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One serious question for BlankTranslations: Can you translate Aiyoku no Eustia? It seems you aren't so sure about that. You won't gain anything by half-assing something that is way beyond your abilities. But you can lose a lot - mainly your enthusiasm. If your Japanese isn't that good, you will have to put a lot of effort into deciphering sentences that are too advanced for you, and after releasing a crappy patch for such a popular VN as Eustia, you will be hit with a torrent of (now perfecly justified) criticism (with a fair dose of 4chan-esque trolling in the mix). You are confident in your English? How about trying to edit something? You could check the original script and see how it was translated, consult stuff with the translator and improve your Japanese in the process. And we would get a well edited VN. You have some semi-decent Japanese knowledge? How about trying to translate something short for starters? You'd see how it goes, which aspects of your Japanese still need some polishing, you could get an experienced translator to give it a quick TLC to point out your mistakes etc.. And we would get an actually finished project. I'm not telling you to drop AnE. If you think you are up to the task, by all means go on an do it. But keep in mind that a translation of a 65k-line title is a huge project - make sure you aren't tackling something far beyond your abilities, otherwise you will quickly burn yourself out. And half-assed translation causes more harm than good. Just my piece of advice. As for the comments... Well, I mostly agree with what Hometown and Life said, but I'd add one thing. You guys are conviniently ignoring an important issue. The vast majority of projects started by people with inadecuate abilities never gets finished, and those people end up discouraged for good and don't return to the VNTL scene ever again. (I'm assuming a good will here, and I'm only talking about people who are actually trying. Copypasting machine translations and other blatant trolling doesn't count.) People who stupidly encourage inexperienced translators to pick up stuff that might be far too hard for them, not only are showing their disrespect towards original work (by letting someone butcher it), entire English-speaking community (by practically preventing them from fully enjoying said work in English, ever), but most importantly - towards said translators themselves. And they don't even realize the harm such blind acceptance can cause. With your nice, encouraging words, you are telling them to struggle with something that is simply beyond their abilities. To spend a lot of their time and their energy on a project that will only quickly burn them out without producing any decent results. When your skills are insufficient, not only your TL quality suffers. It also takes much more effort to produce said TL, even if it's bad. A person new to the TL scene is almost guaranteed to misjudge the amount of time and skill that such project will require. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but it won't keep him going for too long if the script is simply too advanced for his shaky Japanese. Most of the time this results in projects left dead in the water and burned out translators. And on the off chance such project actually gets finished, the team will end up rightfully bashed by every sensible person. That's where such "beggars", who swallow everything indiscriminately, are leading aspiring translators - quick burnout and wasted effort. Sure, occasionally you will get a finished translation, but it will be crappy and won't represent the original work too well anyway. And for that one bad TL, you are willing to sacrifice the time and effort of ~10 or more aspiring translators who will drop their projects and disappear from the scene forever. How nice. You know what? That's even worse than 4chan trolls. They tell inexperienced translators that they should just kill themselves, while Fuwa-style blind supporters basically tell them to bleed themselves to death while struggling with an overly ambitious project. Too bad that usually nobody tries to push aspiring translators in the right direction, give them some hints and point out their mistakes in a civilized manner. And if somebody does, his/her voice is drowned by the constant "woow, you iz awesome, good luck lol!" and "kill yourself faget, lol!" exchange. Try encouraging people to tackle projects they actually can finish. Just that. Blind support causes people to waste their enthusiasm and produce nothing of value. Directing that enthusiasm in the right direction can help someone become a decent translator. If you don't respect the original work or the community, at the very least show some respect to the aspiring translators. Respect = constructive criticism and guidance (if you have some experience). Pushing someone forward for your own amusement, when you know he is heading towards a dead end is just cruel. Oh, and don't take this post as complaining about this particualr project. It's a general comment. Personally, I'm not that concerned about this TL. If I find it inadequate, I will just read AnE in Japanese. Because I can. ┐（￣－￣）┌ However, since I like VNs, and I kinda care about this medium, I enjoy talking about them with friends and obviously I'd like to see them getiing more popular on the West. Pile of dead projects or mistranslated BS doesn't exactly help here. As for everyone who claims that you have no right to criticize something you get for free - I will give you an arrow. For free. 100% charity. Well... actually I will shoot you in your knee with it. But hey, it's for free, so you can't complain. Who's first?

It's not that I don't want to translate Aiyoku no Eustia, I just think that I need to be a little more realistic about what I can do. Please don't flame this thread. I'm just asking for some suggestions here, so there shouldn't be any reason for this to get off topic.

