No.5277[Last 50 Posts]
Post and discuss games you're playing that fall into the BL genre.
Prior BL games thread
>>3281 No.5283
>>5276>Man, woman, or bothI'm glad there's a toggle for anything geared towards hetshit but even so, the bl purist in me would just get annoyed that it's even included but that's just me
No.5285
>>5283Do you ever play VNs with a 50/50 gendersplit? I feel like the only thing weird is that it's ths singular het option in an otherwise gay game.
No.5286
Tbh Animamundi is a very plot-heavy game, I would hesitate to call it a proper het route. It's more like… the game takes places in fantasy medieval land, a lot of these people are expected to have children even if they're turbo gay.
No.5290
>>5276>a ton of questions right at the beginning like you're playing Pokemon Mystery DungeonThis description is really funny. I'm curious about what this affects in the game outside of the male/female preferences.
>>5285>singular het option in an otherwise gay gameNTA but this is what struck me as weird, too. I know a lot of otome games have a yuri route, so I guess it's the BL equivalent to that? I wonder if the company's otome game set in the same universe has a lone yuri option.
No.5345
Today's VN was "Another Rose in His Garden" I normally try to link to them but the Itch.io page I got it from is gone now…This one is clearly not aimed at me, it's Omegaverse themed and actually the first Omegaverse thing I've read since I have negative preconceived notions that this did not remove.
To start I think any one of the elements could work in isolation knotting, mpreg, heat cycles, somehow there being female ABO as well? it's really just weird in a contemporary setting with no magic or alternate races that might exhibit the traits. Again not the target audience but I couldn't suspend my disbelief and this VN didn't really seem interested in worldbuilding.
Ignoring that though I still didn't like it, this is a very "straight" BL and by that I mean it's 50 Shades of Grey and every single one of those abusive business bastard smut novels. Your character is Abel an omega who is pretending to be a beta (which I guess are "normal people?"), and he is taking "heat suppressors" to hide his scent which the strong alpha Mars immediately notices and then forces himself upon you. The whole smells along with knotting is so weird to me, maybe if you establish the character as a werewolf or something I wouldn't find it as off-putting. Anyway the game then becomes a nukige with him coercing you for sex, slapping you around, getting into some pretty heavy bdsm, and public humiliation like fucking you infront of an entire boardroom meeting. It's very much PWP, but there are 3 endings, each of them bad! Mars is just an absolute bastard and I hate him, the worst ending in my opinion is when he forces you to get pregnant after telling you he'll look after you but when you leave your job and family he just abandons you with a bunch of other fucktoys at his mansion.
I get that this is a very popular type of relationship, but I'll never get it. Dark and abusive relationships work best for me when twisted fucked up feeling grow out of them. Like a stalker or serial murderer who kidnaps MC but loves him even if he's objectively being abusive. In this case it's hard to tell what the feelings even are because there's this constant aura of "heat" and being drawn to "scents" that I don't even know if the MC has any meaningful connection to Mars, that bastard doesn't have any feelings outside of "must rut"
Well whatever, I'd give it 1/5, it might appeal to people who are more into this fetish. The salsa soundtrack was good at least and it's short only about 3 hours for all endings. According to the extras there's another VN with the MC Abel but who knows what or where since Itch is being retarded.
No.5349
>>5345If I actually did have this fetish, the fact that they made the alpha dude sound like the omegaverse version of a RL manosphere guy would put me off even more than it already does. Once you bring realistic 3DPD shit into fictional men it ruins them.
No.5354
>>5353What started out as a kinkmeme thing that let cis dudes have animal hormone driven no-prep anal sex was eroded into "let's feminize the one who can get pregnant".
No.5357
Tonight's VN Anteholic
https://qbstudios.itch.io/ante-holicThis is an hour-long kinetic VN about a demon and cop duo trying to track down a murderer, but really it's a prequel to a still-in-development VN and seems mainly interested in setting up its world and characters. The whole thing has the feeling of someone playing with their OCs, which isn't bad; it's just not exactly the deepest story since the murder mystery takes a back seat to the author explaining her universe's soulmate-identifying marks, and how angels, witches, and demons work. I liked it; it's ridiculously easy to sell me on detectives, so I'd give it a 3/5, but it's too short to really recommend. It might be better and/or worse if the full thing ever comes out.
