I've been asked what my standards are for VNs in general and how I apply them to my commentaries on VNs I've played in this blog. I've explained my standards before, as needed, but there is something that came out in that conversation that I think needs to be addressed.

First, my favorite genre of VNs is and probably always will be chuunige.  This is because I like violence, I like internal monologues, I like hedge philosophy, and I love all that crap that makes former chuunibyou patients roll around on the floor in embarrassment. 

Second, my least-favorite genre will always be 'mystery/detective' stories.  I don't enjoy them, because predictability can't be made into a virtue for this kind of story in most cases, and predictability is pretty much standard equipment for Japanese VNs. 

Third, I don't hate charage/moege.  This is perhaps the most important thing that needs to be made clear here.  I do bash charage as a genre rather frequently, saying that it is a 'typical' charage something or other.  However, when it comes down to it, what frustrates me about charage is that oftentimes a writer will go through a lot of trouble to construct an interesting setting for the game and/or its characters and... utterly fail to take advantage of what he built.  A classic example of this is Koiken Otome, which has both supernatural powers and a past fight with monsters/aliens... so why do they not take advantage of the setting to make the heroine paths more interesting and memorable?  This is a typical failure for many charage, but there are also some charage who manage to both build and use settings to their full extent.  Saying that something is a trope, an archetype, or typical of the genre isn't necessarily a criticism.  There are literally hundreds of charage out there, and the genre is the single most established one in VNs.  As such, that it is ruled by tropes, archetypes, and typical setups is unavoidable, considering that the Japanese from of love is mimicry. 

Now, that same person asked me how I evaluate charage, given my preference for storytelling above all other things... and my answer is 'It's a charage.  I want it to tell me the heroine and the protagonist's story.  I don't ask anything else of it, and you shouldn't expect anything more.'

At the same time, he asked me, 'Why are you so harsh with chuunige, if you love them so much?'  When I started the VN of the Month thing, I made a decision to nitpick when it came to my favorite genres.  This is something a lot of chuunige reviewers end up doing.  Part of it is that chuunige are so complex that fanboys can easily pick out flaws in even the best games.  Part of it is that we are all a bit twisted inside and a little S, so we want to punish our favorite genres/games. 

My basic standards are storytelling, sound/music direction (rarely does a VN fall below a basically high level of quality in the actual music, so I base it on music usage), and visual media usage.  Understand, the latter two standards don't cover raw quality of the 'materials'.  I'm not a music freak or an art bigot, so as long as the art and music are used effectively, I am quite willing to overlook things no fanatic in either field would be willing to.  This is born out of the fact that I grew up playing console jrpgs, and music direction and the usage of limited visual resources in combination with the storytelling (dialog) was often what made the difference between a kamige and a kusoge.  I've found that the same applies to VNs, in my personal experience.

That said, I'm a long-time otaku, so I can be picky... but I generally am much less so than most otakus.