Go with a change of pace 
Enzai or Absolute Obedience
I am finally playing Yume Miru Kusuri. I had it installed quite a while ago, but never bothered to actually play it until over the weekend. I am still far from finishing every storylines. So far, I have completed Aekaâs and am nearly finished (I think) Mizuki. My observations so far âŚ
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Aeka: Perhaps the most straightforward to branch into her storyline as Kouhei runs into her pretty early. (All he needs to do is to select whichever choice that allows him to meet up with her a few times.) I think the only tricky part in her storyline is the Sunday before Kouhei starts to become target of bullying. (I had him spend outside instead of inside while waiting for Aeka. Bad choice, as he will never see her again as she almost succeeds in another suicide attempt.) Her storyline starts to develop at a faster pace once Gaito enters the scene as Kouhei and Aeka ends up getting cornered: They must find some way of getting out of the bullying environment. The climax is pretty cool: Gaito literally becomes helpless once Kouhei becomes a desperate badass and the special treatment Antoinette receives afterwards. The school bullying environment is considerably exaggerated in Aekaâs storyline (Antoinette & Co. would be committing outright criminal acts in real-life and no sane authority is going to put up with that for long), but without it, her storyline would have reduced impact. For Kohei, Aeka seems like a âinnocentâ girl type who needs protection but by protecting her, Kohei gains a purpose in life.
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Mizuki: Her storyline seems more tedious at first. In the first 1/3 of her storyline, he has to do quite a bit of choice-grinding â school council meeting again and again. Compared to Aeka, Mizuki is a naughty girl; Kouhei even got hospitalized thanks to drug provided by her! She is not a bad girl (except when she makes threats to others to get what she wants but not to Kohei, but her lack of lifeâs direction seems to makes her prone to do something foolish and even dangerous. In terms of interactions, Kohei seems like a good match for Mizuki as both of them understand each other pretty well, and that Kohei is more mature than his junior class standing suggests. Once Kohei commits himself to running the school council, he does not flake around, which must be an admirable trait for Mizuki to notice. On the funner side, Kohei and Mizuki are a pair of horny rabbits (and there are lot more sex scenes to back that up) compared to Aekaâs storyline. Now then, I still need to finish Mizukiâs storyline ⌠just hang in there!
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Nekoko: I have not branched into her storyline yet. She seems a bit too weird even for me, based ob those few scenes where Kohei took care of her growling stomach and he even had to shirk from his job. I wonder if she would be a pain in the rear-end to a much greater extent than Aeka or Mizuki ⌠?
Looking at the ratings of these at Egs and Vndb right now.
What would possess you to want to play these?
Edit: Go with Enzai for âLOL LEMME FINGER YOUR ARSEâ
Edit2: Go play Eve for a great detective story
Ymk is good if its your first romance game.
âHeart de Roommate is somewhat overratedâ
How can you say this? How is something rated so low âoverratedâ
So far, I have played the following titles involving romance:
Kana Little Sister, Crescendo, Private Nurse, and Yume Miru Kusuri.
I would say YMK is worth the price tag for a very good romance visual novel title for a beginner, provided that a player does not mind getting exposed to some depressing moments at first. Three different girls, each with unique set of problems. In terms of playing time, Aekaâs storyline can be finished in one setting as hers develop quicker. However, considerably longer playing time would be required for Mizuki and Nekoko.
Crescendo takes much less time to finish, even though it has five different storylines with six different girls, as a typical storyline involves less than a dozen decision points. It is not as depressing as YMK, although two of the girls â Yuka and Ayame â have predominantly depressing storylines.
KLS was the most depressing for me at first as Kana does not survive in 5/6 endings. There is a rather frightening ending (#3 to be exact) in which Taka breaks down and become delusional until his girlfriend tries hard and brings him back to reality. The ending in which Kana survives (#1 ending) feels rather anti-climactic, as Taka must let her leave the nest and stop treating her as a sickly little sister. Probably not a good idea to try for the #1 ending until at least 3 other endings are first achieved as this would dampen the impact of this visual novel too soon. (As a matter of fact, I ended up achieving #4, #2, #5 endings before finally succeeded the #1.)
Private Nurse is perhaps the most varied in terms of emotions associated with three different girls. Only Mariaâs storyline approach anything close to depressing, but not until towards the end in which Hiroki more or less realizes and must accept her true nature. Ayanoâs storyline is pretty much in the realm of high-school-romance with several ups and downs with elememts of humor scattered throughout. Mioâs storyline is the most subdued.
Overall, I think all of them are pretty good titles for a beginner to sink into.