>>5349He's more Mr. Grey than manosphere. Again it very much feels like a smutty bodice ripper aimed at housewives moreso than BL, very off-putting and weird.
No.5359
>>5358I've been waiting for this for years so I'll get it day 1. Trying to temper my expectations since the screenshots look iffy.
No.5363
>>5358Maybe I'll get it, but not as soon as it's released because I have a lot of games and visual novels in my backlog. Once I've completed all the visual novels I have I'll buy more of them during sales.
No.5368
>>5358I think it'll be an accurate if somewhat awkwardly worded translation. They keep using the word "flight" in promotional material which means nothing in English but corresponds to the Japanese word 高跳び which can mean flight from authorities, like in a car chase, which the game has plenty of. Plus, MangaGamer has a much better reputation for accuracy than JAST. As for the text itself, you can change the font to your liking in the options menu, so it shouldn't be a problem.
I hope people buy it so we at least have a chance of seeing a bad egg translation within the next decade. I know the Japanese fans are excited at the prospect of the fandom getting a bit more lively these days too.
Also… I want new ivagian fanart. It gets treated like a boomercore ship in Japan and is brought up near exclusively in a nostalgic context. It hurts my soul.
No.5370
>>5368>I hope people buy it so we at least have a chance of seeing a bad egg translation within the next decade.Yeah for me this feels like a potential lose-lose situation cause if it sells poorly they have ammo to blame fujos but if the translation is bad and it sells well it could come off as fujos buying something regardless of quality.
No.5387
>>5384The only problem with the PSP version is that its sanitized. As such, Yukihito didn't get a hot explicit sex scene and that is incredibly disappointing.
No.5398
>>5396One of the screenshots on the store page is worded strangely.
>>5248 It may not be a big deal in the long run but it could also be a bad sign.
No.5399
>>5398The game took years to be released - perhaps it's the early translation?
No.5400
>>5399That's what I'm hoping, going to buy it regardless as I want to support them bringing over games and this is one I've been waiting for.
No.5410
Another day another VN
https://chanimk.itch.io/a-pact-with-me"A Pact with Me" was the next one on the list, and it is a perfectly fine 5/10 VN. It was about four hours long and had three main routes with multiple good and bad endings for each boy. The story follows Belial, a demon who 100 years ago fell in love with the man he had made a demonic contract with. After the twenty years of the pact were up, he had to collect his lover's soul and ate it, leaving no trace of the man in existence. Now heartbroken, he avoids making any more pacts, but after years of no contracts, he is weakened and starved, on the brink of death. Lucifer tasks you with forming a pact with someone to eat a soul so you don't die.
The game is spread out over six days, with one scene for each route given each day, though you can sleep to skip the rest of the day if you don't care about a character.
The main romance options are Renan, a struggling musician who was probably the least interesting. His father hates him, and he's dealing with a stalker and self-consciousness about his ability to perform. Shilo, a businessman who is the sadist psycho option, has some Light Yagami energy and was my favorite as he cuts down people who get in the way of his company. And lastly, Lior, a very shy boy who is just seeking friends. His route starts really childish as you basically help him go viral on a social media site so he can make friends because everyone who see him hates him, but then it reveals
he's actually hated because of demonic possession by Lucifer, and the route gets substantially better in the last few days.
I don't think I'd recommend it even if you like demon stories. Most of the routes just kind of feel derivative and lack an extra "punch" that would make them unique. It has a good core concept, and I like Belial as a protag, but none of the routes are gripping.
No.5411
>>5410Thanks for the review! The art could have looked better…
No.5412
>>5411Yeah, I'm actually cherry-picking the screenshots too, some of the CGs especially the kissing ones were a bit egregious. Given that it's a small game with two creators it feels mean to comment on
. Personally speaking if a story is good enough I'll overlook lackluster art, this one just didn't excel at either so it makes the art extra… not good.
No.5419
>>5418SOURCE??? Are they going to bypass JAST? That would be so weird.
No.5421
>>5418SEX WITH YUKIHITO
>SEX WITH YUKIHITOSEX WITH YUKIHITO
>SEX WITH YUKIHITOThey should do a special edition and add a sex scene. Even if its just a wholesome one, dammit. Hell even the good route with Shiki needed some improvement but whatever. Stuff I will continue to carry in my heart…
No.5432
>>5431Found a fuller shot. Looks like the Hub is a British style Pub, which is I suppose slightly more interesting than a pop-up cafe.
