said, if the UX and lack of voice acting make it really unplayable you can start with the remake (although you will have to jump through some hoops in order to read it in english) and it does alter things quite a bit. Another thing of note is that the remake is going to be 2 games with the current game only being the first 2 routes (referred to as the “near side” routes) and no date for the second game has been given as of yet. I’d definitely say to give the original game a proper try and see from there.
In any case, it’s always fun to see a dedicated fan of a single series
I’m not just dedicated to Tsukihime, there’s a good few other series I really like; but I haven’t done too much in regards to those here yet, another aspect is that it is a really good VN that besides the manga doesn’t have any adaption the community almost memed out of existence (if you thought the DEEN Stay Night adaptation was considered bad you’re in for a ride). What I really like about Tsukihime though is that it doesn’t spend it’s time explaining every detail of the world and magic system (there is some exposition; but nowhere near what Fate has) and expects you to pick up on these details yourself.
PS: depending on how you interpret the question above Tsukihime may not be the oldest VN as that would go to Mahoutsukai no Yoru even though it’s never been properly released until it’s VN remake in 2012.
I’m in the process of playing Higurashi, released in 2002, and it’s good. It’s a very different experience from the anime. I actually played the Umineko VN first, which became my favorite thing in any medium quite quickly. Higurashi just keeps getting releases, re-releases, new adaptations; the train keeps going. The original release had very amateur art, but modern console releases in the Higurashi franchise have polished opening movies, redrawn sprites and full voice acting.
This certainly isn’t an obscure title, of course. Higurashi doesn’t offer you any choices, and it plays out just like a novel with no branches. Personally, I prefer kinetic visual novels like Higurashi and Umineko, but I know many don’t share this opinion.
And I suppose I’ve played Subarashiki Hibi, too, which is a 2011 remake/re-imagining of Tsui no Sora from 1998, which I really liked. I don’t really count that one on account of Subahibi being a completely different game.
I’ve seen Higurashi pop up quite a bit in a discord server I’m in although most discussion there is centered around the manga which I’ve heard nothing but praise for so far. I haven’t gotten out of my way to check it out yet; but the VN on my to read list and by the tempo I’m going at that’s looking like I’m going to be able to start it in 2024 because there’s a few other lengthy VNs I want to finish first (Mahoutsukai no Yoru, Tsukihime Plus Disc, Kagestu Tohya, Katawa Shoujo, and I wanna read the Tsukihime remake now the translation for that is done) so there’s a lot on my plate and too little time to finish these.
is there anything I need to know before I dig into the Higurashi series (besides it’s rougher art; I’ve gotten used to that thanks to Tsukihime)?
is there anything I need to know before I dig into the Higurashi series (besides it’s rougher art; I’ve gotten used to that thanks to Tsukihime)?
I recommend buying it from MangaGamer because it’s cheaper than on Steam. Then you might install the 07th Mod patches for a better experience. Also, this release comes with the original Japanese text, in case you’re interested in that.
There are no H-scenes in Higurashi. Higurashi is partially a challenge to the reader to try to figure out what’s going on. Everything is answered in the end.
I don’t think there’s anything else you’d need to know. Except that 07th Expansion has released many other games, and you should read Umineko next if you cared for Higurashi at all.
Edit: The first chapter is free, so you can download that to see if it interests you.
just one more question about the VN on a technical side: do they still use ONScripter, because if that is the case I don’t have to worry about wine. I’m daily driving linux (arch linux BTW) and I can easily use a native (and properly patched) version of ONScripter for the english translation, I’ve done so for the og tsukihime after fiddling with wine and the pre-packaged ONScripter for way too long and it massively improved the experience (mainly because I could move the window and actually go fullscreen without crashing the game)
Mangagamer has native Linux builds for all the Higurashi games. But, another 07th Expansion game from 2016, TRianThology, used the NScripter engine, and I was able to get it to run natively using ONScripter. Is that what you’re describing?
I’m actually using the Windows builds through WINE so I can get Textractor to inject hooks into the games, but it’s nice to have native Linux builds.
By the way, if you want more stable window management, fullscreening, upscaling, etc., the Gamescope compositor is an easy way to achieve that. Lutris makes it easy to use it.
Mangagamer has native Linux builds for all the Higurashi games.
nice, spares me the effort of figuring that out.
But, another 07th Expansion game from 2016, TRianThology, used the NScripter engine, and I was able to get it to run natively using ONScripter. Is that what you’re describing?
Pretty much, I have ONScripter through the AUR (
onscripterandonscripter-en) which I can use to run these games.I’m actually using the Windows builds through WINE so I can get Textractor to inject hooks into the games
I had a quick look at that, is it for accessibility or are you just trying to get the text out for other reasons (if it’s the second I’ve had success using AETools on the Nscript.dat file).
By the way, if you want more stable window management, fullscreening, upscaling, etc., the Gamescope compositor is an easy way to achieve that.
I’m aware of gamescope; but I’m also aware that it’s basically a glorified hack to get something that plays along; generally I prefer if a game has builtin exclusive fullscreen as it still carries many advantages over using compositor hacks. (I haven’t really seen a good case not to use it besides the minor alt-tab annoyance)
Pretty much, I have ONScripter through the AUR (onscripter and onscripter-en) which I can use to run these games.
Then we used precisely the same packages to achieve that. I don’t even remember where I heard about ONScripter and thought to use it. I couldn’t get it to run through WINE, so it was fortunate I figured that out.
I had a quick look at that, is it for accessibility or are you just trying to get the text out for other reasons (if it’s the second I’ve had success using AETools on the Nscript.dat file).
I’m using visual novels as a method of learning Japanese. Textractor extracts the Japanese text from the game, copies it to my clipboard, and then Yomichan reads my clipboard and searches my installed dictionaries for the Japanese words in the sentence, which I can read to understand the unknown word(s). I might then use AnkiConnect to create an automatic flashcard in Anki using my dictionary in Yomichan for the word I just learned to review later.
I’m aware of gamescope; but I’m also aware that it’s basically a glorified hack to get something that plays along; generally I prefer if a game has builtin exclusive fullscreen as it still carries many advantages over using compositor hacks. (I haven’t really seen a good case not to use it besides the minor alt-tab annoyance)
When I was playing the Sonohana games, the only resolution available to me was 800x600, and fullscreening it was horribly broken in WINE. It would also often crash the game when I switched virtual desktops. Since using Gamescope, those issues disappeared. Hack or not, I’m a fan.
the only resolution available to me was 800x600, and fullscreening it was horribly broken in WINE.
This is the exact reason I started using the AUR version as ONScripter’s exclusive fullscreen does not work in wine, I also played half of Tsukihime not realizing you could use
1,2, and3on your numpad to change the text speed or change the game volume or even use page more (which is a delight during certain scenes).