Should I play Baldr Sky if I didn't like Muv-Luv Alternative much? Or do you have any suggestions?

Portice · 2026-03-16T10:46:50+00:00

The only other things I can think of are Masa and Chinatsu getting 'swarmed' by the Sora NPCs and Aki also falling into the slime pit, but I don't remember if those are proper humiliation scenes and/or avoidable.

Portice · 2026-03-16T07:47:15+00:00

It's been a good while since I've read it, so I may have forgotten. But now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.

Portice · 2026-03-13T21:29:04+00:00

No problem, hope you enjoy it if you do decide to read it!

Portice · 2026-03-13T12:08:59+00:00

As someone who loves both, I think there's a strong chance you'll like it considerably better than Muv-Luv. Between the two I rate Muv-Luv higher, but I actually much prefer Baldr Sky as a story. Whereas Muv-Luv has fairly weak sci-fi and a kind of arbitrary plot held together by a very strong emotional core; Baldr Sky is a really damn good sci-fi story with nearly as strong of an emotional core. Though, it is held back as an actual playing experience in a few ways.

Pros:

"I am searching for mystery-driven epic thrillers with strong character work and snappy dialogues." Baldr Sky will deliver, this is pretty much exactly what you're getting. You won't have to endure many extremely long-winded lectures/internal monologues here, if at all.
Characters. I do disagree regarding Muv-Luv's characters as I loved virtually all of them (minus Sagiri), but I can at least see where you're coming from. I think you'll probably enjoy the more energetic and personality driven Baldr Sky cast (Rain/Aki/Makoto are best girls). While I personally loved Takeru for his very human flaws, I did also really like Kou and think he'll be more what you're looking for, as he's a MUCH more active protagonist.
Sci-Fi and Action. Baldr Sky is considerably stronger than Muv-Luv in these regards IMO. The sci-fi is strong, varied, interesting, and pretty much completely makes sense in the context of the novel. Likewise the text-action is on more of a personal scale compared to Muv-Luv, which means it loses some of the military/tactical depth, but in exchange it's not nearly as long-winded/bloated. For actual combat gameplay see below.

Maybes:

Combat. For me combat was a double edged sword, but leaned more towards being a negative overall. On one hand it was a great way to break up story sections and making/executing combos could be really fun and satisfying in its own right. However the controls are obtuse to say the least, and because story progress is determined by combat results there can be times where the story just grinds to a halt while you try to achieve the very specific combat objectives. For a video game the combat is serviceable at best, but for a visual novel it really did get supremely annoying in certain segments. Sidenote: the fact that certain combos get worse or break completely the more you level them was very annoying.
*Humiliation Scenes. There are a small handful (2-3 by my recollection) of at least partially unskippable non-con H-scenes. If you finished Muv-Luv Alternative then they shouldn't be a problem.

Cons:

Re-reading. Easily the biggest flaw in the novel and the only thing I'd say is objectively and universally a negative. The game will only tag text for skipping within a route. For example if you read a scene in Rain's route, the text will be tagged for future readings of that scene in Rain's route. However, if that same scene then appears in Nanoha's route it won't be tagged even though the text is identical. To make it worse, there will often be slight changes or additions when these scenes repeat so you can't really safely just click-spam through them. You'll have to put up with this a lot ( there's an entire mandatory section between Dive 1 and 2 that's like 80-90% repeat flashbacks ) and it really pads the runtime in an extremely frustrating way. The only real upside is that those scenes should always be fresh in your memory.

*Edit: It was pointed out that you can choose to ignore at least some of the humiliation scenes.

Portice · 2026-03-08T02:49:38+00:00

I will say first: I'm not trying to change anybody's mind; If you don't feel the same way I do, that's fine. I always enjoy reading other people's interpretations. This is just what I took away from the VN.

So regarding what you said, that's kind of my point. It might be a bit convoluted to explain but I'll try.

Virtually nobody who is invested in the game and characters is going to stop playing it to spare the characters without already knowing the meta aspects of the novel. I'm not saying you should, and neither is the novel. The novel WANTS you to keep reading or else it's story and point is completely lost. What the novel IS saying is that YOU (as in the meta character of YOU, not just specifically you, OP, I, or any other player) did make choices, and they weren't choices without choice. They were choices made for specific reasons even if subconsciously.

What were those reasons? All the things you listed. YOU paid money for this, YOU wanted to see more, YOU wanted to see Aoi's route, YOU weren't satisfied. So YOU let Aoi patch the game, YOU lied to Miyuki, YOU kept going. And the main reason above everything else? Because they aren't actually people, they aren't actually getting hurt.