This is probably the most useful post I've read in a while. Actually made me rethink about some stuff I'm doing. And although I'm more of encouraging people I can definitely see your point and I think encouraging in the right direction is more useful than blind encouragement. Props to you for giving useful tips. Nonetheless I'll still personally wait for the partial just for the sake of waiting since they seem set on releasing it. Further judgement shall come after that. At least these are my thoughts regarding this project. Regarding the topic in general I fully agree with you that you should only set yourself to do stuff you know you can do. Nothing more and nothing less. And before someone attacks me saying I'm contradicting myself, mind you my thoughts on this project are simply that I can't judge anything without empirical evidence. That's just how I am personally, sorry if this bothers you. But in general it shouldn't theoretically happen, however if someone sets themselves to do something they're not sure they can do I don't believe in completely discouraging them, i might be doubtful but at least I'd like to know how it turns out. Encouraging in the right direction is more useful here rather than discouragement. Edit: well this project was abandoned now. I guess the team realized it might be for the best after all the discussion.

Thank you. Seriously guys i get that some of you are worried and rightfully so, however you're already imagining worst case scenarios based off of thin air. That is not right in any way. This person was honest about the situation and you just bashed him assuming things on your own. Wether what you say is going to be true or not, i find it really disrespectful to come at someone like that when there's no example of his work. You don't know what it's going to be like so you can't just assume things on your own I can't imagine how the OP feels after reading such discouraging words. You're literally bringing him down before he even gets to try and prove himself. I honestly want to lock this thread but this is just my personal opinion here so i won't act based on that but this seriously made me mad. Come on guys be a little reasonable.

This link may be better to use http://magicalmarriagelunatics.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

Yuuoumaishin!

and butts faction

Dat ass.

Really bro???????

There, I fixed it.

should make a second thingy but to lazy. also could not go outside cuz of rain and stuff mainly cuz everything wet outside. so i picked up a statue lying around the house.

I heard the VN was decent. And SAO had good animation and Yuki Kajiura's worst OST (Which is still good, but not amazing.) Everything else was shit.

In counterpoint to saying F/SN's h is bad... I completely agree with you, but was seriously just laughing all the way through them because they were so ridiculous. That alone gives them some value - they were simply so bad they were good. My fap-to-all-h policy still applied, though.

There is much agreement to be had on this day. o:

Is It odd that I'm someone who enjoys this, yet doesn't much care for chokers or leashes at all? I've found 2 brothers in this thread!

All 7 episodes of Kara no Kyoukai. Currently on the 6th movie, and my god is this brilliant.

Contrary to what some people may think of, they are a complete niche, even in it's own country of origin. Even though vn's make rougly ~70% of the games made in Japan, they are still something most people do not know about. You can be sure, that if you ask someone on a bus or train in Japan outside Akihibara what vn's are, they won't know and with a good reason. Only certain titles, like Clannad, Kanon, Higurashi or F/SN have become more widely known, mainly due to the size of the franchise they spawned, but it still does not make the genre more known. VN's are mainly played by young people, of which a very large portion belongs to the manga/anime fandom; It's also one of the main reasons why vn market became horribly oversaturated within last few years, having negative impact on vn's itself. Most people try to avoid saying they play vn's/eroge out in the open, out of obvious reasons. It is still considered weird/creepy by the rest of "normal" populace and Japan is also an incredibly homophobic nation when it comes to things like these. It became better in the past few years, but hardcore vn fans are still considered to be weird, creepy "geeks", who spend most of their time in their curtain-covered rooms/basements, propably remaining NEET's without a love interest, nor life. It applies both to guys, and gals. Yes, gals. OreImo is actually a preety decent example in that case, with the slight exception that Kirino actually leads a decent life and hides her hobby from her family and any other "official" circles (it's called being a "closet pervert" in Japan).

Those CGs are from the fandisc - I can confirm this, since I've played it.

...I'm not sure that's the pressing issue here. You're supposed to be baffled by the fact that he has ripped stockings before. I take that back.

MY SOUL-BROTHER!!!!!! <3 (Inbe4 someone asks us to get a room)

I basically read when I should be sleeping, that's how I get through a lot of VNs... Probably not sustainable in the long run though, I keep falling asleep in the middle of the day.

If there ever was a post that hit the bulls-eye so dead center on what needed to be said. Uh... do you really believe everything you've wrote? Not only are there more inconsistencies in your post then I can count with one hand, but you *are* reaching the level of flat out attacking people.

