Lemma Soft Forums

Posted: **Mon Jan 26, 2009 8:43 am**

(I probably should have edited my earlier post last night to mention that the upload was complete, and the RAA now has this. I can't get the downloads to display in any other order than the order they're in now, though.)

chronoluminaire wrote: The way the political situation was described felt quite anti-church preachy for the first half or so.

Hmm. I don't know the religious positions of any of the team, so I could well be wrong, but from the point of view of this agnostic it looked more like anti-fundamentalist-organised-regime preachy to me. There's a big difference between criticising "the church" in general, and criticising the habit of some particular sects of some particular faiths of trying to bring (and in some cases succeeding in bringing) about societal change that follows or reinforces their beliefs.

I mean - I don't recall hearing about the Church of England trying to ban yoga, for example, let alone trying to make to worship of idols illegal. There are gay Anglican clerics, outside of the more-conservative provinces, but on the other hand there are institutions which are nominally the same religion but take a far more aggressive, pro-active stance on the matter. And I got the impression that Araiah was far more anti-Pat-Robertson and anti-National-Fatwa-Council-of-Malaysia than it was anti-organised-religion-in-general.

Melissa is still a particularly religious person, after all...

That said, from what I recall (it was nearly a month ago I went through it) if I were writing a Lit essay on the subject I'd be tempted to draw parallels between Hanasia and Stalinism, which I seem to recall off the top of my head promoted atheism...

Posted: **Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:57 pm**

Jake wrote:Hmm. I don't know the religious positions of any of the team, so I could well be wrong, but from the point of view of this agnostic it looked more like anti-fundamentalist-organised-regime preachy to me. There's a big difference between criticising "the church" in general, and criticising the habit of some particular sects of some particular faiths of trying to bring (and in some cases succeeding in bringing) about societal change that follows or reinforces their beliefs.

Hmm, perhaps so. Maybe I was being oversensitive. It's quite a common thing in Japanese stories for a fundamentalist church with a lot of Christian-style trappings to turn out to be based on false teaching and one character trying to gain power by manipulating people; Fullmetal Alchemist and at least one Final Fantasy game spring to mind, and there are others. So to that extent, the team were just using a trope (which is not a bad thing); it's just that often people using that trope are trying to use it to snipe at the church in the real world too.

But often it's not meant like that and the author's just trying to build an interesting world, and one which those frustrated with the prevalent surrounding religion can identify with. So yes, it's quite likely that that bit of script wasn't meant as preachy, and I overreacted.

Posted: **Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:27 pm**

ITT we get butthurt over fiction

Posted: **Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:51 pm**

You were wrong, Drakey. I wasn't disappointed at all.

I saw Songs of Araiah as a feel-good, slice-of-life story and it was a nice light, fun and uplifting experience reading through this piece.

Really, there's not much more I can say about it. It's a charming VN and everything just falls together seamlessly. This is one VN that I feel should just be enjoyed and doesn't deserve to be dissected further than the initial experience you got after reading it.

Congratulations to Bishojo Games.

Posted: **Sun Mar 08, 2009 12:26 am**

I just finally played this last night. I quite enjoyed it. The story was compelling, and some of the visual effects were particularly inspired; I especially enjoyed the "blood link" and "red dot in your mind" sequences.

When Melissa mentioned that the observable world consists of "dreams of Araiah", I recognized the idea from other mythic traditions, but in particular I thought of this passage from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There:

`It's only the Red King snoring,' said Tweedledee.

`Come and look at him!' the brothers cried, and they each took one of Alice's hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping.

`Isn't he a LOVELY sight?" said Tweedledum.

Alice couldn't say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud -- `fit to snore his head off!' as Tweedledum remarked.

`I'm afraid he'll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,' said Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl.

`He's dreaming now,' said Tweedledee: `and what do you think he's dreaming about?'

Alice said `Nobody can guess that.'

`Why, about YOU!' Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. `And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?'

`Where I am now, of course,' said Alice.

`Not you!' Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. `You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!'

`If that there King was to wake,' added Tweedledum, `you'd go out -- bang! -- just like a candle!'

`I shouldn't!' Alice exclaimed indignantly. `Besides, if I'M only a sort of thing in his dream, what are YOU, I should like to know?'

`Ditto' said Tweedledum.

`Ditto, ditto' cried Tweedledee.

He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn't help saying, `Hush!

You'll be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise.'

`Well, it no use YOUR talking about waking him,' said Tweedledum, `when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real.'