Akira is my favorite here I really like the necktie, followed by Youji, the hat is cute nonna!
Aoba is almost good, I like the glasses on Ren, but whatever pleated garment he's wearing (skirt?) just looks ugly as does the see-through overshirt.
No.5433
>>5421Was his good route/worth it even without sex in it ?
No.5434
>>5432Glasses are so not cute, not even on Ren!!!
No.5448
>>5447Yeah even before I noticed the literal buff furry I felt that this artstyle is too "gay/bi male" coded for me.
No.5449
>>5447>>5448This is easily my most anticipated VN. I get the "bara" complaint, but personally I think it looks cute and the premise is right up my alley.
No.5451
>>5447looks like it was made by western gay guys, really doesnt look appealing
would be even gayer if the mc is the seme
No.5452
>>5447>I find the MC cuter than the LIsI could instantly tell he's Haiki's art, but the designs of the LIs read as other artists from your pic and sure enough, it's another GYEE situation of bara artists banding together to try to reel in the gays
I did find pic related LI hot, and the mascot character is really cute… sure enough, Haiki did their designs too
I've liked some of his oneshots, I think at this point he gets my pass as the current only acceptable bara artist, especially with how much better his characters look than Mentaiko Pedo's LIs
No.5453
>>5452Tbh I don't care about the furrys at all but the human looking LIs are hot enough to intrigue me.
No.5454
>>5449I think they're going for a NTY thing where it's targeting fujos and gay men, not my taste personally though.
Only furry character I've seen that fujos were mildly interested in is the wolf guy from ZZZ (I liked the deadpool clone robot though…) and a bit of legoshi.
No.5455
>>5452I'm sorry for saying this but he's my type.
No.5456
>>5452I'm interested in this guy and the armored knight. I don't mind a bit of bara here and there.
No.5457
>>5456Same as long as the porn CGs aren't grotesque and it isn't hyper muscles I actually like the more "mature" look the guys in games like this have. I don't know, is there a term for "light bara" character types? If the tiger wasn't there I wouldn't have even lumped it in with bara.
No.5463
I just read a VN I found on VNDB, and there was surprise, untagged cuntboy. It's bizarre because there is a tif character, but the cuntboy is not a tif. The tif character (who doesn't have a route) had titchop scars, and the other character did not, so what the fuck? Before you ask why I played this, neither of these things was tagged on VNDB, and by the time I got to the tif, I was already like halfway done, and I figured the only guy with a completed route would have a penis since he’s not a tif. I'm so fucking pissed. It wasn't tagged on VNDB, and it's not even in the content warnings (which I checked after being jumpscared). The game was already on thin ice because it was written in second person (not my preference because it feels an inch away from a self-insert), but this made me lose it. Tag your fucking shit. I don't see how you make that mistake unless it's an intentional and malicious attempt to deceive your reader.
No.5468
I'm not the nona who usually posts reviews, but I wanted to talk about Start;Again and maybe encourage some of you to try it. I just finished it, and I thought it was pretty fun for a short VN. Essentially, you’re playing as a young guy named Sebastian who wakes up in an unfamiliar place with three other people. They are all given two hours to escape.
If that description didn't tip you off, it's very reminiscent of Zero Escape, and it's made even more similar with its flowchart function. I love it when VNs incorporate flowcharts because they make it easier to navigate routes, and this flowchart is integral to the plot. There are also puzzles, which are pitifully easy. It initially led me to suspect the 8-year-old was the mastermind because they seemed like the kind of puzzles a child would make kek. It was a short-lived thought, but man, it would've been awesome foreshadowing.
The mystery was easy to figure out, and I had correctly guessed all of the twists before reaching the true route. However, I still had a lot of fun with it. The ending was very satisfying, and I'm glad I played it. Also (major spoilers, although you can figure this out long before it's revealed), the fact that in retrospect, Rinne is having to watch a past version of her dad (with full knowledge he is her dad) and his dead best friend go through their awkward tsundere romance bullshit while trapped in a life-or-death situation is incredibly funny. It also makes any situation where she's teasing them about having feelings for each other while they vehemently deny it so much funnier.