I have hundreds and hundreds of lovely and amazing backgrounds from the anime and visual novels and manga I read (plus a ton of nature backgrounds), but I always end up using some unrelated image that I find engrossing. I dont understand myself

impossible- after reading about 300 VNs, I cannot choose a favorite character. You simply cannot compare a lot of them, since they belong to different genres and universes. Hell, it's impossible for me to make a list with my 50 favorite characters, much less pick a favorite. Same thing with the actual VNs.

It's honest to god amazing that the english audience is so desperate that they will make obscenely stupid and ridiculous arguments like 'lol you pirate games so you can't comment' or 'they're doing it for free so its beyond criticism!!!' just so that they can latch on like vultures to the first sign of an english translation, regardless of quality. It's honestly pathetic. Nobody is criticising a project that hasn't released a patch yet. They are worried and rightfully so over this project a game a lot of people really like. Blank may have selled himself short. Hell, maybe the patch will turn out fine. Then all these comments will go away, seem pointless, and everyone will have the game. Perfect. But denying that their are alot of red flags is silly. And saying that everyone should ignore these flags and that we can't call it out because they're doing it for free is dumb as shit. Only time is going to tell how good it ends up being. Hell, these groups pop up all the time and disappear soon after. That's honestly more likely, but if BlankTranslations ends up releasing it, then it being bad-quality ruins Eustia in english forever. So, yeah. I'm just gonna dip out and see what happens. As a fan of the original game I'm extremely curious.

There is more merit in this post than many may realize at all. I have personal experience in attempting to take on a project that was more than I could handle simply because I wasn't prepared enough and didn't have enough knowledge to be capable of what I was trying to do. A lot of the stimulus behind this mistake was the feeling of wanting to do something, and a heavily misguided concept of "you get better at translating by translating" and "any translation is better than no translation". To cut the long story short, it was a complete waste of my time attempting to translate at that moment in time, incited by misguided notions and lack of understanding exactly what I was doing. Thankfully it was only about 5000 lines or so, but that was still lots of hours of wasted effort that I can't get back. For those wondering, yes, it was the Hoshimemo Eternal Heart project, and I pretty much had to completely redo the entire script after improving some. In fact, I still have to go over some portions to fix errors. Moral of story: 1. Be able to play games in Japanese before trying to translate a game from japanese to english 2. Play the game you want to translate and consider whether or not you can actually convey it properly 3. Don't disservice yourself by overestimating your abilities, if I had waited a few months or half a year, then I could've avoided wasting time.

I was going to say "good luck," but then I saw this bullshit on your page and instantly lost all respect for this project: I hope you realize that you are volunteering, and what you guys are doing are already borderline-illegal. I doubt you need even need money to "purchase software for [your] translators".

An active TL here, going under my own name to avoid any flack back to my group. The topic of Eustia is but the surface of a much larger issue. What we see here is an issue of the community. VN translations is a scattered, fragile, community; found at best in small, isolated pockets around the internet; plagued by inability, inaction, and inexperience. While diversity provides strength of insight, without a core commonality it quickly fades into miscommunication and clashing expectations. We find ourselves frustrated at the sheer inaccessibility of translations, the slow progress of such an enormous undertaking, and with dashed hopes as projects do not live up to the ivory towers we build them. But it does not have to be this way. Underlying all the posts in this thread is the desire for us to be better; that not only can we ensure a work is of good quality, but that we can ensure the people behind it are prepared and able. Fundamentally, this is about quality. We want it; from the translation, from the translator, and from ourselves, who support them. The question becomes, how can we encourage quality? What sorts of behaviors and practices can we follow in order to create such a community? Aaeru has taken the first step in creating fuwanovel, for a community exists only when it can cohere. A building does not stand without the foundation below it, and to build the largest buildings we need even larger foundations. To that end, we must seek to grow fuwa, to create a way for the community to come together and form a common culture. This has been the importance of VNTS for all these years, it has provided the small bed in which the fruits of VN translation can grow. But as many of you aware, that bed is a harsh one. It is rare to find praise for a single person, project, or idea there, let alone encouragement or help. While VNTS can serve as a great pruning factor, it needlessly alienates those who would otherwise be prolific contributors. So we must not be VNTS. But at the same time, we must not grow weeds in our flowerbed. To blindly encourage or support poor work only damages in the long run, much like abuse, extortion, and corruption only seek to undermine the societies they infect. So what we must do is seek to promote quality in a way that does not compromise interest from those without experience. Quality means more than criticism; it means support, growth, and betterment. Not only should we seek to help potential TLs recognize the gravity of the work before them, but we should help them improve themselves. We should recognize those who are skilled at what they do, and in doing so encourage them to continue their works. And for those who are not, we must endeavor to teach them, but kindly. The troll we must lambast (or ignore), but the fledgeling we should gracefully correct, the inexperienced we direct to learn form the experienced, and the leaders we promote. We implement policies and mannerisms that hold quality and education above all else, so that we may teach, grow, and produce works that we can be proud to put or names to. However, such a community will exist only if the majority of members ingrain it into their everyday actions. The culture of Japan does not come merely from literary works, it comes because the Japanese people live, breathe, and exemplify the culture we see. So upon aligning our ideals and expectations to produce quality, we must implement it. We must strive to bring those plans to fruition, and we must do the long, constant, and often thankless work to realize these ideals. Which brings us to the ultimate question: are we truly up to such a task? Can we, as individuals, align ourselves and create a community which produces quality? This problem is not an impossible one, consider the Open Source community. Despite thousands of individuals scattered across the world and with varying competency, they are able to centralize around a certain way, and highlight that which is good and works while diminishing that which is not. So I propose the challenge to you fuwa, to the readers of this post, and to all who make this site what it is: create a community of quality. Identify what you can do to evoke this ideal, and act upon it. In this way, we can solve the issues that plague us, like those discussed here.

