Tag Archives: Visual novels

Visual novel talk: Narcissu

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Narcissu is a short visual novel that is freely available, cross-platform, and has an official English translation. It’s about two terminally ill patients who meet at the hospital. They decide they don’t want to just die at the hospital or at home so they decide to just go and drive off somewhere.

Going through the story reminded me a lot of 5 Centimetres per Second. The characters are all very soft-spoken and melancholic, probably because they’re about to die. There’s an atmosphere of sadness that lingers around for the duration of the time you’re reading. Even though there might be a few relatively light moments here and there, it doesn’t really change the direction and mood of what’s eventually going to happen.

For a free game, it’s very well produced. The music, art, and voice acting is pretty good. Even though it uses the NScripter engine, it looks a lot more professional than Umineko or Tsukihime. Already, this makes giving it a spin very well worth the time.

Visual novel talk: Planetarian

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So apparently, I’m late to the Planetarian train. It’s kind of funny because it was only a few months ago that I was lamenting that I would never be able to see what Planetarian was about since there was about a 0% that it’s get an anime adaptation. I don’t know why I didn’t think that there might be a fan translation, but the realization that these things existed didn’t hit me until I finished Umineko.

Planetarian ~ちいさなほしのゆめ~ is a visual novel by the tear harvesters at Key/Visual Arts. The interesting thing about Planetarian is that it’s setting and premise is entirely different from Key’s usual domain. We’re presented with a grimdark world where people just kill each other and search for garbage.

Of course, just because we’re in a different setting doesn’t mean that Key can’t work their usual magic in. There is snarky protagonist and there is some kind of moeblob. There are cute are cute and touching scenes and there are moments to make you BAWWWWW.

Definitely check it out if you’re a fan of Key’s usual fare. It’s short and it’s well worth the look to see how Key can make you weep even when sickly high school students aren’t involved.