How do you play your bishojo games?

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Unfortunately I’m cursed with a short attention span. But while I’m in the mood and frame of mind to play bishojo games I tend to move through them at a langiud pace, maybe taking the odd break of a day or two after a certain amount of play. With multi-path games one reason is that I like the game to last a while, and another is that the lull allows each story to sink in so that maybe I can appreciate it that little more. Of course, the aforementioned short attention span means I rarely get hooked on anything so even the most gripping of stories have little effect on me and allow me to do something else I’d like to know how others approach the playing of bishojo games.

Do you shoot through each path, one after the other? Or if we’re talking a single-path game, do you play straight through or until your eyes bleed? Do you use the text skip after you have viewed stock text in one path to save reading it over? Or do you prefer to experience the full story on each path, even if there’s a chance you’ll screw up along the way and have to start again? Do you save at every fork and reload if you think you made a wrong decision? Do you take a break from playing, for a day or two? Week or two? Etc, etc.

Thanks for your feedback

[This message has been edited by Interzone (edited 09-14-2003).]

#2
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
Do you shoot through each path, one after the other?

Shot through...? You mean play through them? Well, if it's a multiple-path-game you have to play through each path sooner or later.

quote:
Or if we're talking a single-path game, do you play straight through or until your eyes bleed?

I don't play any single-path-games if it can be avoided.

quote:
Do you use the text skip after you have viewed stock text in one path to save reading it over?

Well, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't sometimes I want to re-read the text just for fun or to be sure of that there's no details hat i've missed. However, if I'm impatient or feel like I'm in a hurry, I may skip through the text.

quote:
Do you save at every fork and reload if you think you made a wrong decision?

Well, I think most people save at most forks, and indeed, so do I, but I don't reload immdediately if the story seems to take a bad turn because of my choice.

quote:
Do you take a break from playing, for a day or two? Week or two? Etc, etc.

Well, that depends on. Soemtimes, when I've exhausted all my ideas for getting new endings or such in a game, I often take a break from them to regain some of my inspiration and think over my possibilities and ideas for getting new endins/paths in that game. That break can be from a week to a month, that depends on.

#3
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
Do you shoot through each path, one after the other? Or if we're talking a single-path game, do you play straight through or until your eyes bleed? Do you use the text skip after you have viewed stock text in one path to save reading it over? Or do you prefer to experience the full story on each path, even if there's a chance you'll screw up along the way and have to start again? Do you save at every fork and reload if you think you made a wrong decision? Do you take a break from playing, for a day or two? Week or two? Etc, etc.

Thanks for your feedback [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

[This message has been edited by Interzone (edited 09-14-2003).]

I generally play games for several hours at a time, and if I get a few endings or don't even get one in that time, well, that's that. Critical Point, for instance, I was able to get like 5 different endings in one play session; but Private Nurse took ages and ages.

I generally don't use text skip AND I generally listen to most of the voice acting.

I also generally create my own FAQ as I'm going along.

#4
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
Shot through...? You mean play through them? Well, if it's a multiple-path-game you have to play through each path sooner or later.

Well, I mean do you complete one path and then go straight onto the next one and so on. I've read a couple of posts where people (can't remember who) have completed a game in a day or two and it takes me waaaaay longer than that.

To Nandemonai: I usually listen to all the voice acting, though sometimes I feel a game is dragging and skip some. With the text skip though...I find it difficult to sit through text that I've already seen, and was just wondering how much other players used it [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

#5

I don’t like to breeze through a game with one path. In order to write my review for xchange 2, I decided to take that approach and it just takes all the fun out of the game. ADVs are meant to be enjoyed like a novel, and it gives me no pleasure to just run through it. However, trying to pick up one girl and repeatedly going through the same storyline over and over can become tedious, so I usually have to take breaks in between games to not become burned out.

#6

I’ll play the game to an ending then use the skip previously read messages to get the other endings.

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“His last thought is wry, Not bad for a dead man.” Moon Knight vol.1, #1 (1980)

#7

The time frame and play methods depends on the game and how its designed.


Chain is a novel type game and reading is the requirement. I finished it in one day by going non stop.
Snow Drop: Well, this was the second or third game I purchased from PP and it didn’t follow the same methods as TCI. So it took about 2 weeks and help from PP.
KanaI completed 5 of 6 paths in the first week. I requested some help to get the last path.

The most important thing to do when you play these games is to take notes on your selections.
My method of playing games is to reach a ending. Replay some of my selections and skip the text. Make one change in selections, read the text to the next selection, and continue with my previous selections. This works great with Critical Point endings and Private Nurse CG’s.

I play these games for the first time when I have a day off. This allows me to complete one list of selections and one ending.

