I’m not sure if this is the place to ask this question but did any of you used VNR while playing the game?
Cuz I’m tryin to read with that helping me but I can’t get it to work. It syncs with the game but then there’s no subs at all. It worked fine with the trial version so I’m not sure what’s going on. Can someone help me out here?
I´m using it without problems ( aside from the bad machine traslations) XD
How can I buy the download?
There is currently no download version being sold. You can check out our Angel Beats! page for where you can buy the physical edition :masgrin:
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How can you play the game on a non-Japanese computer?
Just started playing this…
Why already seen text is still white? can’t totally understand the Config screen, don’t know if I’m missing that…
I don’t understand. Why would the text not be white? You can change the colour of the message-window, but not the text afaik.
“Normal” visual novels with different routes all have that, at least Clannad and Little Busters (so we don’t get too far from what we’re talking about).
They changed the color of text you have already seen in the thousands of resets and loads you do 
If that’s a thing, I sure as hell never noticed it. If the skip button is grayed out then it’s something I haven’t read. That’s how I check if I’m not sure.
That will have to do then Q.Q
Unable to contain my excitement, I ended up using a text grabber to read Angel Beats! -1st beat-. Looking up all the words I didn’t know was very time consuming, and did limit my understanding to any extent (thus I apologize in advance in case I made any mistake in this post), but it was all quite worthwhile. I just finished the main routes and a few side ones, Next Beat included, so here go my thoughts on 1st beat.
First off, I immediately liked how neat the presentation is, with all the special effects to make the scenes livelier; everything felt really dynamic for a VN, which I appreciated, especially as Na-Ga’s art is downright gorgeous. I was also quite fond of the high number of choices; although it did force me to use a guide, I really liked how having so many choices, all of which impact the story in one way or another, gives you a lot of freedom as to how you want things to play out. I especially liked how the player’s choices can affect Otonashi’s personality, and help shape him into a much less dull individual than he was in the anime. You can make him into a very silly character, but that’s something I truly enjoyed doing; and how I laughed at seeing him turn into a player who’s after both Hinata and Yuri!
The common route kept the hilarity found in the anime, but developed character interactions way more, and built the player’s attachment to the cast to a far greater extent; I found myself caring for characters I could barely remember existed from the anime. The drama finally had the impact the anime wanted it to have, but couldn’t provide due to hardly developing anything or anyone; which is an essential aspect that pretty much turns my whole outlook on Angel Beats! around.
I liked all the routes, but even though Yui and Matsushita’s routes were good… Iwasawa was by leaps and bounds the best. I felt she was by far the most compelling character, being generally composed and yet feeling so strongly about many things, and her route expanded on AB’s main theme as well as some others, and has a message that really got to me; it stood on its own as an amazing story, and I look back on it very fondly.
Yui’s route was nice but owes a lot to its ending… as for Matsushita, this is personal, but I didn’t feel as attached to him, so his route got to me a lot less despite being rather nice all things considered.
The major theme of coming to value our experiences remains, but is explored in much more depth with each route; while Iwasawa’s route explores it with a romantic twist, Matsushita’s route goes for a focus on cherishing memories but not being held back by them. It’s always explored with other added messages and themes, giving the whole much more depth, which was fantastic to see; this VN, despite exploring what we saw in the anime, adds so much worth to the story, and of course puts it in a much less messy structure, with loads still being ahead of us. As for the added themes, a good part of Iwasawa’s story revolving around family; although her story is definitely the one that adds the most to AB for me.
Going back to more general thoughts, I was very fond of how much romance Kanade and Otonashi have going on in all the non-romantic routes, especially in Matsushita’s route, which was one of the latter’s strongest points to me. This is something the anime never really developed on, making the ending feel weaker as a result, but with all the development this relationship gets in 1st beat alone, things are looking sweet for the future.
I also appreciated that there was generally not much focus on romance; while there are some characters I’d definitely like to see in romantic situations, I hope AB keeps the general storytelling far from typical romances, which it has done so far to great effect.
Storytelling-wise, I found the use of switches in narrators absolutely relevant and impressive; it added a lot of impact to some major scenes such as Yui’s ending, and was a really superb move.
