NEKOCHI'S PROFILE

author=Dozen
The first review of Junko's route(And ever)!

Story 5/5
The plot is the general heartache idea: meet the girl, solve her problem, love ensues. Nobody's gonna fall over that, but the story itself is written so well it deserves the maximum score. It's not just the realistic dialogues either, but how perfectly portrayed Miki and Keika were. The 'It's for her, not you' line from Miki was a bit clichic, but a single mistake compared to the sheer awesomeness of the rest of it? Hard to even notice.

Characters 5/5
What can I say? The writer is a woman, and it shows. Junko has more depth than any other custom character, and runs over some built-ins on the way. The best part is the simplicity of the things that really are simple most of the time in real life. As a rule of thumb, if you're nice to someone, that someone's going to like you, and that's pretty much all you need to know. Visual novels have a habit of warping the girls' personalities and needs so much to make them more interesting you'd think they're aliens; it's nice to see that subverted once in a while. Aoi is just the top of everything. Do you people have any idea how hard it is to portray a kid properly? I wouldn't dare to try...

Experience 3/5
The route flows very smoothly, but what was a bonus for Junko's character takes away from the fun. The choices are so predictable Junko's effectively handed over to the player. The beautiful ending scenes and the aforementioned story makes up for it somewhat, but all in all, it's just plain meh. I wonder if there's a compromise?

Content: 4/5
This is really, really close to 5 out of 5. Junko's route has date events, phone events and more on top of the storyline, which is awfully rare(I may or may not be subtly suggesting something here), but it's less than what the people out there have every right to demand. Still the best custom route in this department, so it's a thumbs up, at least.

Overall Rating: 17/20

Eeeee~ Thank you so much! You don't know how much I appreciate that you like the writing. I actually want to become a novelist someday, so the writing was my main focus Junko which, as you said, probably detracts from how fun it is to play as the simplicity means it comes close to being kinetic rather than interactive. If you have any suggestions to improve on this for my next route(s), I'd love to hear them. I'm hesitant to add a bunch of stat checks because I know that for me, personally, I dislike being locked out of a character's route because I couldn't get my stats high enough quick enough or (worse yet) a stat check for a stat that it didn't seem important to raise is thrown to me out of nowhere (for example, the looks stat check for Tsubasa. She doesn't care about looks and up until that point you've gotten the impression that it wouldn't matter to her if your character was sporting a mullet and running around in a burlap sack, so long as he was smart. I was pretty annoyed to be thrown out of her route when there'd been no hint that my looks mattered up until that point.) No offense Marrend, but how crazy some of the stat checks on your routes are is a huge turn off for me, so I don't want to do something so drastic to anything I might make. I'm wondering if there is a way to add enjoyment for both people like Dozen, who want more of a challenge, and people like me, who are more interested in story flow than feeling like we have to earn our happy ending. Definitely something to think about.

author=Dozen
That's the spirit!:D And wait she was supposed to beat money outta the player? Talk about weird. Now someone sooo has to come up with a bully! I dare you all!

Ryoko as a datable character? :P Actually, I'm surprised that Ryoko has gotten as much use as she has. She was just a throwaway one dimensional character with a name drop in one story, an appearance in another, and a crush on Masashi. Yet I come back to find that not only does she have a place in someone else's content, but she also has a tachie! It's actually a little overwhelming to think that my story had that much of an impact on someone else and I only hope my more serious writing has the same effect.

On another note, I'd love to add the tachie for Ryoko to the story she appears in for Junko. I'd also be up for changing the difficulty some if you had any suggestions on how I might do so without completely sacrificing the integrity of the story.

author=Marrend
Maybe it's just me, but I'm beginning to worry that the sequence with Mayu and her club is not okay. It's suggested that the player character joins that club, and, if the player does the right things, suggests that Benjiro is also in the club. What I'm starting to think is that, if the school is divided between male and female students, wouldn't the clubs be similarly divided? Well, maybe not all of them, but the more popular ones, which would include various athletic-types, would probably be divided.

What do you guys think about this?

In the prologue it says that the club rooms aren't divided. So I think as long as it's not an all boy's sport like baseball or an all girl's club, it should be fine. :)

http://shass.sakura.ne.jp/ Has anyone been able to figure out how to enter this site? Flowerthief says he got backgrounds from it, but I can't figure it out. .-. Also, Triad, where did you get the graphics for Maeda? I've seen it mentioned, but no link. :(

By your idea, Night, do you mean twins? Cause there's no such thing as a game having too many twins. ^-^ (Yes, I may have a bit of a twins in literature obsession.)

author=Dozen
NEKOCHIO.o
I guess I'm pleased to meet you:D I'm happy you like the chart, and thankful for the backup. I guess it's about time to update the chart, then.

It's nice to meet you as well. ^-^ Wait, you only guess you're pleased to meet me? *mock offended* ;)

author=Dozen
And since you're here, it's time for me to criticize the Junko route!(spoiler: I think it's horrible)
Okay, the sentence above is a lie>.> I didn't like how easy it was to decide which choices would give you boyfriend points, but the story flowed well, and left nothing unecessarily hanging in the air. I hope I can cope with you.

Yay Junko feedback. :) Yeah, I guess that's just my personal preference coming through. I'm not a big fan of being locked out of routes for not being able to get my stats up quick enough or, worse yet, having no idea what stats to even up. (Mayu, Shoko, Hinami, Tsubasa, I'm looking at you. Especially you Tsubasa. Who knew I'd have to care about my looks on your route?) So I tend to go for simplicity over a challenge. I'll try to make any future routes I write a bit more difficult though. Do you have any other comments on Junko? I tried to make her route realistic and something that would touch someone's heart, while also providing rounded characters, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded.

author=Dozen
And, as for Kyouki... She has something special in storage for Junko in her Friend Route^^ She won't know what hit her until it's too late>:) And that happens if the player makes the right choice! <insert mischievious laughter here> Contradicting the foreshadowing, I think you'll like it.

Sounds interesting! I'm looking forward to it. I'll be glad if Junko ends up having even one friend because given the sacrifices that she's making, I worry for her future if she doesn't end up with the player. My poor baby. *pats*

Well, I guess I'll just program a workaround then. :) My creative juices are really starting to flow. I'm very tempted to write a character that is a...



Of course, that presents its own slew of coding problems.

Oh look, the first academy screenshot!