#8
quote:
Originally posted by Gulyen:
The most important thing to do when you play these games is to take notes on your selections.
When you're looking for the endings - I agree.
But I found with Tokimeki Check-In, for example, that I preferred to just play through about 3 times just deliberately choosing different options, being surprised by what could happen [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] It's kinda like I want to just feel I'm swept up in the middle of the story, rather than a calculating outsider playing a video game. Make sense?

In fact, I did that for TCI 2 times, and then started taking notes for the 3rd. And found myself wishing I'd done a 3rd free-form playthru before starting to take notes [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] Of course, for a game like TCI or Snow Drop the free-form playthrus likely won't get you the good endings. So you do certainly need to take notes (or have insanely good memory) sooner or later.

Similarly with some aspects of Casual Romance Club: second time round, sure, I'll take notes on which conversation choices bring up a second menu, and which ones seem to get a good or bad reaction. But not first time through... First time, I just want to lose myself in the romantic chat and just see how it goes [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

#9

Heh, how I play really depends on my RL schedule. There’s been a few instances where a game comes in and I don’t get to it for a few days… (which I absolutely hate…)

Hmm, I do take quite a bit of notes. I also save a lot but I usually will play all the way through even if I suddenly find myself going along a path I didn’t expect. Doing that usually helps me develop theories on the game logic.

I use text skips mainly on games that have a lot of redundant scenes between paths (like the cut-scenes in Trabulance games), I’m searching for a CG after getting all the endings, or if I’m just trying to get to a particular story point, usually to follow up on a theorey or two.

#10

Depends, but usually I play through 1 time then skip the text i already read when I try to get the other paths.

#11

I play one handed B]

#12
quote:
Originally posted by chronoluminaire:
But I found with Tokimeki Check-In, for example, that I preferred to just play through about 3 times just deliberately choosing different options, being surprised by what could happen [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] It's kinda like I want to just feel I'm swept up in the middle of the story, rather than a calculating outsider playing a video game. Make sense?

Yes. But I still took note of my selections. It didn't take away from the story, because I didn't get a character ending. I received the default ending about four times, before my notes started to make sense. Then I used my notes to find a character ending. If that character has another ending available, thats when I use a single selection change.

Have you played [i]Critical Point[/i] yet? If you haven't, take notes, there's 25 endings. A single choice could give you a different ending.

#13

Hah. My impression of Critical Point was that they literally gave a serial number to each route through the decision tree. Even two almost identical bad endings had different numbers and Engrish phrases. I can imagine people being quite irritated if they go hunting for endings XXII and XVIII (or whatever they are), and discover that they’re just very minor variations on the endings they’ve already got. A lot of endings is good, but some substantial variation between them is kinda necessary in my book.

#14
quote:
Originally posted by smog:
I play one handed

I could have definitely gone through with my life without knowing that little fact...

Just kidding, er, sorta. Hmm, I was alright with the minor variation endings in Critical Point, I have other issues with the game though. Gloria did have sort of a similar problem with it's endings as well. I know more than once I was thinking "didn't I get this ending before?"

#15
quote:
Originally posted by ekylo:
Gloria did have sort of a similar problem with it's endings as well. I know more than once I was thinking "didn't I get this ending before?"

Arghh, there was just too much to do in Gloria, so many little variations that led to different endings. And is it me just being a doofus or were those exam questions really hard? Knowing me as I do, I'm hedging my bets on the former. Ended up giving up the ghost at around 95% on Gloria - after that I could barely muster the will to live, let alone play the game again...

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#16

Yeah if you are planning to have that many endings you had better have the scripts branch out more instead of everything looking the same except a few lines in the ending. That annoys the hell out of me because that’s not a true different ending.

#17
quote:
Originally posted by wanfu2k1:
Yeah if you are planning to have that many endings you had better have the scripts branch out more instead of everything looking the same except a few lines in the ending. That annoys the hell out of me because that's not a true different ending.

IN my opinion Gloria was an effort to combine Love Sim with Visual Adventure. My god there were so many different ways to end with one story outcome and get in bed with another girl, it just made my head hurt. I think it was best to just go with a FAQ on this one. Even reading the FAQ was a pain in the ass.

#18
quote:
Originally posted by Interzone:
Arghh, there was just too much to do in Gloria, so many little variations that led to different endings. And is it me just being a doofus or were those exam questions really hard? Knowing me as I do, I'm hedging my bets on the former. Ended up giving up the ghost at around 95% on Gloria - after that I could barely muster the will to live, let alone play the game again...

There was one of the exam questions that was so vaguely worded I simply gave up actually attempting to make it conform to, well, mathematics and adopted the 'brute force always wins the day' approach.

In general I find brute force + educated guesswork makes short work of lots of b-games...

#19
quote:
Originally posted by smog:
I play one handed B]

(God) *glares*

(Kitten) . . . meow?

#20

hears crickets