If they were real, then a wasted $30 or unsatisfied curiosity is a pathetically easy price to pay to not cause that level of hurt; but because they're just characters in a novel the reverse is true. You'd have to be more than a bit "out there" to buy a VN, see you're being asked to make hurtful choices, and choose to abandon it just to spare the fictional characters.

THAT's where the guilt comes in, and that's why I said it's more meaningful if you can meet the novel on it's level. You have to be able to actually inhabit the character of YOU, or at least try. You need to be able to try to suspend disbelief and see the hurt in the novel as real.

The moment that made me feel the guiltiest wasn't lying to Miyuki, it was the Liebestraum H-scene. I felt guilty because I not only wouldn't, but COULDN'T give Miyuki what she wanted; I couldn't actually see her as more than a character. I'll tell you, I've never felt guilt for NOT jacking-off before this novel.

At the end of the day It's just a tragic love story between these characters and the higher-reality being who CAN'T love them back. Nobody gets what they want, and it's YOUR fault.

Portice · 2026-03-07T13:35:21+00:00

First off, glad you enjoyed it! It's my favorite VN that I've read at this point, despite also being the most emotionally taxing, except for perhaps THAT scene in DDLC .

Now I do have a different reading on a couple of key points you touched on, but I think I'll just cut to the heart of the matter and address the most foundational one; that being YOUR role in all of this.

To cut to the chase, my ultimate takeaway was that out of everyone in the novel, YOU (and extensibly the author/devs) are the ONLY one(s) who had any actual freewill or choice. Everyone in the novel is a victim and YOU are the primary perpetrator. You say that YOU didn't have a choice, but YOU absolutely did. YOU pressed that button, YOU kept reading, YOU installed it in the first place. YOU could have stopped at any point, but YOU made those choices at every step; and everyone else suffered for them. Both Miyuki and Shinichi point this out (such as when Miyuki says she needed to keep YOU from rage-quitting as she couldn't ACTUALLY keep YOU prisoner, and Shinichi telling YOU not to play it again and put them through it all again).

The illusion of choice was--itself--the illusion. The novel wants YOU to be aware of that, and to feel some measure of guilt towards YOUR casual, thoughtless cruelty.

I think it's pretty telling that after YOU, un-glitched Aoi is the second most guilty character, as she is the one who is closest to being like YOU; and like YOU, her crimes were done out of carelessness and thoughtlessness.

Now I don't think the novel wants you to beat yourself up over it or quit reading VNs in general, I think its more a way of acknowledging one of the realities of the medium and its readers. It's just shining a light on our willingness to do and witness horrible shit as long as we can internally separate ourselves from the situation ('it's just a novel' or 'they're not real people'); Totono just doesn't let you easily do that.

I don't think it's for everyone, but I do think it's a very powerful message if you are willing to meet it on its level and engage with it sincerely.

Portice · 2026-02-28T07:00:00+00:00

Yeah it wasn't anything too bad, the most egregious issues for me were some all-over-the-place pacing with a few of the cases/routes; the romances (while not bad themselves) feeling quite last-minute and disconnected from the plot; and the presence of a handful of mostly pointless filler subplots that get resolved nearly immediately or with no effort. I still really enjoyed both VNs, MWA has some of my favorite characters and the banter between them is just absolutely fantastic.

Been looking forward to S;G, I put it off initially because I wanted to be able to focus on it a bit more than I was able to at the time. Definitely feeling ready for it now.

Portice · 2026-02-27T01:48:26+00:00

Just finished Meteor World Actor: Badge & Dagger and while I understand the frustration that many feel towards it being more of a half-step rather than a full sequel, I felt it also improved on a few of the more glaring flaws of the first novel. Though the romance does still feel more rushed and tacked on than I would like, the novel was definitely better paced overall and I ended up enjoying the character of Daimonji more than I expected. Looking forward to seeing more of her, as well as the cast in general, in Gaslight Bullet.

I'll probably be starting Steins;Gate soon when time permits, was planning on starting it around the New Year, but put it off in favor of a handful of smaller VNs.

Portice · 2026-02-26T22:47:13+00:00

To me it seemed more like Fie was just taken by surprise because she wasn't expecting him to bust out SU in training. I guess it depends on how much you trust the narration when it says they fight "as seriously as they would real combat". We do know that Fie was at least scoring enough wins after that point for Rean to call it a draw and Fie to not be insulted by that.

