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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   23123 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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Um, I haven't played G-Senjou no Maou, but I've played the other two and I wouldn't describe them as "masterpieces". I'd describe them as "decent VNs with AAA production values" (well, Steins;Gate and Kajitsu; Meikyuu and Rakuen I'd describe as "AAA sequelitis").

(Kajitsu's way too long for its plot and a bit cookie-cutter; Steins;Gate has an interesting premise and then hamfistedly declares that 90% of the interestingness is arbitrarily denied by "convergence" and mostly does romantic misery porn instead. Chaos;Head's (a lot) less polished, but it delivers on much more of its premise than Steins;Gate.)

All of your criticisms are directionally true, I just think the quality of the games is high enough to make up for this (with the exception of Meikyuu which... meh, they could have done better). Maybe they just uniquely appealed to me and my sense of humor. I laughed throughout the entire (quite lengthy) common route in Kajitsu and would gladly have played more (which is why I've replayed it two more times over the years). The character routes, especially the flashbacks, can be a bit of a slog but are still quite good. Likewise, I think Steins;Gate is peak when it is making jokes and being hilarious, while the sad drama stuff does drag on a bit. Overall though, I think they needed the sadder slower parts to tell a meaningful story, and they did, and nothing the West has ever made is even slightly close.

...Hmm.

So, I find slice-of-life comedy completely useless (LCD sense of humour =/= mine, probably aspie-related). What I was saying was too long about Kajitsu was the common route, which has a pretty-terrible word-count-to-plot ratio; I liked some of the heroine routes (mostly Sachi and Michiru; Amane and Makina routes should have been combined, and Yumiko route is bleh).

I'm fine with romantic dramas (the two VNs I've ever rated 10/10 are School Days and Totono, and Saya no Uta's 9/10), but Steins;Gate pulls the same "blow up your relationship or the world ends, lol" trick four times (in lieu of any kind of creative solution, because "convergence"), which is why I called it misery porn.

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