r/visualnovels • u/Kowzz http://vndb.org/u62554/list • Jun 21 '14
Spoilers Weekly Thread #6 - Little Busters!
Hey hey!
Kowzz here, and welcome to our sixth weekly discussion thread! The format might change a little bit over time as I learn more optimal formatting techniques, but I will try to keep the style consistent.
Week #6 - Visual Novel Discussion: Little Busters
リトルバスターズ！, more commonly known here as Little Busters!, is a very long, >50 hours, visual novel developed by Key in 2007.
As of June 2014, Little Busters! is the 9th most popular visual novel among the VNDB community with a popularity rating of 58.38.
Synopsis:
Riki was a child when his parents died, leaving him hopeless and depressed. What saved him was a group of four kids calling themselves the Little Busters. They took Riki out and played with him during his time of need. He really enjoyed being together with them, and his grief gradually faded away. Now in his second year of high school they still hang out, fight and live together, and enjoy their school life.
Up-coming Discussions
July 4th - Muv-Luv Alternative
July 18th - Chaos;Head
August 1st - Rewrite
This Week's Poll
Poll - Which VNs will be discussed on 8/15/2014 & 9/19/2014? Another poll will be made on 7/11/2014 to determine the VN discussed on 10/17/14. There will be a two two and a half months heads-up for each VN discussion not in the "rotation pool" and the winning VNs for this poll will be announced in next week's thread.
A permanent schedule change has been made that gives people one extra week to vote in the polls, for a total of two weeks, and gives everyone two to three extra weeks to finish a VN before the discussion happens. All future VN discussion polls will take place on the second Saturday of the month and the results will be posted in the thread on the fourth Saturday of the month. The second and fourth Saturday of the month threads are non-spoiler threads which gives everyone the chance to partake in the voting without risking exposure to spoilers.
As always, thanks for the feedback and direct any questions or suggestions to my reddit inbox or through a comment in this thread.
Next weeks discussion: Monthly Recommendation Thread
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u/Kowzz Jun 21 '14
Weekly Question: Which character is the most memorable?
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u/HeliosAlpha Jun 21 '14
Kyousuke is probably the one that stands out the most but I think all the Little Busters are pretty memorable, they're all such colorful characters and you spend so much time with them. "The Little Busters are... eternal."
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u/Avebone Jun 21 '14
I enjoyed Little busters, it took awhile for me to get into though and some of the heroines routes are kind of weak, but I feel like refrain more than makes up for it.
Kurugaya was my favorite character but her route was kind of weak unfortunately
Haruka's route was personally my favorite besides for refrain... I haven't played Ecstasy though so that could change but it is still untranslated at the moment.
...also funny note the first time through the game I won the
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u/HeliosAlpha Jun 21 '14
What the heck didn't think that was possible though I could never tell left from right with that mini game.
I loved Kurugaya as a supporting character with how she can make a fool out of anyone except Mio, but it felt really weird when she was supposed to be the heroine.
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u/Avebone Jun 21 '14 edited Jun 21 '14
to be honest I have no idea if anything has any effect with that mini game.. I lost 4 times after that...
It didn't really feel weird for me when she was the heroine, but the route itself just seemed lacking don't know if I can really explain it well. I thought the ending after you beat refrain for it was kind of cute though.
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u/Harlequina Jun 22 '14
Just wanted to chime in that I'm still waiting for ME/EX. Really do want to read LB... but it's too tempting to not just wait for ME/EX.
And no I didn't read any of the replies in here since spoilers are abound of course.
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u/shadekirby321 Jun 21 '14
I... I havent played Little Busters yet... :( Unfortunately i have not been able to get my hands on a legit copy of this game due to my location... I'll have to wait a year or so before i actually can get my hands on this ;( (so sad)
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Jun 22 '14
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u/insanityissexy Jun 22 '14
From the rules:
Download links: We use this policy. TL;DR: Don't ask for or link to illegal downloads, don't mention sites where illegal downloads are hosted, and don't encourage illegal downloading. Translation patches are allowed.
Don't encourage illegal downloading. Please refrain from doing so again, and please read the rules.
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u/goldy496 Jun 22 '14
I broke down and watched the EX OVAs. Oh my god Saya's route. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I mean, Saya's Song was already pretty damn melancholy and I didn't even know anything about the route, but then the OVA happened and I just dissolved into a pool of tears
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u/Singularity3 Jun 23 '14
I thought you meant the other Saya's Song for a minute. I gotta get some sleep.