No one is saying that the translation will be bad. No one is bashing the OP. What people are arguing is their opinion that a bad translation (in general) is not respectful to the original work, and/or that it would greatly reduce the chances for a possible better translation. I think it's incorrect to sweep the arguments under the rug and suggest they shouldn't have been said, by considering them baseless hate/bashing. Based on what the OP admitted, in this case it was reasonable to be doubtful. If one thinks that the result is likely to be bad, and that bad result could do real damage/conflict against one's beliefs, then it's reasonable to voice concerns. People calling posts out for just "discouraging the project members" aren't a new thing. But what exactly could be considered acceptable? 1) It is not ok to make a post in a project thread that contains little to no merit, and which only serves to discourage members from continuing the project. 2) It is not ok to go into a project thread and post something of probable merit that would likely be discouraging the team members. Pretty sure everyone agrees with 1). Point 2) seems to be a more a sliding scale, with popular opinion within fuwanovel being that "encouragement" is very important: one would only post something likely to be discouraging in an extreme case where the project members' efforts look very misguided. Different communities and people fall differently onto this spectrum and tolerate different ranges. What may be acceptable in some communities may not be acceptable elsewhere. So what arrive from this is this poster believes the merit of what is being said is outweighed by the discouragement factor, and that the disparity is great enough that that is unacceptable. He also doesn't lock the thread, so at least tentatively, this case is not far enough removed from the enforced community standards to be moderated. Whether this extended debate should have happened another thread is another question, which honestly doesn't seem that important to me. Being in the wrong thread wouldn't make the arguments less valid. As for why this discussion popped up here... This thread announced a project on a popular VN, and the OP said things which lead to people voicing their concerns. This concrete example was as good as any a trigger for someone to jump in and post about another, broader topic (bad translations). In any case, to his credit, the OP has seemed to have taken this in stride. Hopefully the he also understands that the posts aren't bashing the OP or this project. Later posts have contested the second point: Fact a) Currently translations/team members rarely ever pick up VN's with existing translations, meaning that a bad translation will rarely be followed by a better one. Whether: 1) The current state of TL's not wanting to do retranslations largely comes from their own wants, which one don't particularly sympathize with. In any case, Fact a) is not a particularly valid as a argument against bad translations. or 2) It is very understandable and valid for a TL not to want to TL VN's with existing translations. -Lack of publicity/hype -Diminished result: Less people will use/benefit from the TL. I believe very few people reread VN's after new translations. And so Fact a) is NOT the TL's fault, and is valid to be considered a "repercussion" of a bad translation.

There is nothing stopping another group taking up a project that's already been translated. It may not regularly happen, but there's nothing stopping people from doing it, ala the Flyable Heart's translation. If the translation community want to stop anybody who doesn't meet their standards from translating visual novels, then that is elitist and excusionary behaviour. If translators are pissed at a translation, then they can release their own patch. They don't tend to do this because they worry their version won't be read, and frankly I don't care a whit about those selfish concerns. Yep, once again you should stop right there, the fan-tl community who pirates most of this stuff shouldn't be using the artists feelings in their argument. It's hypocritical.