`I AM real!' said Alice and began to cry.

`You won't make yourself a bit realler by crying,' Tweedledee remarked: `there's nothing to cry about.'

`If I wasn't real,' Alice said -- half-laughing though her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous -- `I shouldn't be able to cry.'

`I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?' Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt.

`I know they're talking nonsense,' Alice thought to herself: `and it's foolish to cry about it.' So she brushed away her tears, and went on as cheerfully as she could.

This is probably just because I'm an outsider to the otaku and/or VN community, but I found the comedy in the story almost jarring. Of course, there were some really funny moments, though.

One thing that bothered me about the story was

that Melissa didn't try to stop Denz. Even when I accept that, it bothers me that Jason wasn't at all angry at Melissa for helping Denz make his ill-fated protest.

I saw little warning that the story would end when it did, but I didn't feel too cheated, because I was able to appreciate the characters and the relationship that had been developing since the story began. Thanks for making and sharing this.

Peace,
Kazuki Mishima

Posted: **Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:35 pm**

Still haven't finished SoA but it's a very nice piece of work so far, graphics are sweet, story is entertaining, good job.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 3:53 pm**

Just finished this game and I think it was a great game.

However, so of the parts where I got bored were the Renai parts, where Jason would wake up and make food for her. I just felt that it was really typical, and I could feel the plot moving really slowly.

The part of the story that I really liked was how the magic worked, and how it related to the current world of things, and the explanation of the world that these two characters were in.

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2009 9:53 am**

Very nice one, congratulations! Although I nearly wouldn't have finished it... the overly long beginning had me wondering what the point of the story was, and I was close to giving up. But when things at last started rolling, it got me hooked. Maybe some more foreshadowing early on, and a bit less of filler text would spice things up a little. Very nice artwork, and good writing overall. The music did feel a bit randomly tossed in... but all in all it was fitting well. Well done, thumbs up!

Posted: **Sun May 31, 2009 5:19 am**

I liked this KN... right up until the end.

I was annoyed by Melissa's helplessness, and how she just fell into Jason's arms (not so much her being attracted to Jason, but his succeeding in every aspect and the fact that she couldn't really do anything herself).

Am I the only one who felt that way?

Posted: **Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:54 pm**

pretty good

Hey I have a few tagent questions

Is Melissa a virgin?

I am not sure of the details, but I understand that when a woman first experiences penetraion, some kind of membrane is broken. So if she is a virgin, would that membrane be broken (and then regenerate) every time she engages in intercourse? Remonds me of some kind of like some surgery I heard about that restores the membrane giving the illusion of restored virginity.

Also, I recall Mellissa said that as immortal she could not get pregant. But, could immortal Jason still dischrge sperm to impreginate someone? Also, could Melessa temporay go mortal to get pregant then go back to be immortal? What if she went immortal while pregant? Would gestation continue till birth, she would be pernamently pregant at the point of getation, or woulkd she effectivly miscarry?

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:53 am**

*waits in eager anticipation on how drakey's ever going to touch that last post*

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2009 3:49 am**

- CONTENT NO LONGER RELEVANT -

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:12 am**

mmmmm......

OK' let's roll the classical scholastic question, the sex of Angels

out of methaphor, this question it's a bit on the nitpick side; and how Melissa's Sanctuary [1] works after her immortality, dont' add or substratct nothing to the story, IMO.

If one really want to study Melissa's physiology, I should point that she still eat (implying also she need to retreat in the bathroom) , so her physiology still is more or less "normal"; If one want badly idle reasoning on Melissa's hymen, I guess that, as we have seen her attitude, the trouble will be on the poor Jason.....

[1] this is how I prefer to call Woman's intimate parts..

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:44 am**

She doesn't -need- to eat, you know. She eats because she likes the taste of anything her boyfriend cooks.

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:22 am**

Ramidel wrote:She doesn't -need- to eat, you know. She eats because she likes the taste of anything her boyfriend cooks.

Yea, I have played it when released (six months ago...) so some little tidibits here and there I surely don't remember (and I use the saves as bookmarks in KNs); perhaps later I'll do a re-read; but still remain the issue that she has food somewhere inside her (whose led us inside the "angelic" minefield of the other question of Mr. "Teankun"

)

She can be immortal, but having infinite time don't automatically means also she has also infinite space (and here. sincerely I prefer "Teankun" 's choice in posing the physiological issue)

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

Lemma Soft Forums

Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah

Re: Songs of Araiah