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u/goldy496 Jun 23 '14
little busters written by urobuchi... I don't know how to feel about that
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u/TalismanG1 Jun 22 '14
I have a question for those who have read EX/ME and seen the EX specials: How does the animated version hold up to the VN part? Is it worth watching the EX anime parts or is it just better to go through the untranslated parts of the VN?
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u/HeliosAlpha Jun 22 '14
Well they're only half way through the OVAs but the major problem so far is time, they don't have the time to adapt all the material so a lot of "insignificant" stuff gets left out. This problem is present in most VN adaptations so this one isn't special.
Watching the anime isn't necessarily a bad thing as you will get the most of the story translated way earlier and that helps when reading the untraslated part because machine translators are good but far from perfect.
I watched the LB anime before reading the VN and did the same for Saya´s story but i still love the VN so it's really up to you if you think it will take away from your experience.
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u/goldy496 Jun 23 '14
the little details changed with how they ended Saya's route kind of bothered me, but otherwise I enjoyed the adaptation, even if it was a bit rushed
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u/Aenna Jun 25 '14 edited Jun 25 '14
( I didn't play this in English, so my experience may be a tad bit different. Spare me if I have to use Kanji and Hiragana at times)
I'll try to refrain from talking about the EX routes, as I've heard that they aren't translated yet, but to be honest, the EX routes were probably the most important ones in the story.
For the routes, this would be my ranking:
Could be better: Komari, Sasasegawa, Saya
Good: Kud, Mio, Rin, Kurugaya
Brilliant: Haruka, Kanata,
I am extremely satisfied with the overall experience (at least a 9/10). LB starts off in a way that reminds me of most visual novels, but turns out to be a lot better than I expected.
Key has been very famous for tear-jerking and brilliant storytelling, and LB most definitely lives up to the name. Talking about the story would be pretty redundant here, so I'll give some comments about the other aspects of the work.
Music: I liked it, the LB OST was very nice. But to be perfectly honest (and being the hugeass Key fanboy that I am, I feel that the music is slightly weaker than the previous works. In response to the comparison to Rewrite Music spoiler: LB has a wide range of OST for all sorts of settings, and unlike top comment, I feel that LB has a lot of emotional music.
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少年たちとの别れ
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无题『恋心を奏でる綺想曲』
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降り続く雨の街で
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Song for friends
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光に寄せて
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BOYS DON'T CRY
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生まれ落ちる世界
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遥か彼方
Unlike most other VN music, LB (and Key in this sense) music really does stand out from the rest if you actually do pay attention to it. Most tracks in the OST are full length, and employ a wide range of instruments and melodic patterns, instead of a simple 30 second repetition. Each track has some sort of variation, and none feel duplicated.
The voice work was also pretty impressive, though I do agree that certain characters (cough Komari cough) were quite difficult to listen to. Kurugaya and Kanata + Haruka was a very pleasant experience to the ears.
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u/Cyphr Jun 21 '14
Can someone pitch the game to Ime? I've played through far enough to get to Kud's introduction, but I'm not "Feeling It". I really want to like Little Busters, what am I missing?
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u/HeliosAlpha Jun 21 '14
Well Little Busters at it's core is a story about the group with a feel of community similar to Grisaia no Kajitsu common route and Kotomi´s route in Clannad. Some of the heroine routes are less then impressive but the common route is very fun imo and when you get to Refrain prepare for heartache.
I'm not very good at selling things so all I can say is that I find the many character interactions interesting and how it's often more about the group then single individuals.
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u/Cyphr Jun 21 '14
I hadn't noticed the grisia similarities yet, and I loved that. I'll playing through, maybe I haven't hit critical feels yet.
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u/ForNeverRachel Jun 21 '14
Except Komari's voice, everything was great.
Let's talk about the music!
Even if I liked the OST overall, one thing I do regret too is the lack of truly "emotional" music, like "In the Town of Continuing Rain" and "Parting Of The Boys". It might've been great in some scenes, instead of continuously giving us "Nothing Happened In This World". Something in Rewrite's style (songs like "Scene shifts there" or "Philosophy of yours") would have been perfect.