Next Beat definitely gave me the feeling that this first VN, despite already covering eleven anime episodes, was something of a prologue to the main story, as both Yuri and Otonashi insist on “the start of their long, long fight”, although Yuri herself insists on the notion that they’re going down separate paths; which really makes me wonder what will happen in the remaining 5 volumes. I can’t help but feel that this story is just getting started, and this is for the best really, unless it comes crumbling down; which would take one huge disaster to happen after this excellent first volume.
Overall I was absolutely impressed by this VN; it retained what little was good about the anime, but turned the story into something really compelling as it developed the characters and their relationships much more, giving everything a lot more depth, adding new themes to the story with the various routes while expanding on the already existing ones… and all the routes were good, with one exceptional story to its name in Iwasawa. If the other volumes are to be as good as this, then Angel Beats! has a very exciting future ahead; although given how much this story has to reveal, its success is not ensured just yet; it does have a long way to go. That said, I’m definitely excited for what lies ahead; it was the first time (Heaven’s Door aside) I could think of Angel Beats! as a compelling story that achieves its potential, as what could’ve been good in the anime became actually good here. 1st beat already done more than the whole anime to me; it was a truly excellent VN, although of course it’s up to the remaining volumes to make Angel Beats! the marvelous story it showed it can be in 1st beat.
(Psst! The links to the character and route discussions on this thread aren’t working!)
This wraps up my major thoughts; I’ll take my leave with a two crucial messages.
2nd beat when?
P.S.: Sekine & Irie, I love you. You’re the absolute best. 
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There! Look at it! It’s fucking beautiful. You see that Maeda: I fucking conquered your ffucking bullshit one more fffucking time.
FREEDOM!
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I guess thank you to the AB perfect visual book, huh? 
Yeah, but I could’ve done it earlier with the fan guide. It was more a motivational thing than anything else. Using the guide in the book which I presume is as optimal as possible, you have to restart the game from scratch 10 times. And to that we add a grand total of 24 recommended save spots that you have to go back to. I wish I knew my play time for this game; it would be insane considering there are only 3 real routes.
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Rewatching AB! (slowly, my Japanese studies progress) and I once again really want to get to Shiina’s route. She’s just too ridiculous. And the band members.
In the beginning, (I don’t know if this is a spoiler so I’ll spoiler tag just in case) when Otonashi is in the SSS room for the very first time, He doesn’t remember his name. So then each member gives him a name for the mean time. Yusa gives him the name of “Serial Killer,” from what I saw So what was Yusa’s reaction when he picked it ?
I just saw the Anime Man video so yeah…
Oh, and was there any tease on the other SSS/GDM back stories that wasn’t teased in the anime ? (Other than Hisako).
Yusa doesn’t have reactions.
Otonashi points out a thing about Sekine that probably hints at where they’re going with her story. Sekine has a habbit of switching speech patterns a lot. Otonashi questions how many personae she’s supposed to have, so it feels like they’re aiming for a story about her always putting up a charade and never showing her true feelings.
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I’m joining in a bit late but I also wanted to share my thoughts.
For me, the best route was Iwasawa’s hands down, specially the moment where Iwasawa’s letter is read with the “still here” music piece sounding, and then, when the letter ends, the music strikes powerful with a violin note while Otonashi tears the letter appart. Man, was that intense!
The other routes were also good, though Yui’s was already spoiled by the anime. I also appreciated how they showed the backstories of other characters that were totally ignored in the anime, such as Hisako’s.
Anyway, I wanted to share a theory or question I have. The menu illustration after you complete the next beat, you know, the CG with Yui and Iwasawa playing the guitar while Matsushita is walking with his cousin. My thought is that they actually met in their next life, as it is heavily implied along the VN that they can only reincarnate as human beings. Also, the final scene in the anime shows Kanade and Otonashi apparently meeting in their new life.
I don’t know, do you think this theory is feasible? Do you think such thing might be showed or explained in the next volumes?
Share your thoughts!
Episode 1 of AB, and World of AB & Episode 13 of AB
They talked about reincarnating to be water flies and all that. They speculated that it probably isn’t just as humans, because other things have “souls” too, just like humans [/spoiler] so [spoiler] being able to turn into other things other than humans in the AB world is possible (though not shown). I mean, do you really think that they would show Hinata as a flower if he reincarnated ? No. Showing them as humans in the same world is just a way to give a sort of “We met again in the next life” feel to it. So I don’t think it’s limited to just humans
Of course, like Yuri said. They don’t actually know what happens. And of course, my answer is just based off of the anime and the info given from it.