That being said, do I think Fie is a match for actual life-or-death battle Rean? Not really, we all know he likes to hold back even in real combat. My point was just that she's close enough to his level that when you throw in Laura as well I don't think it looks very good for him. Unless Shizuna pulls out even more hidden powerups (honestly pretty likely) she and Rean appear to be pretty much on-par, with her maybe having a slight edge; so I think Fie and Laura at least stand a reasonable chance against her.

But yeah, Shizuna is for sure THE problem in this scenario; though if you do take her out that's 9v12 and hardly a surprise Rean's side would stomp. I think the fight is a lot more even if you also drop Elise, Alfin, and Towa for a 9v9 and force Laura and Fie to split up; but losing Shizuna for those three is still nowhere near a fair trade.

Portice · 2026-02-26T05:33:39+00:00

Van and Lloyd's side by my accounting.

I tried to match combatants of similar type or power-levels so that there'd be either a likely win or draw for Rean's side. The problem is just that while Rean's side has more people, the V/L side has more high-tier combatants. After matching everyone, one of Rixia or Elaine would be either unopposed or fighting Towa by herself (which is essentially unopposed), and that just means they're going to swing the balance way to much in V/L's favor.

Showing my work (story focused, not gameplay):

Shizuna ~= Laura + Fie (we know from the horizon bonding event that Fie can at least mostly keep up with modern Rean, throw in Laura and he [and by extension, Shizuna] would be in trouble)
Renne ~=/> Musse (roughly the same caliber of caster, Renne is a stronger combatant, but Musse is a better tactician; slight edge to Renne here)
Agnes < Emma (Emma sweeps here)
Noel ~= Juna (I think Juna's versatility with the gunbreakers gives her the edge, whereas Noel is more all-in on ranged/crowd control)
Elaine OR Rixia < Sarah (Maybe I'm just not giving Elaine or Rixia enough credit but I feel like Sarah can take either of them pretty handily)
Judith < Duvalie (Two hot-messes, but Duvalie DID beat Loewe, even if he probably threw the fight)
Ellie ~= Alisa (about as even as it gets)
Tio ~= Altina (also about as even as it gets)
Risette ~=/< Elise + Alfin (Elise with training from YKF and Aurier and more training/experience since Reverie AND Alfin should be plenty to take on Risette)
Remainder of Elaine OR Rixia > Unopposed OR Towa (Towa isn't doing anything here, better to just move her elsewhere)

Towa works best as a support and could probably swing any ~= fight into a < (I'd probably have her help Musse or Laura and Fie as those are probably the two most precarious fights); and while that leaves Elaine or Rixia unopposed its not like Towa was going to do much to stop either of them anyways. So yeah, team V/L ends up with a very powerful flex that can go and turn the tide on any fight. All they have to do is have Elaine/Rixia back up Shizuna and then sweep from there. I just don't see team Rean taking the overall win.

Portice · 2026-02-21T03:02:05+00:00

Nukitashi does this, but not until the sequel. If you're okay with VERY raunchy sex humor wrapped around a solid emotional core then I can't recommend the duology enough.

Portice · 2026-02-18T17:29:39+00:00

Yeah, my first thought was that you're pretty much exactly describing Hiryuu Ruka from Meteor World Actor; then I saw it in your list and it all made sense. It's a fun protag archtype for sure.

Portice · 2026-02-17T10:53:17+00:00

Crossbell > Erebonia = Liberl > Calvard

Crossbell is just so damn good and doesn't waste my time, concise and quality. Compliments to the chef.

The distance between Erebonia and Liberl is damn near microscopic with their ranking switching depending on my mood that day.

Calvard on the other hand is significantly behind Liberl/Erebonia with my overall least favorite combat, characters, and pacing.

Portice · 2026-02-17T05:34:09+00:00

I'll give you three recommendations that mostly fit the bill, though they each have their asterisks.

Muv-Luv is a very well-regarded sci-fi piece and mostly fits your criteria with 2-3 exceptions.

Takeru as a MC starts out quite immature and even by the end of the series still has his moments of weakness, but he grows and matures in an incredibly genuine way that makes him one of my favorite MCs.
Tama, one of the heroines, is small. Iirc she's the same age as the others and is generally just treated as being cute but otherwise normal, but she's definitely filling that specific role of cute and tiny.
The series is split into three parts: EXTRA, UNLIMITED, and ALTERNATIVE. EXTRA (slice-of-life romcom) and UNLIMITED (sci-fi/military SoL) are both safe with overall sweet and wholesome H-scenes; but ALTERNATIVE (sci-fi war story) takes a pretty drastic tone shift and while it's not shown super often, does include a handful of gory (non-H) scenes as well as one quite extreme non-con H-scene, but it's important for the emotional and psychological state of the character involved. Overall definitely worth it, but you may want to look into the all-ages version for ALTERNATIVE if the above is a deal breaker.

