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Idolm@ster Dearly Stars reminded me to check the VN scene on Nintendo DS. Visuals of Im@s DS are quite good, so a VN would probably work fine. The result of the check is, there are a few entries, but there's not many, not very VN, or in any case not very moe.

Lux-Pain - it's officially translated and released, my daughter bought it today (in Best Buy, no less). Only $32. I heard it was poorly translated, but it is fully voiced, so inaccurate text is not that bad a deal. The VN is a mystery story, so no moeblobs.

Ouran Koukou Host Bu - March 2009, so is on Play-Asia, etc. Seems like a decent version of Haruhi's adventures as host(ess). {UPD: Sage says "that game is awful".}

Love Plus - Would be a perfect dating game, except Konami decided to go to the next level and made the game run in "real time": your girl's schedule is governed by the wall clock. I don't think I want an anchor like that for my day.

DokiDoki Majou Shinpan - July 2007, out of print, out of stock at Play-asia. It's that witch-touching game. I heard it was good, but I don't know if it was good as a game or good as a VN. There's a sequel out, apparently.

Strike Witches: Aoi no Dengekisen - Shin Taichou Funtousuru! - mostly a strategy adventure, with a set of short VN segments tacked on.

So, the field is completely dominated by Windows. Westerners write VNs in Ren-Py often, so Linux is easy, but I'm not interested (no disrespect to Rocket is intended). The DS titles seem solid, just not engaging. Lux-Pain is kinda bloody and criminal (although I may get it second-hand anyway). The SW thing sounds mildly interesting. Shinpan should be nice too. Ouran.. I dunno. Reverse traps are ok, I guess. And that's about all for DS. Dumping $60 just like that, I'm not sure.

I looked at VNDS, but it requires too much effort. If Type-moon brought carts to the next Comiket, then maybe I'd get some. But dealing with R4, a maze of shady downloads, unpackers, patches, et cetera is too much. Might as well run Windows emulation for that Tsukihime fix.

BTW, it's all wishful thinking anyway. I reached the first save point in IM@S DS and was utterly exhausting from looking up kanji. Ishikawa (the company head) communicates in text -- mostly by e-mail. So, no voice clues. I think I should put a strong effort into a few rounds of Kakitori-kun first, and in a year or so review the scene. New VNs may appear, new portables, or whatnot.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at 06:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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