Mightyblue’s Corner

When I talk to myself in my head, I usually find that I’ve outgrown my visual novel phase, a phase that co-existed with the high-school me’s arrogance that after watching anime for a few years and studying Japanese here and there I really knew the language. The kanji alone humbled me, but that’s another story.
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Anyway, Utawarerumono’s pretty awesome actually. It’s mostly a straight up visual novel paired with a simple, yet entertaining SRPG backend. You’ve still got your mountains of text and static backgrounds and character portraits, but the setting, characters, and slowly unfurling plot are all pretty entertaining. There hasn’t been a whole lot of really risque art yet either, a plus for those of you uncomfortable with hentai and a minus for those who “play” vis. novels and eroge for it. Uta’s awesome enough to justify the sheer amount of timesink that any normal vis. novel enjoys, not to mention the extra time spent playing the SRPG half of the game.
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It’s why I love that vis. novels let you save and pick up anywhere, although Uta won’t let you save during a battle sequence or when the game does a scene in the battle engine rather than the standard vis. novel static backgrounds. Timesinks aren’t quite so painful to the rest of your life if you can pick it up and play whenever you want, and something like Uta would be really nice on the DS or PSP I think.
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The fan localizers did a pretty good job on the game itself, some slight Engrishy-ness and grammar quirks aside. It makes the game that much better when you can understand just what the heck peeps are saying this time around.
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Also: Music’s pretty good.