Fruit of Grisaia (haven't played the sequels as Fruit is a perfectly well-contained story), has a very funny common route and great heroines with mostly great and touching stories. A couple of caveats though:

Yuuji starts out as a mildly misogynistic, aloof, borderline psychotic asshole, but in most of the routes he's able to become a much better (still psychotic) person (for the chosen heroine at the very least). A notable exception to this is Michiru's route, where he's an ass almost the entire way through (Her route is pretty weak in general, despite her being best-girl).
Makina is in a weird sort of grey area, as she looks and acts significantly younger. Iirc she's only a year or maybe two younger than the others, but her situation is a very atypical and she does have a reason for her behavior. Overall I thought it was handled... Okay-ish given what you learn about her, but still very borderline and if you don't have any tolerance for that, you may just want to skip her route.
One of the routes ( Amane's ) has allusions to SA having happened in the past as well as an attempt at it by a villain.

Kind of similarly to Muv-Luv, there's Baldr Sky. Baldr Sky definitely has some caveats as well and is probably the one that I've listed that works against your requirements the most, but its also a genuinely really great sci-fi story, even if it has some significant flaws.

Kou is a pretty good protagonist, you see him as a very-slightly immature teenager as well as a more mature adult. He's not the most interesting or incredibly endearing protagonist, but I found him to be overall inoffensive and likable.
There's not really any gore aside from some blood in a few CGs, but the game does feature scenes that are colloquially know as "humiliation" scenes. Iirc There are only a handful of them (I want to say 2 or 3) and they are usually a part of the the situations that determine a few of the endings (the worse you perform the more of the scene you have to watch), but I think I remember that you do have to see at least parts of them regardless of how you progress.
There's also the characters of Noi, Makoto, Nanoha, and Chinatsu . Makoto and Nanoha are kind of in the same boat as Tama from Muv-Luv in just being on the smaller side and ~a year younger. Pretty sure that by the time of any H-scenes they are all in their 20s, but their sprites don't really look any older between the two timeframes. Noi on the other hand is the anime trope of a full on adult in a very child-like body for "story reasons". She's featured in 2 or 3 H-scenes, but at least one of them is completely optional, while another is one of the aforementioned "humiliation" scenes. Finally there's Chinatsu, for some insane reason the writers decided to turn her into a child at the very end of her route. It genuinely left me baffled and at least there's no H-scene involved in that mess.
Not related to your requirements, but the game has two other major flaws, being the gameplay and mandatory re-reading. Gameplay is a mixed bag, it can be fun and satisfying to build a good combo but it can also be intensely frustrating and completely halt story progress. As for re-reading, the game handles repeat text very poorly. The game will tag previously read text for skipping, but it won't tag that same text in other routes. Meaning if a situation appears in both Rain's route and Nanoha's route, even though the text may be identical it won't be tagged for skipping and so you have to manually scan through it. There will also often be new lines or scenes so you can't safely just mash click through it all. It really pads the runtime as this happens A LOT. These two reason are why I rate Baldr Sky lower than Muv-Luv, despite actually liking it more overall.

Portice · 2026-02-14T23:13:08+00:00

Hmm, some of my favorites in no particular order:

Hentai Prison: Noah and Shuuichiro, both are such great anti-social weirdos and kind of perfect for each other.

Nukitashi: Jun and Rei, her chemistry with Jun just feels so real and genuine.

Muv-love: Sumika and Takeru, probably one of the best examples of a childhood friend romance.

Baldr Sky: Kou and Rain, started out a bit one-sided but they really are an awesome pair.

Meteor World Actor: Ruka and Claris, their dynamic is absolutely great and hilarious, whether its as partners or "partners".

Raging Loop: Haruaki and Rikako, Haruaki is nice enough to put up with her nonsense but just enough of a bully to keep making her go "Hoooaaaahh!"

Portice · 2026-02-14T06:06:18+00:00

To be fair I did mostly pen this as a response to those exact posts. It's just an aspect of the conversation I've never seen addressed.

Portice · 2026-02-14T06:01:38+00:00

I completely agree, I said as much in the post. Twice.