I will say that the story can be kind of disorienting when you start. You're not given much context, and the characters' relationships change depending on where you are in the flowchart. This is further complicated by how much you'll be jumping around the flowchart. The VN is sort of light on romance, but I personally enjoy the "you’re given X hours to seek a way out of this life-threatening situation" genre of VNs, so it was still nice to see a BL interpretation of it. Also, one of the boys has a giraffe neck, and it bothers me.
No.5479
>>5478My backlog is full
and personally the Alicesoft/Rance associations make me ehhh but it's always nice to have more VNs translated in english, especially BL ones. I'll try it if I have time later this year or next.
No.5480
>>5478Neat. I don't care about Rance but I've always been interested in this for having actual gameplay, which would set it apart from most BL games. There's another gameplay BL called Angel's feather that had a fanpatch in the making from the person who did Phantom thief Jade's patch but progress was slow and it's been a long time since I last checked it.
No.5523
Luckydog1 is officially released on MangaGamer.
Hope you guys enjoy it. It's a lot of fun.
https://www.mangagamer.com/r18/detail.php?goods_type=1&product_code=1494 No.5525
>>5524I wasn't as much disturbed as just grossed out by it. I genuinely don't get fujoanons who find it unironically arousing, every character including the protagonist was an annoying uggo and even the fetishes I could've found hot in another game were executed in such an unerotic way they did nothing for me.
No.5526
>>5525I don't find it arousing it's too intense, but the characters are cute and I think MC is funny despite being a sadist.
>>5523Thank you for the reminder!
No.5527
>>5522From what I've heard the English censored version deleted all vanilla sex scenes but left the tentacles rape scenes from bad endings which … was definitely a choice lmao.
No.5529
>>5527Whaaaaaaaaat? What were they thinking
No.5530
>>5523I'm playing through it right now using a guide (
https://terracannon876.wordpress.com/trivia/lucky-dog-1/lucky-dog-1-walkthrough/) and planning to go Bernardo->Ivan->Luchino->Gulio. I'm only an ESL so take my opinion with a grain of salt but for the most part the text doesn't seem as awkward as in the store page screenshots. Just some wording in the prologue was off to me. When the game transitioned from the prison section to the escape I thought the game got stuck on the score screen cause clicking, enter and space bar did nothing. Turns out I had to press the Escape key so I wanted to mention it here in case anyone else wants to start playing too.
No.5531
>>5530To be completely honest I think the amateur translator went overboard trying to make the dialogue sound "natural" and added way too many stock phrases and too much period slang too. They're also clearly not a writer and it shows - I wish they'd just let the characters speak like actual humans. But if you can tolerate the injected corniness it seems like a serviceable translation. Lucky Dog 1 is a pretty lighthearted game for the most part so it's at the level where I'd say that level of corniness is tolerable, but if they ever get around to doing Bad Egg I'd absolutely want them to use a different translator.
No.5532
I can't with the art of this VN. I'd hope for something like Haiiro no Arcadia, Galtia or Tokyo 24ku to have been translated, but I guess MTL it is for now.
No.5534
>>5533It seems like they basically remade the game from scratch rather than just modified the original text, so I'll excuse it like any other post-launch indie game. Write up a bug report.
No.5547
>>5522glad to see nie getting mentioned, wish there was more discussion about it. i think the hype died cuz of the censorship and then the steam price filtered out the rest. shame too cuz the vn honestly works fine without the sex, i even thought the change from the bj scene to foot licking was hotter kek. story-wise its a 7/10, a lot of the routes have pacing issues and some endings feel really abrupt. mio was my first route and i liked him a lot (partly cuz he’s voiced by netoru).
his return ending in the base game was pretty bad but the fandisc expanded it into peak amnesia-fuelled angst that actually ends with hisora and mio getting engaged. can’t think of another blvn where the couple straight up gets married in the end. koko’s probably my second favorite, i love the ending where he chops hisora’s legs off and hisora age regresses kek. asuku and naruomi’s routes were the weakest for me, their endings just left me confused. naruomi especially got ruined for me by how his route wrapped up still need to read their fandisc after stories to see if they fix any of that. fandisc overall was stronger anyway (iirc they brought in one of the nty writers).