Oh boy! Looks like their steamy extracurricular activities have finally paid off ⌠although these two now have lot more responsibilities over their shoulders than expected. Especially for Mizuki, she can no longer flake off like she used to as the president of the school council ⌠haha. They should consider themselves very lucky in that Kouheiâs parents and sister are surprisingly accomodating and not abusive towards Mizuki. At least Mizuki did not do something foolish or dangerous between the time she ran away then came back. Not the same sort of clean âhappy endingâ as seen from Aekaâs storyline, but not âbadâ by any means.
I think in general itâs a good approach to save the happy endings for miserable routes and go with more subdued, realistic endings for lighter routes.
Yeah ⌠the kind of fight-or-flight climax as seen from Aekaâs storyline would not have made sense for Mizukiâs storyline, since there was no âus vs. schoolâ to begin with. They were not fighting against injustice. I think the author used Koheiâs family pretty well towards the latter part of the story in an attempt to change the pace of the story. Until then, Kohei-Mizuki relationship was a bit stagnant: School council meeting, steamy extracurricular activities, find Mizuki ⌠wash, dry, repeat the cycle.
The only thing that I would nit-pick is their little adventure at Macau. It felt rather out of place all of a sudden.
i just wish there would have been 1 or 2 more routes
I loved that bit! Mostly because it was so left-of-field⌠I thought it was pretty hilarious stuff. One of the âthemesâ behind Yumemiru Kusuri is a dreamy unreality punctuated by or ending with the shock of reality catching up, which is why many parts of the game feel so surreal. Flying off to Macau or Hong Kong to gamble and do drugs fits into that perfectly + is something you donât see in any other eroge to my knowledge!
That HK-Macau adventure totally threw me off, as if I were a batter expecting a fastball but got totally zoned out with a surprise curveball.
Now that I am thinking about it, I should re-run Mizukiâs route. I have noticed that it is easy to miss out some key details and developments only with a single attempt in most good visual novels.
Let me see ⌠there are two additional girls (actually there is another one in his class, but for all intensive purposes, she is a non-person) â Aya and Kyoka in YMK, but neither one of them gets their own storylines. My ideas:
It would have been interesting to have a âbonusâ route for Aya. Sex is not required here. (Something short of âgoing all the wayâ should be more than enough.) Instead, have a separate route in which Kohei can resolve tension between himself and her. It was apparent from the beginning that they have been feeling uneasy about one another. To add additional complications, once Kohei and Aya approaches the grey zone that blurs the difference between sibling and incestuous relationships, their parents becomes involved. A âgoodâ ending would result in Kohei resolving issues with his adopted family, while a âbadâ ending would result in Kohei hurting Aya and having to move out. (Kohei confuses and hurts Ayaâs feelings to an extent that their parents become pretty upset.)
EDIT: To make Ayaâs storyline more attractive, include more detailed background information on Kouhei. For example, how and why he got adopted. How were his biological and adopted parents are related.
Kyoka having her own route would have been interesting as well. Two possibilities. In a âgoodâ route, Kohei pursues Kyoka as a girlfriend, but the more he becomes involved in her life, the more he gets into trouble. Have Gaito involved to raise tension, meanwhile Kyoka becomes a âmanipulative bitchâ in which she plays off Kohei and Gaito to further her ends. Eventually, Kohei becomes sick and tired and takes a revenge on these two. Kyoka and Gaito commits a major crime (e.g., assault, battery, and attempted rape on Aeka) and, at the last moment, Kohei intervenes then turns them in. He does not get a girlfriend at the end, but at least he comes out more or less clean. In a âbadâ route, Kohei becomes too involved with Kyoka and ends up becoming an accomplice (he does not actually get his hands dirty, but condones Kyokaâs actions) to a number of misdeeds committed by her and her gang. Eventually, Kyokaâs gang becomes divided into two âcampsâ â pro-Gaito and pro-Kohei. Kyoka siding with Gaito results in the straw that breaks the camelâs back. The climax is Kyokaâs gang bursting into a âcivil warâ. Except for a little bit of bruises and cuts, Kohei comes out intact and his side âwinsâ the âcivil warâ, but his âvictoryâ means nothing as everyone is taken by the police and gets expelled from the high school. Kohei has a lot to explain to his parents ⌠unghhh!
EDIT: Kyoka becomes interested in Kouhei because of what happened between Gaito and Aeka. She feels that Gaito is a cheating bastard and wants to move on. In contrast to delinquent Gaito, Kouhei is a model student with gets good grades and stays out of trouble. However, Kouhei turns out to be a bit too âblandâ for Kyokaâs likes. His tendency towards maintaining an emotional distance (as seen from the relationship between him and his adopted family) also applies between him and Kyokaâs gang, resulting in Kyoka going back to Gaito. Also, unlike Gaito, Kohei maintains a degree of autonomy; just because Kyoka has become his girlfriend, Kohei does not automatically follow along which increasingly causes friction between them.