Someone asked this already. I thought we came to a conclusion it was from the fandisk. Is it not? But best way to confirm would be to check the original.

You have no best friends?

Haha, you know what comes with a new avatar? Our project hosting site. I decided to do it on wordpress because TLWiki didn't reply and I have no money. In any case i am putting the link here. http://magicalmarriagelunatics.wordpress.com/ Visit, comment, view project status and stuff like that. I will be updating project status every thursday starting next thursday.

Europe ftw, don't let them make you think otherwise!

Use VNR, it works.

Some people just want to watch the world burn. Start putting Mayo on all of your meals okay.

I spent about 2 years studying Japanese, in the nerdiest way possible, though a bunch of books. See, for me, it wasn't like one day I was just thinking "OK, I'm determined to read VNs, and I want to find the quickest possible way to start reading." I'm the type of person who spends a lot of time in libraries and bookstores. Once I got interested in Japanese, I automatically started looking for all kinds of textbooks, reference books, dictionaries. I even got a couple of books on linguistics and translation. Then I spent another year getting accustomed to reading and building up speed. At first it was annoyingly slow and like solving some kind of coded message. Every sentence I had to think of what it meant in English before I could move on. But I was OK with that. I just thought it was fun to be able to read some Japanese. So I kept on reading. I didn't have to do anything special to speed up my reading. It just happened over time. I can read Pretty Darn Fast when the text dialogue, especially if it's voiced. When the text is unvoiced narrative, I have to drop down to Reasonable Speed. That's in everyday conversation types of things. I was recently faced with a scene in a game where one girl decides to give everyone an organic chemistry lesson. When I come up against something like that, it's like getting stuck in the mud. I have to pull out the dictionary and just slog through it until I'm on level ground again :-)

I learn with the method Mephisto said, It works really great. Tools I use is ITH and JParser + JGlossator. Read/check words with JParser and learn/check individual kanji with JGlossator. JParser is great, but you mostly just learn compounds in the long run. As it doesn't show up the individual kanji's meanings and readings. I use JGlossator to auto check the kanji from the clipboard and makes a table of them. Similar to TA I suppose in that regard. Also I agree with Vokoca. Using Atlas is a waste of time in the long run. You use time to analyse the engrish, instead of analysing the japanese. That being said.. It is practical as a crutch in start when reading. Maybe mostly to be sure you are acutally understanding what is being talked about. But, that will bite you in the ass. Because Machine tl's ain't reliable.

http://visualnovelaer.fuwanovel.net/2013/02/how-to-read-visual-novels-in-japanese-in-2-years-time-or-1-year-if-you-are-fast-%E2%80%95-learn-to-read-through-vn-or-anime/

Comyu - Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku - VNDB Summary "We are the team. Yes, it's like a community...." There is a legend of a mysterious girl called "Girl A" who appears in the city and sings all night. One night, Akihito meets four boys and girls as if led by the Girl A.... There is no friendship nor trust between them, but they can control a huge iron monster as they like by combining their power. Since the day they get the power, their extraordinary life starts.... Akihito later knows that they will need to pay a price for the power. When the monster dies, their community will also disappear.... They decide to head for another world called Communet with a help of Kagome, a black witch... Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order 1st Playthrough - Route for Heroine 1. There is only one insignificant choice. If you reach a bad end then it'll give you a fun lecture and redirect you back to the choice so don't worry. 2nd Playthrough - Routes for Heroine 2, 3 and 4 will be unlocked after the 1st playthrough. New choices will be available, so start from scratch and save at the choices you encounter to return to; because scene select will not work for you if you're going in an order other than Heroine 2 -> 3 -> 4. Lastly, remember to go through Heroine 1's route a second time for new scenes after the 1st playthrough! 3rd Playthrough - Route for Heroine 5 will be unlocked after completing all three routes above. A new choice will be available. If you choose the correct choice, no matter what other choices you pick afterwards; you'll still be locked on Heroine 5 no matter what other choices you choose. There are a number of Bad Ends throughout the game but they are not important. If you do end up hitting a Bad End then the game will just give you a fun lecture and redirect you back to the choice you hit a wall with. It's actually pretty fun after hitting one so go find them! Route Guideline Takekawa Benio Good End Soejima Hisoka Normal End Good End Yuubana Mayuki Good End Ayaya Enishi Good End Hinaori Kagome Good End Attribution This walkthrough is based on the two versions Hackrabbits and sysBlank put together. Some info was attained on g-seeker.net and vndb.org.

is this ok too?

