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An ongoing project to document eroge with various types of censorship in an easily browsable and sortable spreadsheet Eroge with a censored official English release, a comprehensive list Community contributions, feedback, and corrections are appreciated. Freeform discussion within this thread is also welcome.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say that I've gotten some feedback lately that my "reviews" have been fairly ... Laid back and not too serious. This is completely true, and I've written this with that feedback in mind. This is a much more objective, serious review of a game that I've wanted to review for a while. Hope you enjoy reading it, and please keep giving me feedback that can help me improve, I do appriciate it. Shuffle! Review, By Dergonu, fuwanovel Shuffle is a romance / fantasy visual novel originally released by Navel in 2003/2004. The game was later licensed and translated by Mangagamer, along with its two sequels Tick! Tack! and Really? Really! (You can buy the games here: (nsfw content on the game's page.) In the game you play as Tsuchimi Rin, a fairly normal high school student. When Rin was younger he met two beautiful young girls by chance, and spent the day playing with them. It turns out though, that these fate encounters would later change Rin's life forever. Shuffle offers 5 romantic routes as well as a common route, the story featuring elements of romance, drama, fantasy and comedy. (Note that a newer version of the game called Essence+ offers a whole roster of new characters and heroine routes not found in the original release, but this version is un-translated, and is not the version covered in this review.) The main story takes place in a fantasy universe where two portals have opened in the human world. These portals connects our world to the world of the Gods and the Devils. Contrary to popular belief, Devils and Gods are not omnipotent almighty beings which hate one another, but instead they are fairly similar to us, and the two races live alongside each other in peace. The Devils and Gods do have magical powers, and certain features does make them look slightly different, the primary attribute being their long ears. In the game, we follow Tsuchimi Rin in his everyday life. It has been 10 years since the portals opened, and Gods, Devils and humans live alongside each other peacefully. The overall look of the game is very nice for such an old novel. The art is pretty to look at, with nice sprites and colorful, well drawn backgrounds. The menu is detailed and easy to navigate, offering a great variety of settings to improve your experience. There is a date display in game, and choices will affect which heroine's route you enter. The choices are very plain and easy to understand, often literally containing the name of the characters to make it easy to choose the heroine route. In addition, the game has no bad endings, so playing it blindly with no walkthrough is risk free. Once you enter a heroine route, a sprite of the heroine will be displayed during scene changes, so you know when you have entered a route. All these things taken into consideration, Shuffle is a very laid back and casual visual novel experience, but that in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. The music in shuffle goes hand in hand with the other elements we have discussed so far. It's very light and very simple. Each one of the normal tracks played throughout the primary part of the common route and the start of the heroine routes are simple, light and cute. They offer simple instrumental music with slight variation that glide smoothly into the background. The tracks unlocked later on during the final dramatic parts of the routes, feel like they are on a different level from the earlier ones. They do a better job of making the player feel engaged in the game, as they feature more detailed instrumental music which fits the setting very well. The music tracks in the game are all enjoyable of course, and fit nicely with the feel of the game, but if more effort was put into making all the tracks like the last few ones, then it would allow for even greater immersion in the game, something that could possibly make the game better than it already is. Still, every track is very comfortable to listen to and none of them are disruptive in any way. Among the five heroine's routes, each story offers a fairly similar structure. It starts of very light, introducing one small piece of information casually that will later turn into a dramatic twist to the route. This small catalyst is easy enough to spot early on, and figuring out vaguely what is going to happen is fairly easy. That being said, the game still does a decent job at hiding exactly what it is that is going on. The primary part of the heroine's route will be about Rin and the girl falling in love, and developing their relationship. The game offers 2 H-Scenes for each character, with CG variations based off your choice in the route, and an epilogue which takes place after the events of the main route. As the story progresses, the catalyst which was introduced earlier will start to become more present in the story, and a big climax towards the end filled with drama will occur. This can remind you of a normal nakige build up, but the last dramatic part is so short and gets overpowered by the lightheartedness of the previous part of the game so strongly, that it can't be called a nakige at all. The game re-uses a fair share of the same situations and conversations during the early part of the heroine routes. These only have certain new lines of dialogue, making the scene itself the same. This comes off as lazy, and gets old after the second route. At the very least, short new events should have occurred during these parts to make these scenes slightly more entertaining. This is luckily only the case for the beginning of the route, and the later parts are all completely unique to each heroine. Sia's route is supposed to have two variations, but similar to the previous problem mentioned above, they simply re-use the scenes with tiny changes in the dialogue. The final experience is the same, and so it feels almost pointless to have these two variants, as they simply don't do anything majorly different from one another. It is not a good / bad end type of deal, but instead two sides of the same ending, with all the scenes identical, except for certain variations in dialogue and the character's behavior. This is a little bit of a shame, as Sia's route is very good. Had the two sides of the route been pulled off in a better way, this route would have been even better. Primula, Asa and Sia's routes are the only ones that has "believable drama". The other two routes doesn't make you feel like what is happening is really a big deal at all. It is trivial drama that doesn't have any real impact compared to what happens in the routes mentioned above. This is not to say that the routes are bad because of this, but it does make the game feel a little inconsistent, as if the two routes which feel less impactful are played after the other three, then you won't really be that pleased with the end result. Actually, one of these routes has to be played before Primula's route is unlocked, so only one of the routes actually have that problem. The endings in the routes also feel a little bit rushed. Once the drama is introduced, the player has almost no time to let it sink in and feel the effects of it, before it is resolved. This makes the novel lose some potential, as it doesn't feel like there is any "risk" to it at all. It's almost as if the game is saying that something bad could happen, but then it instantly corrects itself, saying don't worry, we wouldn't actually do this! Still, with those factors in mind, the story in the game is still enjoyable. The actual core of the heroine routes does a good job of making the player care for the heroine and about what happens to her, and seeing as the game instantaneously lets you know that it is a very laid back, plain and casual experience, the slightly rushed endings and not overly dramatic parts are to be expected. To sum up, Shuffle! is a very light and simple, yet effective visual novel. It does a good job of making the player care for its characters, as long as the player is willing to accept the game's light hearted and simple atmosphere. The music and art in the game is well made, especially the art and backgrounds. Considering the age of the game, it is in fact quite pleasantly surprising to see such nice artwork in the game. The music could have had even more effort put into it though, as there is a clear difference in quality between a few of the tracks. The routes are a little inconsistent, and offer parts which are essentially just copy pasted with slightly altered dialogue. This alongside the predictability of certain events, the game loses a bit of its potential. + Nice art, music and well made menu makes for an enjoyable experience. + The story is enjoyable overall, and does a good job of making the reader care for the heroines - The drama in the later parts of the game ends far too fast, and are essentially pointless - The game loses potential with the lack of variation in its re-used scenes, especially in Sia's route Rating: These things taken into account, shuffle! gets a 7.8/10 rating