No.5550
>>5549In the 2000s switch stuff in BL games was actually pretty common, Togainu no Chi for example also has a route where the MC tops
No.5562
>>5561I just got 100% on all the guys so I consider myself done with the game now even if I'm apparently missing some CGs on the final page. I've been enjoying myself so it's been worth it for me personally but the artwork is wonky at times so it may be distracting to some. The credits bug is fixed now and apparently they fixed some typos as well but I still spotted some after the patch.
Writing-wise, Giancarlo is up there as one of my favourite BL game protagonists alongside Tamamori and Rei Tengenjibashi. I ended up liking all of the love interests generally speaking though Luchino's route gets a minus for me because I find piss fetish disgusting. Bernardo is relatively vanilla and has the bro factor and there's an age gap element though I'm pretty sure he's only in his 30s despite being treated like an old guy. I initially thought I wouldn't like Ivan but he's grown on me and he's a pretty funny male tsundere. Also for some reason Ivan's route turned into a Mercedes advertisement. Did someone on the writing team have a boner for cars? Giulio is my favourite cause I really have a thing for menhera autists. There's not an enforced route order but personally I think Giulio's route is appropriate to save for last. There's some characters in there who have a bigger role in other routes so if you play those first you won't be in a situation where you go "Huh? What was the point of this guy?"
As a sidenote, there's a certain plot point involving Gian that was brought up but never fully explored so I wonder if Bad egg goes into that.
No.5563
>>5562Ivan's route was all about them being these wild and rebellious youths so personally I felt the whole fast car fixation was appropriate. It stuck out a bit more to me in Bernardo's route but it was also pretty well implemented there. There's also this really sweet scene in the first drama CD where Ivan
buys the same model Mercedes and says he'll never drive a different car again because of the memories he shares with Gian in it. No.5565
>>5549ngl id buy the game just for the scene where he fucks that gay cop, is he a recurring character?
>>5550we gotta bring this back i love switches
No.5566
>>5565nah he's a one-off character that only appears briefly in one route, fun game I recommend regardless though
No.5575
>>5566aww thats a shame i thought he was really cute, is he in bad egg? regardless it looks like a fun story, will take a look once ive completed more of my backlog!
No.5576
>>5575can't say as I haven't played bad egg yet (i'd appreciate anybody who has using spoiler tags to talk about it here) but I know it brings back some other minor characters so it wouldn't surprise me
No.5593
Are any of y'all nonnas translating BL VNs with Textractor or another similar program ?
No.5595
Has anyone here played Lkyt? I've been hesitant to buy it cause I disliked NTY and Room 09 fundamentally didn't appeal to me but the setting of Lkyt does intrigue me so I wonder if anyone here played it and enjoyed it.
>>5593I've tried to use Textractor in the past but my JP wasn't good enough for it to be helpful cause there was too much stuff I had to constantly look up. I tried it with Uuultra C and the program worked fine from what I remember but I couldn't get it to work with LD1. I'll probably go back to it one day for games that I don't expect to ever get an official english release like Taisho Mebiusline.
No.5596
>>5595I hated NTY and loved Lkyt and the stories are so different I don't even think the writers are the same ones for both visual novels. Lkyt is way more serious than NTY and has a more "normal" protagonist so it's easier to read without want to turn off your computer entirely.
No.5598
>>5595I loved Lkyt, but I also really enjoyed NTY and RN9, so I may not be the person to answer this. It definitely has a different tone from RN9 and NTY, so I don't think it's impossible you'd enjoy it. I think it's worth a shot, especially if you like
utsuge. It's much more grounded than Parade's other titles, and it has a more somber tone.
No.5612
>>5611I have not but I'm intrigued by the idea of a timeline where KEY broke into the BL market instead of Nitro+. Is it supposed to be any good?
No.5613
>>5612shota nakige. Consider this!!!hdjdhs
I haven’t finished yet but there’s some silly kinky stuff and a lot of shoujo plot beats. Also brocon heads up if that’s not ur thing. It’s way way dirtier than anything KEY has put out… p sure they let Hinoue release her inner freak
No.5614
>>5611I want to read ever since I knew from it's existence, just to know what a BL from key would be and because of Hinoue's art
I love it, even if a lot of people hate it kekUnfortunately, aside from Hinoue's art, there doesn't seem to be a lot of classic key themes and the pv gives me less hope but the dudes look pretty cute so maybe I'll try it before the year ends
Who knows, maybe there's something akin to LitBus' KyoRi waiting for me No.5615
>>5611Add me to the list of people who are intrigued. I'll have to textractor this one day when I feel more confident about my japanese.