I am still holding off on finishing the rest of YMK. (I only need to go through a couple of decision points to get one last ending that I have not yet achieved.) I tend to stop-and-go with most visual novels.
As a change of pace, I have recently been playing Heart de Roommate: HdR is less depressing and also less serious than titles like Kana Little Sister, Private Nurse, and YMK.
I have already completed Marumuâs storyline. I am only a few inches away from Tomoeâs and Asumiâs. (I have been playing sort of in parallels, instead of trying to finish one storyline at a time.)
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Crowning moment of awesome: Just about every girl in the school thinks Misaki is both handsome and cool. However, he does not seem to care. He is not even interested in a prettier girl like Tomoe. But he has his eyes on ⌠o_0 (Yusuke has been pretty much good at almost nothing, except when it comes to making disguises!) On hindsight, I could sort of understand Misaki. Except for a few girls like Tomoe, Marumu, Midori, and Ms. Yagami, the rest of the girls seem rather hyperactive and have a plenty of attitude problems. Therefore, Yusuke would appear more attractive since he is âmore girlishâ than most other girls!
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Crowning moment of weirdness: Hiraru is perhaps the weirdest of the characters in HdR. It feels like the author has inserted her scenes in a rush. Very weird to suddenly find her start stripping then ⌠o_0 (He ⌠hey! Wait a sec! We havenât even done homework together nor studied together for exams in the past, and do I have to even mention that we have never even dated? And do âitâ over the schoolâs roof and under bright daylight?!?)
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Crowning moment of shoot-first-ask-questions-later: Sabotaging Tomoeâs arranged meeting. (But if you are into this sort of activity, I recommend Crescendo as it actually has a much better sabotage scene.)
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Crowning moment of awkwardness: Yusuke and Ms. Yami taking bath. (Ms. Yagami ⌠thank you, thank you ⌠Iâm already squeeky clean. Iâm too big and thick for a girl? Donât squeeze me! No! Donât reach down there! Whoaaaaaaaaa!) Perhaps this is my favorite scene in HdR. The illustrators have done a fantastic job in portraying Yusukeâs nervousness.
I really thought Heart de Roommate was mediocre. The moe was not satisfying, the humor was :roll: and the plot went missing. Still, it does have something worth looking forward to. The true ending actually made sense, although that was not enough to save the VN.
i noticed alot of early g-collections stuff had sound issues like the sound doesnât work quite right
Agreed. Just yesterday, I talked a friend of mine out of picking up Heart de Roommate in favor of Kana and Crescendo (he already owns Yume Miru Kusuri).
On a related note, I fail to see how people consider the true ending of Roommate a tragedy when the final voice-over is clearly intended to paint it in a positive light (âLetâs go, guys! Câmon!â). The epilogue explains why Asumi is who she is (she knows that her time is limited - more so than anyone else - and she intends to make the most of it; thatâs damned admirable, in my book). Still, a heartwarming/rending finale doesnât make up for the moe sitcom cliches and mediocrity that plagued the rest of the story. Given this was from the creators of Private Nurse and Figures of Happiness, I was disappointed. Even Wind was betterâŚ
I have noticed that the roommatesâ reunion found in Tomoeâs and Marumuâs endings feels a little bit off until Asumiâs âtrue endingâ can be used as a cross-reference. In these two girlsâ endings, Asumi does not show up in the reunion. Instead, Asumi sends a video tape in which she specifically instructs Yusuke to watch it with the two girls. With Asumiâs âtrue endingâ in mind, on hindsight, they will never see her again ⌠which makes rather sad.
I would most likely to have made the same recommendation. The above-mentioned two titles should be tried out first. One of the sub-plots in Heart de Roommate involves student-teacher relationship; which is also found in Crescendo and the latterâs variant is actually better developed. As have already been mentioned, Private Nurse is also better, and this is from the same publisher (AngelSmile).
Heart de Roommate is not terribly bad (provided that one is familiar with soap opera stuffs), but I would hold off on this one until several good titles have been completed and just need something less serious for a break. HdR should be okay for those who are into girlish boy running into trouble and moments of awkwardness in a slapstick manner.
