Getting this list together wasn’t easy and I think it’s only fair to bring everyone up to speed. As I mentioned before, the bulk of the nominations focused on a core group of visual novels released in 2014: leaving several out in the cold. So I involved my privileges as all-mighty Editor-in-Chief to add to […]
In the final months of 2014, you may have heard Chris Tenarium and I trashing 2014 as a whole as a weak year for the EVN community. To be fair to me, I had only played the most notable commercial games of the year by that point so while I still hold part of that […]
Just in case I didn’t make this point clear during the last six to eight months, allow me to go on the record one more time: Sakura Spirit sucks the shit straight out of a septic tank. It is two hours, at best, of the most banal, uninspired, joyless fiction I have EVER read in […]
So, I think the best way to start this one out is first with some backstory. At some point I’m sure we’ll get to the actual game, but this has to be handled first to ensure everyone is on a level playing field. Sword of Asumi was once a game called Swords of Edo. Originally […]
Comedy in visual novels is a difficult concept to pull off. I think this is the case in part because most people don’t know when to end the joke and instead try to extend it. There is also the reality that some jokes just don’t translate well across cultural lines and many people who are […]
I was not prepared for this. (Warning: There Will Be Spoilers) STORY Planetarian takes place after years of warfare has devastated the Earth. A lone scavenger enters a long-forgotten city; hoping that the constant patrol of murderous war machines has protected some valuable junk he could sell to survive another day. Instead he meets […]
While I’m sure there is a very good psychological reason for the past five or six years of fictional trends, I still cannot explain the continued draw of post-apocalyptic works. From The Walking Dead to The Last of Us and everything in between, it is the ‘it’ factor of fiction: sweeping all areas of entertainment […]
So, I’ve been noted for talking about the lack of ‘space opera’ games in the English Visual Novel community. Considering the overwhelming influence the genre has had on fiction whether it be in the West (Star Wars, Firefly, Alien, etc.) or the East (Cowboy Bebop, Gundam, Outlaw Star, etc.), its lack of representation is nothing […]
So, to review: the voice acting of the game was cut because the voice actors wanted a higher rate than was originally agreed to, the original writer ran out on them and they had to start fresh, the lack of communication was a rookie mistake and the game behind that ridiculously scantly-clad graphic above us […]
UPDATE #1: On November 25, 2014, the former VA Director for The Guardian’s Spell sent us a response to this statement. You can read that here. UPDATE #2: On November 30, 2017, Sekai Project formally retracted their statement on The Guardian’s Spell. You can read the full story here. On April 5, 2014, Winged Cloud’s […]