The light thread

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

There aren’t too many threads at the moment dealing with eroge companies other than Black Cyc, so I thought I’d start a thread for light’s games (meaning light the company, not ‘light’ eroges). :stuck_out_tongue:

??? (Don-chan ga Kyu) is being released on the 29th of this month in download (will almost certainly be available on dlsite) and package versions. This is the 4th in their series of dl titles, and is a spinoff of Sakashiki Hito no Miru Kokoro (Sakakoko), with the same writer and artist team. Sakakoko is a fairly simple love-story between a typical nice-guy protagonist and a relatively cold and hostile tsundere character. What makes the game relatively unusual is the intellectual bent a lot of their arguments/discussions have, and that combined with the strong characters is the primary appeal of the eroge. The writing for Sakakoko was very strong in the first half, but started to go a bit downhill once the ero-scenes started, as they did a fairly poor job of balancing them with the scenario. IIn Don-chan ga Kyu, one of the sub-characters from Sakakoko, Noriko Sumi (aka. Don-chan (meaning dull or stupid), her self-proclaimed nickname is derived from the character ?, which is the character in her family name (?) with a different radical on the left side) is the protagonist. The ‘kyu’ in the title comes from her reaction whenever people discuss various impure sexual subjects :stuck_out_tongue: (see the image below). Having played part of the demo, it looks very promising so far and I’m now eagerly awaiting the full version. One downside is that both games reuse some music and background art from earlier light eroges, but for the price there’s certainly enough original content in them.

A bit about their other two dl titles - Shiokaze no Kieru Umi ni is very good, but it’s definitely in the short but sweet category, (or very short in this case :stuck_out_tongue: - the scenario is only 0.27 meg). After playing the demo of Shopan!, their second title, it seemed to be fairly dull, and that combined with the low EGS score and poor art was enough to put me off purchasing it.

Dies Irae is also getting the promised upgrade/re-release in July, with the additional components available for free download for anyone who purchased the original.

#2

I love light and am a huge fan of their stuff. Imitation Lover and RURUR are my favorite games from them but I’m also playing Tapestry on and off. What I like about light, especially the artist who was involved in imitation lover and rur is the way they do the art, it somehow has appeal. The ero-scenes are somehow stimulating in comparison to many companies where they feel more bland and lack impact. That aside they also have good story telling and easy to read text.

It’s nice because much of light’s stuff also happens to be intelligent and usually there’s funny and witty comments that reflect my thoughts as the player. I’ve always felt entertained by their games.

Anyway I recently obtained Sakakoko but haven’t develed into it too much. I don’t really wanna touch any other game until I finish Tapestry. However I have high hopes for it even though it looks like a non triple A title. I like the whole cool elegant beauty thing they have going on. But are you sure that the protagonist for that story is a “nice” guy? Though I haven’t delved much into it I kind of imagined him as a popular guy who uses that to his advantage and basically is a high-mach type of person who wants to “break” her.

Regardless, light is probably one of the only companies that will give you a generous helping of ero with some fairly decent writing. Usually most games compromise between story and ero scenes but light wants to give you both. Typically, other eroge have a tradition of not letting you see scenes until you’ve basically won the game and while I appreciate that tradition and would have liked for light to go “pure” when it comes to the pursuit of each individual character, the nice thing to know is that there is absolutely no shortage of scenes no matter how far you are in the scenario. I enjoy the long honeymoon you have with the person you end up with. Usually I end up counting to 4 in other games and it’s all over, way too soon, just when the fun part really begins. IT goes to show that the trap many writers fall into is losing interest in the story once you get the girl even though the real adventures should technically begin there. With light I tend to forget to count the scenes and find myself satisfied with the amount of dedication they put into each individual route.

#3

Sakakoko definitely isn’t a triple A title, but for what it is, it’s a lot of fun. It’s fairly generous on the ero as well (19 scenes), which is probably more than some pure-ero dl titles have (there are some reused CGs though), and about half the game is the ‘post-capture’ period. Unfortunately, I didn’t like that part nearly as much, as the story-ero balance wasn’t as good as it could have been. As for the protagonist, he didn’t really come across in that way for me - Arimi is certainly a strong-willed heroine in her own right, and she’s able to easily hold her own in the various debates they have, so it didn’t really come across as breaking.

I definitely need to get back to Imitation Lover at some stage. Although it’s not my favourite genre, I do quite like the art and the writing was rather strong as well. I haven’t bought R.U.R.U.R. or Tapestry yet, but the latter in particular is a must purchase for me.

In some of light’s other titles, the ero-content is rather minimal (Shiokaze has 2 scenes, Dies Irae has 9 and in the path of Dear My Friend that I’ve played through, there was only 1 scene), so I guess it really depends on the scenario writers. What I like most about light as a company, is that they don’t confine themselves to a certain genre, but instead produce eroges that are for the most part high quality, and have relatively unique stories and characters. The latter is a big plus for me, as there are only so many generic school/harem/eroero titles that I feel like playing. :stuck_out_tongue:

#4

I like the way Light put a far greater emphasis on the quality of the writing compared to most eroge companies. Even their titles with a relatively large amount of ero don’t skimp in this area. I also really like their ‘malie’ game engine, although not as much as Giga’s engine (which is almost definitely the best).

