al|together 2008: a running review of sorts
By Moogy | November 30, 2008
I’ve always gotten a certain pleasure out of playing insani’s short freeware VNs. Most of them don’t leave deep impressions on me or anything (aside from True Remembrance), but I generally find them to be a quite pleasant way of passing time. Thus, I’ve been playing the games from this year’s al|together festival as they are released. So far, it’s been a fairly positive experience. My short reviews of the games released at a|t2008 follow; I will update this post as the next two (three?) games are released.
- Negaeba Kitto… – By far the weakest entry so far, and most likely from this festival as a whole. I’m afraid that five minutes is simply not enough time for a visual novel to make an impression on me; if this is a personal failing, so be it, but the fact remains that I was not able to feel anything from this piece. Obviously I appreciate the efforts behind its creation and localization, but… I don’t like it, to put it simply.
- Crimsoness – Hella awesome. Full of righteous indignation, burning spirit, and pure rage. It’s also the only offering that can actually be accurately referred to as a “game.” Its time limit of three minutes may make it appear to be nothing more than a momentary distraction, but it actually took me a good fifteen or twenty minutes to figure out how to beat it. The ending, by the way, is something which can only be described with that most overused of terms, “epic.” Anyway, I recommend this for some good, clean (?) fun. Play it with some friends on IRC for best results. Oh, and make sure your arm can handle it.
- The Letter – A pretty neat little piece about time travel. But not in the way you expect. Probably. Nice, clean writing style and a fairly engaging narrative on the whole. It probably won’t change your life or anything, but I thought it was a nice way to spend thirty minutes of my time.
- Moonshine – First things first. The heroine of this game is a trap, a new-half, a crossdresser, a pre-op transsexual – whatever you want to call her. As I have probably elucidated elsewhere on this blog or the internet, said “specifications” (for ease of reference, let’s use the term “josou” from here on out) are what I find the most moe – indeed, josou evokes an incredibly powerful sense of moe within me, one that exceeds all else. As such, my experience with this work is likely rather… painted. By all other means, it’s a rather simple (some might say generic) love story, with a rather bittersweet ending. However. Due to my aforementioned preference for the practitioners of josou, I cannot help but find the entire piece incredibly moe. Like, ridiculously. So, before this particular entry becomes rather tl;dr, I will simply leave you with this simple statement: If you find the idea of snuggling up under blankets with a trap to be exceedingly moe, then this is very much a game for you; otherwise, you may find it to be overly simple. And I’m still raging at the ending… I honestly get the feeling that it’s just bittersweet for the sake of being such, but that’s a topic for another day. Or something.
- The other two games suck bye
Well, that’s it for now. Check back later!
Topics: Other, Visual Novels | 4 Comments »
December 1st, 2008 at 7:53 am
Took some time for me to find out how to take out that statue, but goddamn, Crimsoness is RAGE, AWESOME, and EPIC. Negaeba Kitto made me kinda sad, but only for a minute or two. By now, I’ve forgotten their names already.
Just the other two now.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:11 am
You raged at the ending too? Yeah, it’s horribly simple. Also lol @ chaste snuggling w/trap, I found it pretty funny actually.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I fail for not noticing these translations earlier.
*goes off to play whatever has been released*
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:33 am
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