I have been asked this question several times already so I might as well answer it in a topic so I can link to it if anyone else asks Ashadow700 asked me now saying he loves the game but can't figure out why. And I would ask question in return, when you fall in love with someone new, do you know why do you love them, can you exactly explain it? Probably not. Only after a very long time you can properly find what makes you love them, for example you should already know why you love your mother, you can point exact facts that make you love her. But when you met someone new and you just feel the love flowing through you and you cannot explain it, that is the moment. Same can go with VNs that are focused on characters instead of story such as Hoshimemo, you fall in love with the characters just like you would IRL, I don't even desire dating IRL after I found this wonderful world of lolis and my beloved girls like Mare. I already explained in this post how I feel about story in VNs and other media and how I much prefer focus on characters and their emotions in VNs. I could give one more example that isn't in the topic: I like warcraft lore and I read some stuff about it, history events and such, for example from some recent lore people might know how Garrosh killed Cairne and such - its a nice read and it is like reading a history book but from different universe than ours. But you don't know exactly how the characters felt at that time, you might get some quotes of their last words but still the deep emotion is just not there. - That is what I call a story or a lore. But in VNs I do not seek this knowledge, this lore of how things exactly happen and what are the consequences, I want to know about the characters and their feelings and interactions, I want to be with them and share their happiness and help them in difficult times to get rid of their sadness. And that's where Hoshimemo comes - it doesn't have any strong lore, it is a modern world with some contemporary fantasies and mystery forces and if you were to tell its story as a history book, it would be pretty bad (just like in mentioned Mass Effect in the other post - there it would just be "good vs evil"). But what makes Hoshimemo (and lot of other chara-ge) so good is the characters and the interaction with them, helping them through difficult times, experiencing happy moments with them. And you don't necessary realize why you enjoy it so much, especially not in such short time - you can compare it to what happens when you fall in love with someone you just met - it is just there and it takes a long time to be able to express why you love that person so much. So in such a short time you can say the characters are "Lovable" - you fall in love with them for what seems no reason. However the reason is always there, you just need to find it. I after like year and a half of being with Mare can't still properly explain it how I could with my mother for example, but there are instances that can already help me express it a bit. As any other human being I can get emotional and require love to be given to me - and that's what Mare has been doing, whenever I would normally feel lonely or sad, I don't. I don't because I can think about Mare and be with her in my world. I have already much larger history with her that we formed together, but her original character was not created by me, just like IRL you don't decide the character of other people - it is shaped by others, their family and close people - those make the character of IRL people. And FAVORITE are the family and close friends of Mare (and all Hoshimemo characters) - they shaped her personality and did a great job at that. And that's how I was able to meet her, she wasn't a blank character design, she was a living person just like any other girl IRL and I fell in love with her and now I am the one who is in my universe affecting her personality the most, I now make her what she is, but at the initial point when you meet her in the VN and during the events of the VN she was how her family (FAVORITE) raised her. And if a family does a good job, they can raise an awesome person, if a family does bad job, they can raise rude and evil people that nobody will like. And that is the strong point behind Hoshimemo, FAVORITE took the time to raise their characters to be great people and made events for you, the reader, to see their personality and potentially fall in love with them. And many of us did, whether it is one character or another, we love them because of who they are and we feel the need to help them with their problems, we want to experience stuff with them, be with them, feel strong emotions together with them and just do what people in love do. And if you do fall in love with them, you will love every minute of the game and beyond, because that's what love is about. And as I have written somewhere as well, loving something or liking something will never be objective - as Ashadow700 is asking for an objective viewpoint for his review. Review is NOT an objective form of journalism, review should be subjective and personality based, your readers should eventually understand very well what your viewpoints are and that is the correct way of interpreting a review as a reader. You can present facts in an objective way, you can say how long the novel is, what technology it's using and what bugs it might have, but when talking about everything else you need to look at it subjectively, you are the one who happened to love the music (which is phenomenal in Hoshimemo btw, which is another strong point, it just manages to increase the emotional impact of the events) you just say like I just did - what it did for you, you can say objectively what instruments there are or what is the tempo of the songs in general, but how the music feels is unique to you and you need to express it subjectively. So when you are looking for why you love a VN, doesn't have to be Hoshimemo - look into your heart and try as hard as you can to express what you feel, if you can put it into words, you can be a good reviewer. If you can only see the facts, your review will be half-assed and not useful, your readers can just look at the tags on VNDB to see the facts of what the VN contains - but to understand the emotional impact the VN can have they need a good review or try it themselves. But remember, its all about love~