Narcissu Side 2nd

Before I get into that, I don't really have any progress report to mention. I wrote a small class for Paper Tiger that controls the bezier curves and that should save me from writing out super-huge nested lists. And there was the manga that I was working on with my sister, first page is up. I just did the inking, so don't blame me for anything else.

So, I just wanted to write down some notes on Narcissu 2nd that may or may not be interesting to others. Some minor spoilers may follow, and I'm writing it with the assumption that you've read it already, so don't take it as a review. And I did warn you about any spoilers.

 Well, I think Narcissu really highlights the advantages that kinetic novels have over their traditional paper counterparts. The music in particular I find adds greatly to the immersion. Together with the backdrops which make long-winded descriptions (something that I hate with a passion) obsolete, it really contributes to an enjoyable experience. (Haha - it's sounding like a review after all :D) I do feel that they made the images of the characters a bit too scarce, though.

Compared to the original, I don't think it really adds much. It could easily have been a stand-alone story and the links were tenuous at best. They tried to tie up some of Setsumi's back story, but it ends up making it seem like she just copied a bunch of stuff that Himeko did. Also the fact that there were continual references to a story that I do not know... I don't think that's the first time that's happened to me in a VN and I wouldn't call myself a veteran by any stretch of the imagination.

The writing is good and the end result is a story almost as good as the original, although I don't think either story really benefits from the association. That's about all I have to say.

On a side not, I find it quite strange that the art in both games is good enough as to actually interest me in the cars portrayed. I'm really not a car enthusiast at all, but the pictures really convey the interest and the excitement, they've got a certain quality that draws me to the. The way I'm usually interested in airships or spaceships, i.e. more interesting modes of transport. In other words the art really conveys something quite in addition to just augmenting the story. This is the way it should be.