No.5621
I finally finished Hashihime of the Old Book Town. I loved Minakami's and Kawase's routes and the VN is worth it at least just for them but after that I stopped caring. I didn't like the other guys nearly as much but I think my real issue is that almost all the mysteries are solved and explained in the first routes, so everything else becomes repetitive. However it's one of the first times I manage to read a VN without seeing any spoilers by accident beforehand so I still had fun overall. I only have otome games and actual games in my backlog now. I will check what I can buy during this winter's steam sales and see if I can finish more games before that.
No.5622
>>5619I have vague memories of seeing screenshots of the original and not wanting to play it cause the dialogue made me cringe. Though for all I know maybe I was being too judgemental.
>>5621Nice. I personally liked the professor too because he's such a cutie even if his route got questionable at some point.
No.5623
>>5621>I think my real issue is that almost all the mysteries are solved and explained in the first routes, so everything else becomes repetitiveI feel silly for never noticing that this is one of the key problems with the later routes
The remaining mysteries aren't nearly as interesting as the initial revelations in Minakami's route, and Kawase's route fleshes out so many of the B-plots while having the biggest "climax" in
the hallucination chase sequence with Shopkeeper trying to prevent his NOTP, it always gave me Mamoru Hosoda climatic vibesI always thought the biggest problems were that the last routes were simply too short and that I didn't like Hanazawa or Professor as much anyways, but those are just symptoms of their stories only serving to iron out remaining questions
Anyways I'm in the process of reading Uuultra C after finishing the first chapter, and it reminds me how ambitious Rinko Kurosawa is with her BLVNs, I'm excited for Ooe in English
No.5624
>>5622What I didn't like with the professor's route was
that Tamamori doesn't end up with "his" professor, the one who helped him the whole time but with some random guy and he has to make shit up to explain why he doesn't remember him. It could have been so much more romantic if he went back to the one who helped him and who he kind of dumped to then meet him as a child.>>5623The only real mystery that mattered to me at that point was
if the old guy the professor met as a child really was Tamamori but at that point the answer became obvious already.
No.5626
>>5625I didn't mind it in the previous routes because
the former Minakamis and Kawases usually die anyway. Or something else terrible happens and it's actually presented as terrible so Tamamori escaping to another timeline is perfectly understandable. With the professor's route the last timeline is presented as funny with Tamamori waking up in his bed butt naked with a hangover, it gave me a very different impression. I was like "wait, that's it?" when I reached the end of that route and expected more, it wasn't as satisfying as Minakami's route and Kawase's route. Unrelated but
I really didn't like Kaoru. I was curious as to what or who he could possibly be and then it turns out he's the shopkeeper's adopted son. Then it turns out he's basically an unattractive, annoying drooling retard and it removed all the air of mystery around him. He's by far the most disappointing part of the VN so I'm glad his route was short. And I expected Kawase to have a secret weird crush on Minakami so I felt vindicated when he joked about wanting to have a threesome with him and Tamamori kek
No.5627
>>5611I played it for a bit a year ago and then I got so bored
No.5635
>>5623Sadly, the second chapter of UUUC has an insufferable LI and the 'romance' is written to shit. Was that supposed to be a troll route, because it feels like it was written solely to irritate?
The third route is the best by far.
No.5636
>>5635I remember dropping it cause the seme of the first couple was weidly forceful in the first H scene despite people saying this was the vanilla couple. Same reasons I dropped Munesada's and Kyou's routes from Kintouka as well.
No.5637
>>5635I think the love interest would have been okay if got more screentime, way too much of chapter 2 focuses on retarded shit like the fakeboi and futa characters (I love you Rinko but why did you insert this? Fujos don't enjoy this shit).
No.5641
god, why does h-suki refuse to archive bl games. site literally prides itself in archiving vns and has almost everything on vndb but every bl game ges refused. site literally have some of the most obscure het vns + mountains of shovelware (in the name of archiving) but they refuse every bl, even stuff like n+c. fucking absurd lol