Some of my thoughts in regards to a different way of packaging Heart de Roommate:
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Tomoeâs alternate ending: Becomes available once Yusuke chooses Tomoe after Chapter 13. Unlike in the existing Tomoe storyline, this one delves into a possibility of unsuccessful attempt at sabotaging Tomoeâs arranged meeting. Tomoe becomes engaged to Takuto, her former boyfriend and now the head of hotel association. Painfully aware of Tomoeâs family situation, Yusuke can only let her go with a sign of resignation. Asumi, Marumu, Namiki, and Ms. Yagami try to cheer him up, but he no longer has light-heartedness he used to have. Fast forward five years. He graduates from university. Unfortunately, the Japanese economy has been in slump and he cannot land into a decent job. Out of necessity, he has been traveling from one city to another taking on odd-end jobs. The grueling university plus many odd-end jobs have transformed him into a mature young man. By accident, he runs into Tomoe. It turns out that her marriage has gone sour. Takuto had once cheated on her, but he cheated on her again, making a fool out of her, not once, but twice. They have ended up with a divorce. Yusuke and Tomoe still have feelings towards each other, but things are now more complicated as they are adults cannot re-live their highschool sweetheart year. They work out their differences and become reunited. Yusuke end up working for Tomoeâs family business. Fortunately, his experiences in many odd-end jobs plus some studies in business and finance turn out to be very helpful.
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Hikaruâs sub-plot: Becomes available once Yusuke does not choose any one of his roommates after Chapter 13. His secret identity becomes exposed and he is forced to leave the all-girlsâ dorm. Although there is now an opening available in all-boysâ dorm, he rents an apartment room instead, as he is now an outcast. (Although he still maintains ties with his former roommates plus Ms. Yagami.) Shortly thereafter, Hikaru joins his class as a transfer student. She instantly becomes an outcast, although due to personal issues, unlike Yusuke. He finds out that she lives in the same apartment complex he is in. Unlike the first semester, the second semester turns out to be very grueling as lot more study materials has to be covered plus getting ready for university entrance exam. Out of necessity, and as two outcasts, they spend times studying together and gradually become familiar with each other. But things are far from simple as Yusuke notices Hikaruâs gloomy tendencies, beneath her beautiful and aloof countenance. If he stays put, there is no telling when her depression will finally overtake her. On the other hand, if he gets involved, he may end up become infected with her gloom and do the unthinkable together. Even if he were to save her, it is quite likely that he will get hurt in the process.
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Misakiâs sub-plot: Becomes available after Chapter 13. Yusuke finds himself in a very uncomfortable situation: Akane has a crush on Misaki, but Misaki has a crush on (girl) Yusuke! He could either resolve this predicament either drastically or quietly. However, being up front risks revealing his secret identity. This will not only risk Yusuke getting expelled from the school, but will also hurt his roommates and Ms. Yagami.On the other hand, maintaining his secret identity means he has to pretend to be someone who is actually not and risks getting into an even more awkward situation later. In addition, the more Misaki becomes infatuated with (girl) Yusuke, the more Akane becomes jealous of (girl) Yusuke and will work harder to expose his secret identity. But if she becomes overzealous, she could become a target of Misakiâs anger as he would then perceive her action as an attempt to hurt (girl) Yusuke. Needlessly to say, although Misaki is a cool, quiet guy, he cannot wait for (girl) Yusukeâs answer indefinitely as it is now obvious that he is fixated on (her) him! The biggest question is what will happen once Yusukeâs secret identity is revealed. Possible disciplinary action from the school may be the least of his worries âŚ
EDIT: Making a spelling correction, changing the subject title of this post, and adding some more ideas.
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Midoriâs sub-plot: Becomes available once Yusuke does not choose any one of his roommates after Chapter 13. This one concentrates on relationship between Yusuke and the Trio de Bitches. It does not take long after the beginning of (girl) Yusukeâs life to find out that there are someone out there suspicious of his secret identity. As a matter of fact, Midori, the brainy girl belonging to Trio de Bitches, successfully finds out about Yusukeâs secret identity. However, she goes no further. Out of the trio, she is actually somewhat friendly towards him. Perhaps because they both share similar personality traits? Or ⌠Yusuke is such a cute girlish boy? The Trio de Bitches gradually close in on him. Realizing the danger close at hand, Yusuke frantically looks for a vacancy in the all-boysâ dorm, but to no avail. He comes up empty from apartment hunting. The fateful moment arrives when Yusuke runs into Akane right after changing into (girl) Yusuke in the boyâs restroom. Unlike the existing post-Chapter 13 plot, Akane does not let go of (girl) Yusuke running away, as Kaoru blocks his path. But (girl) Yusuke is saved by the sudden appearance of Misaki. It turns out that Midori has distracted Akaneâs attention by bringing in Misaki. Of course, someone as perceptive as Midori would not miss the triangular tension between Misaki, Akane, and (girl) Yusuke, and use it. However, this causes a turmoil within the Trio de Bitches as Akane realizes that Midori has actually been helping out Yusuke. Midori pays the price by getting bullied by Akane and Kaoru. Will Yusuke just go about his own business or do something ⌠???
