New VN Releases! (10/8/2014)

Well, it’s about time I got serious about delivering more than just my cutting wit and impeccable opinion! So let’s start things back up with a report of noteworthy visual novel releases!

Cheritz Brings Dandelion to Steam!

Steam continues to grow its visual novel catalog today with the announcement from South Korean developer Cheritz that the otome game Dandelion – Wishes Brought Unto You is now available! Originally published in 2012 for a Korean audience, it was translated for the West in 2013. Here is the basic premise!

“Hee-Jung is a 21 year old girl who pushes herself to be perfect at everything; yet she realizes that she does not know what she really desires. Although she lives a hectic life, she feels like she is on the road to nowhere. However, one day she encounters mysterious animals and decides to take them in. She doesn’t yet realize that this will radically change her life…”

The game is available for $29.99 on Steam. If you’ve already bought it directly from Cheritz, you can retrieve a Steam key here! As for whether or not a certain reviewer who once labeled this VN ‘that game where bunnies and kitties turn into hot guys’ will take this one on….stay tuned.

Sunrider: First Arrival Review

Considering the influence space operas and mecha anime have had on Western culture, I am legitimately surprised it doesn’t make up a large portion of the English Visual Novel community. Some would argue, truthfully, that the majority of EVN audience now is female, so their projects skew towards them. However, if I remember my youth correctly, girls loved Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop and Gundam Wing (I was more of a UC fan boy) just as much, if not more, than the fan boys I ran with at the time. And while those series set a ridiculously high bar for anyone to follow, it remains one of the most imaginative fields an author can write about.

So, considering my love for the subgenres, it will come as no surprise to you that I was excited by the announcements last year of new mecha and space drama EVNs to join the Rising Angels and Touhou Mecha series. That excitement tempered some when I saw some of the planned merchandise for Love in Space’s Sunrider. The group has down more explicit work in the past and it was clear once the body pillows rolled out that the game was going to have its share of fanservice, which I probably should’ve figured considering this is moe girls fighting in space. Now, that in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. While I am more prudish than many others in this community, I don’t mind boobs as long as they don’t take away from the larger story. With that in mind, let’s take a look at Sunrider: First Arrival and see if it reaches for the stars…or the skirts…

Oh and I’ll be discussing a few things that are spoilers. You have been warned.

A Quick Look At: Lovely Little Thieves

Ah! There’s nothing like the smell of new EVNs in the morning!

Admittedly, for our little corner of the Internet that’s not a rare occurrence. It seems that, at least for this year, we have plenty of new groups and projects to pick from depending on our own fandoms and interests.  But few of them cover a genre tied so closely to Western popular culture as horror movies. Since the inception of ‘the moving picture show’ there have been horror movies and while it will never be as psychological as it once was, thanks in large part to an industry that doesn’t know the difference between shocking and scaring someone, I am very pleased to see a revival of sort in horror games.

JP3 vs. RWBY Episode 7: Everyone Is Now Dumber

Well my friends, last week was admittedly rough BUT we did it! Two episodes is a lot of time to invest in a plot arc that went absolutely nowhere, however now that it’s in the books we can move forward to its aftermath. Blake learned her lesson and joined the other girls in mindlessly stupidity, obviously the bad guys where there because of their own mindless stupidity, but only a total hack would actually focus on the events of this dance. I mean, even IF you had your cerebrum removed recently, you’d understand that with so little delivered you could actually salvage the storyline by leaving the actual dance up to the imagination and have the characters change based on what we don’t see.

Hell, they can even screw up the basic storyline AGAIN by prioritizing childish nonsense instead of the actual threat they want us to take seriously at the end of every episode. I’m actually excited about this one because a literal monkey at a typewriter couldn’t screw up Episode 7!

…Wait…what do you mean they’re still at the dance? Okay, hold on; let me think this through…okay yes! This can work! I can see it now! The others have convinced Blake to drop her guard on the very night the villains decide to attack the school! Mo gets to do a ridiculous action scene and now we are fully focused on the (dumb) tournament and the threat that nearly destroyed their home right under their noses! It’s actually kind of brilliant; a little basic, but still brilliant. I’m surprised the writing crew was able to tie this all together! Maybe I was wrong after all eh?

…wait…what do you mean ‘there is no attack’?

…oh.

……Oooooooooh.

Let’s just get this over with.

Sound Off Episode 26: Hope & Horror

This week on the show we had a new EVN developer on: Hope Chapman! For those who follow Anime News Network or are fans of That Guy With The Glasses, you may also know her as JesuOtaku. We talk about the development of her first EVN, Lovely Little Thieves, and you can see more of that project here! Enjoy the show!

Download The MP3 Here!

Ayu Sakata Throws A Water Party

Last week, voice actress and Sakevisual chief Ayu Sakata launched a charity fundraiser with the goal of raising $17,000 for clean water projects worldwide. The fundraiser will go on for another two and half months and there are several incentives for fans of anime provided by other English voice actors from shows such as Attack on Titan, A Certain Scientific Railgun and Sword Art Online.

Here are the details for the fundraiser:

5,000 kids under the age of 5 died from water-related illnesses yesterday.

Let’s make today different.

 

 

Clean water is the most basic necessity for living, and we’ve got tons of it. We can jump around and play in it. Dude, we even flush it down the toilet. But some people don’t even have anything drinkable, and thousands of kids die every day because they don’t have clean water.

People accuse us of being lazy and selfish. They complain that we spend money on the wrong things, or we don’t do anything to help others. We can be more than that. We ARE more than that. Let’s prove it.

We here at VNs Now always support good causes and while she isn’t making potato salad, this is a very noble cause. As Sakata said, every little bit helps so please do what you can! Go Here to make a donation and get more information about the current water crisis.