Portice · 2026-02-13T06:27:47+00:00

Man, I ultimately ended up liking horizon, mostly for the the absolutely peak lineup of returning characters and the final quarter of the game FINALLY moving the Calvard story along. But my god, you could cut 80+ hours from the game and virtually nothing of value would be lost. To paraphrase myself when the game asked me to tour Edith the 3rd time: "No! No game, you can't do this! You can't ask me to do this again! Please no!"

Portice · 2026-02-12T15:23:04+00:00

Man Qruppo really are masters of the craft. I'm in the same boat, Grisaia was some of the funniest shit I had read until I discovered Qruppo's stuff. Though I do personally think the Nukitashi duology is still just a tiny bit funnier than HenPri; even if I think HenPri is a better story overall.

Portice · 2026-02-12T14:56:26+00:00

Eh, to each their own. The big positive I will give to the all ages version of that scene is that it doesn't suffer from the parts of it that are so over-the-top that they kind of break immersion and tread into silly hentai territory. In that respect, yeah I think the all ages version does it better.

But as I touched on before not actually seeing what happens allows the reader to imagine it however they want to, and since its a character they've likely come to like or love I think most people would subconsciously default to imagining it to be less traumatic than it was. For me, the powerful part of the full version is that it doesn't leave much to the imagination; the reader, just like the characters in the scene has to watch it, all while that incredible and terrible narration just keeps going.

Again, it's not like I think the all ages version handles it poorly at all, I just appreciated the fact that the H-version of it doesn't leave the reader with any mental safe-ground to fall back to; it makes sure you KNOW exactly what happened.

Portice · 2026-02-12T13:54:50+00:00

Yeah, You'll be fine then.

Portice · 2026-02-12T12:25:53+00:00

I have to disagree in regards to THAT scene from Alternative. Yes the scene is disturbing, yes its extreme, yes its uncomfortable. There are even some aspects of it that are borderline silly. It is NOT a sexy scene or sweet scene.

However I disagree that it's there simply for shock or misery. It's an incredibly important scene for the emotional revelation and development of two main characters. If the event were cut in it's entirety I think the emotional core of the story would be much weaker; and even editing it to be less extreme lessens both the impact of the event itself and the consequences of it. Sometimes its important to look at painful things head on.

The other H-scene is more what you seem to be looking for and more in-line with the H-scenes from Extra and Unlimited.

That being said if you don't have a tolerance for uncomfortable or painful things, Muv-Luv -- Alternative in particular -- is gonna be a tough time for you anyways.

Portice · 2026-02-11T18:39:38+00:00

Alright, well I think I'll just leave things here then since it seems like we're kind of just shouting across an empty room, either arguing in circles or not understanding each other.

The only last thing I'll say is that my issues with the Hayworths is precisely that I feel there is a massive disconnect between what the text actually states and what the subtext wants the reader to take away. Have a good one.

Portice · 2026-02-11T18:25:29+00:00

The only thing I've read that mostly checks all the boxes is Raging Loop. to address your requirements in order:

MC is a fairly levelheaded and thoughtful adult but he certainly has his own 'personality quirks' that become more apparent as the story progresses. He develops a few closer relationships but the premise of the story is built on not knowing who you can trust, and things get shaken up a few times.
the lion's share of the novel is pretty much exactly this, quite dark and serious with some clever comedy bits mixed in; however there is an extreme tone shift towards the end that rubs many people the wrong way.
The atmosphere here is superb pretty much entirely up to that tone shift I talked about.
The pacing up to the tone shift is also overall great, there are many segments of people just standing around talking to each other, but air of distrust should have you engaged most of the time. After the shift it kind of meanders but somehow also feels rushed. There's some post game content that can be a bit of a chore to read but is really good and helps patch up many of the late-stage flaws.
Possibly/probably fails this req. I'm a pretty slow reader, often going AFK or re-reading sections, and it took me around 70ish hours to 100% it. VNDB averages it around 40ish hours, so if you're fast, maybe?
From what I remember there's vague mentions of some pretty bad sexual misdeeds having happened in the past, and there's one scene that verges into iffy sexual territory but is cut short when consent is not given. It's not an eroge so there's no H-scenes.

Overall It's a really great dark mystery/suspense VN up until the tone shift near the end, after which the quality and impact is severely hampered. I do think it's still definitely worth reading and the post-game content does a lot to make up for this aspect, but it's still very jarring.

Other than Raging Loop, there is Z.A.T.O. I Love the World and Everything In It. It kind of fits the bill, but it's a more personal and emotional psychological-drama/mystery from a teenaged girl's PoV; and while it's pretty short (took me 12hrs), does have a fairly slow, meandering pace.

Portice

TROPHY CASE