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Ms. Yagamiâs alternate ending: A downer version of the existing Ms. Yagamiâs sub-plot. This one somewhat parallelâs the story of Naoto, a student of Ms. Yagami from the past, with whom she fell in love and ended sadly. However, unlike Naoto, Yusuke falls short of running away. Life would have been a lot happier had Ms. Yagami and Yusuke not meet as a teacher and as a student. Unlike the existing sub-plot, this one forces Yusuke to make a very tough choice. Either Ms. Yagami resigns from the school or Yusuke gets expelled. Trying to save both could result in shattering her career and tarnishing his academic history.
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I think the existing Namiki ending is not vital for Heart de Roommate.
I am biased since I worked on some of these butâŚ
Little My Maid (great story, lots of surprises)
Tokimeki Check in (though hasnât every fan played that already?)
X-Change 2 (my favorite Crowd game)
Brave Soul
From G-Collecitons I like
Sagara Family (all around good game, very H)
Heart de Roommate (great story and art, plus the âset up like an anime seriesâ structure is good)
Cherry (the most developed of the old Zyx games)
Raidy 1 & 2 (naturally)
Crescendo (some of that story is painfully beautiful).
Not yet, but Iâm thinking about it.
I have a hard time judging some these games on their own merit, since I have such a heavy preference for light-hearted games, or at least games that arenât tragic or utterly depressing. For instance, Suika seems to be really popular amongst the crowd that frequents these kinds of forums, but I personally couldnât stand it due to being just a series of more or less tragic stories. As boring as it sounds, any game (or path in a game) that doesnât have a happy ending is ineligible for replaying for me because it just depresses me, and I donât play games to feel depressed 
That doesnât mean that the stories canât have serious moments or sad things happening, but unless it ends on a happy note I just donât feel like thereâs any closure in it, so it kinda sticks around like an open wound (I know that sounds cheesy). I guess I tend to treat these games more like âproperâ games in that regard though, as sad endings kinda make me feel like I wasted any time and âeffortâ put into it and it was all for naught. I just like feeling that the main character could make a real difference for the better or something.
On a related note, Iâve been playing G-Senjou no Maou, or rather been trying to, since the story feels so oppressive that I can only play it in short bursts before I need a break from it. Frankly itâs really good, maybe moreso because it can affect me to such a degree, but it makes it really hard to get through it when I need to stop playing it after a few hours because itâs stressing me out. To go into a more spoilery detail, Iâm playing Tsubakiâs route, and the whole kidnapping thing felt like it was dragging on and on forever without ever getting resolved, and while I found it pretty intense it just was too much for me to stand for so many hours on end. Then her brother finally got released, things were getting a bit more relaxing and upbeat, and your character suddenly tries to corrupt Tsubaki (making her âhumanâ) before changing his mind and accepting her as she is, before again finding himself forced to get her family out of the house by any means necessary.. The unhappy/happy ratio is just too heavily skewed towards the unhappy side for me to stick it out for long, I guess, perhaps more so because the main character does so many things I really donât want him to
It seems like a good game and all, but itâs hard to judge when Iâm not really enjoying it for the most part because it just makes me want to shout âNoooo, donât do that!â to the screen every 5 minutes :lol:
I guess this is why I rate Da Capo II much higher than Suika despite the general opinion around here being that the latter is far superior. I canât even imagine how people manage to play and enjoy the proper tear jerkers that only have sad endings; Iâd be suicidal after playing a couple of those I canât judge a gameâs story by its own merits unless I enjoyed the game, and I just donât enjoy depressing or bitter sweet games. I think they just stick around in my system too long to deal with on a repeat basis.
This was pretty much my reaction to Heart de Roommate too. The mood whiplash just killed any chance of me enjoying the game as a whole. With, say, Kana: Little Sister, at the very least it didnât come as a huge surprise when the endings were sad (not that it made it any less heart wrenching), but for Heart de Roommate it was more like watching a comedy show that abruptly ends with the main heroines either being broken or having terminal illnesses. Iâm not sure what sort of people enjoy a sudden shift like that.
Iâm ok with games being somewhat serious so long as they end happily enough (like Crescendo or Family Project), although G-Senjou no Maou seems to make an exception there (not that I know if it ends happily, I still havenât managed to get all the way through the first playthrough >_> )
Also, wow, this thread is a massive repeat necro.