Their best game after Tapestry is probably Gunjyou no Sora wo Koete, and I highly recommend this work, just because of how unique it is. It’s very long, doesn’t have that much ero and most surprisingly, the H scenes are some of the most ‘realistic’ I’ve ever seen in an eroge. You really have to play the game to see what I mean by that, though.

Gunyjou no Sora is also quite educational, too! I felt my Japanese improving pretty drastically just through playing it.

If you step back further through their catalogue, they’ve got some interesting/oddball stuff, ranging from the oddball good (Paradise Lost) to the oddball just-plain-weird (Kurenai), but like Ignosco said, they don’t stick to one genre. Light likes to experiment, and even if it doesn’t always work, it certainly produces a very interesting set of games. They’ve got a better track record than most eroge companies, too - over half of their titles are reasonably good. Can’t say that about GIGA, Elf or AliceSoft.

#5

I hear lots of praise for light, but I honestly only gave the company a look after they released PARADISE LOST and Dies Irae. I never doubted it was a good studio… just that it was a studio that rarely made anything I seriously wanted. Of course the release of Dies Irae made a major stink in the ero community, as the developers couldn’t deliver on what they promised. Que the massive boycotting and threatening of abandoning light for betrayal. The nerd rage politics aside, Dies Irae turned out to be an outstanding title… the low metric score is rather unfair and an obvious conspiracy to make it look less appealing than it is. Supposedly the upcoming die Wiederkunft edition will be everything that was promised. I look forward to that.

#6

Well, a bit of the latter. I suppose it just FEELS long because there’s a lot of text for the amount of stuff that actually happens.

I figured Gunjyou no Sora would be your thing, actually, what with the incredibly complicated military/politics stuff and the almost ‘sarcastic’ depictions of H scenes…

#7

About this remake of Dies irae, what can we expect to see in this one that isn’t in the original?

#8

Don-chan has been released in download and package form today! :smiley:

#9

Due to various commitments/distractions I haven’t played nearly as much of Don-chan as I should have, but it’s been a lot of fun so far. Don-chan is a great protagonist, and not just her dialogue, but all of her narrative/internal monologue is voiced as well (with an exceedingly good seiyuu - just like Sakakoko all the voice acting is superb). The overall atmosphere is for the most part even better than Sakakoko’s as well (pyjama song :D). It’s too early for me to make any sort of recommendation, but it’s looking very promising after 4 hours of playtime or so.

#10

Alright, finished Don-chan. I have a couple of complaints, and I guess it’s not quite the game I was expecting, but on the whole: STRONG RECOMMENDATION

For the price, it’s definitely worth it. It’s a very entertaining title and extremely enjoyable.

#11

Finally finished Don-chan - much longer than I was expecting it to be and well worth it for the price. Definitely recommended to fans of light or ‘light’ eroges.

Complaints: None of these are really major issues, but they do stand out 1) - Some of the characters are rather unpleasant (which wasn’t the case for the Sakakoko) 2) The writing is at times very gimmicky, with excessive use of coloured text/text in unusual positions/fixed text speed/symbols and the like (these were present in Sakakoko as well, but the writer used them far more often in Don-chan). The fixed speed was particularly frustrating as it happened far too often in the story during many relatively trivial moments. 3) Most of the soundtrack was taken from Dear My Friend, as was Sakakoko’s - surely they could have pulled some music from something else in their back catalogue instead, rather than using it for a third time? 4) There’s definitely a bit of needless padding in the scenario.

Positives: Most everything else. Don-chan is a very interesting and unusual protagonist (although there are quite a few scenes which she isn’t present in), and Toshio whilst being far more ‘normal’ is also a well written character too. The art is generally good, the voice acting is top class, and the ero is oddly enough, immensely amusing to read as on top of the bizarre dialogue, all of Don-chan’s narrative is also voiced throughout the game. They’ve also improved several things from Sakakoko - there are far fewer needless decision points, the ero-story balance is much better and the story continues after the ero-scenes begin (in fact the last parts of the game were perhaps the strongest, rather than the weakest). In addition to moments like the ‘pyjama song’ near the beginning of the story, there are several other rather memorable scenes including one right near the ending.

#12

The 1.99 gb Dies Irae upgrade patch is now available for those who purchased the original version. However (via irc) I heard that light mentioned in Tech GIAN that the new full-price release Dies irae Also sprach Zarathustra -die Wiederkunft- (coming out this Friday) contains some additional content that’s not found in the patch. Edit: More information here.

#13

Dies Irae is a bad ass eroge. I’m glad it’s getting finished. I wish Light could have waited another year to complete things (the first time around I mean)… :frowning:

#14