How to make the best out of your life: - Live alone - Die alone Welcome back, Taco

(Also available on steam)

First, let me state that 2015 is the flat-out worst year for VNs I've seen out of the last six. There was a lot of upward and downward flow hovering around the line known as 'mediocre' or 'average', but there were - saying it straight out - no kamige and few titles that really stood out from the crowd. It is definitely the worst year since I started VN of the Month, just two years and five months (or so) ago. Unlike in 2013 or 2014, there are not a lot of titles I really even seriously considered to be in the running for this spot, even in a vague sort of way. While there were a few titles that jumped out at me toward the end of the year, I wouldn't have even seriously considered them in either of the two previous years. Heck, my top three titles this year wouldn't have even made it into the top twelve last year or the year before. That is how bad it was. In 2013, the winner was Hapymaher by Purple Soft, its unbelievably high-quality soundtrack, art, presentation, and storytelling barely edging past Komorebi no Nostalgica for the win. While both games could pull both my emotions and intellect into play, Hapymaher's musical presentation gave it an overwhelming edge on that front, making it the winner. 2014 was also a hard choice... but in the end, it came down to Nanairo Reincarnation, the only VN that year that I honestly had no reservations about. Semiramis no Tenbin, Hello Lady, and a few others were runners-up that year (in fact, 2014 was an amazingly good year), but in terms of complete overall quality and appeal, they couldn't match Nanairo. Unfortunately, 2015 just doesn't have any candidates that match those. Silverio Vendetta was immensely fun for me, but it has flaws in its structure that disqualify it, in addition to having way too niche an appeal. While I did praise it, Kyuuketsu Hime no Libra (which - as most of us know - has been Kickstarted for translation) just doesn't make it to the level I demand from VN of the Year Candidates. Sakura no Uta, for all that it does have its moments, has a deeply flawed overall flow and a lot of technical issues with the story presentation. Soreyori no Prologue was an interesting experience, despite being typically Minori (meaning sincerely annoying at several major points), but it wasn't a game I could seriously consider for VN of the Year. Natsuiro Recipe is probably the best 'iyashikei' product made in the last three years, but it isn't something I could honestly consider for raw quality. Koko Kara Natsu no Innocence had the typically high levels of overall quality I associate with Clochette (despite the boob fetish), but again, it wasn't quite there. Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori was an immensely fun ride, but - like Silverio Vendetta - was both deeply flawed and too niche in appeal to seriously be considered. So what was I left to consider, really? Basically it came down to Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier, a surprise entry in the last part of the year that tries to replicate, at least in part, the magic of Chuushingura (the VN, not the movie or the various books), except with a lot more bloodshed and in a steampunk version of the political and military conflict surrounding what led up to the Meiji Restoration. Now, at first I was tempted to think that I was jumping to conclusions, because it was so fresh in my mind... so I let almost two months pass before I made my decision, while I went about the task of reviving my memories of various VNs I played during the year. It really was odd what came back to me during that time... Sakura Nikagetsu was one of the more memorable ones (definitely not VN of the Year material, but it was immensely amusing), as was Rakuen no Shugosha (a cheap kinetic utsuge in a total anti/non-anime style), and Sorcery Jokers (the most technically sound of the straight-out chuunige that came out during the year). I honestly had to reject the former two outright, simply because their visuals make them a no-go for ninety percent of the people I know, no matter how much fun or how high quality a psychological experience they might be. Sorcery Jokers was actually a lot harder to dismiss, when it came down to it. In terms of scale, I was really tempted to say it could compete with Kikan Bakumatsu... but if asked which left a better impression, I would have instantly said Kikan Bakumatsu. To be honest, either title would have been a compromise. Neither is as good as any of the best VNs from the last four or five years. They are definitely good, as in being worthy of being listed as VNs to remember. However, I definitely wouldn't have put them up as candidates in another year. For the idiots who kept asking me if I'd say yes to Bansenjin *spits on the floor* even Masada pisses on his own feet sometimes (too much of an attempt to recreate the success of the Shinza series).

Much better Now this can be called a review

Couple classmates that I rarely talk to were apparently talking about this one anime where "people have to kill and get away with it" and that the game just "came out on Steam recently" but they couldn't remember the name And inside I was like, "No. fking way" and so I walked up to them, whipped out my Tabby, showed my desktop wallpaper, and was like "You talkin' bout Danganronpa right?" I would've suicided on the spot if they weren't, but they were so YEAAAHHHH And we spent the next 10 minutes nerding out and talking about Steam having the leak last year y'know it's totally false 'cos Half Life 3 and lolVitaDeadsoAllGamesPortingtoSteam and plsZeroEscapeAlsoCometoSteam Felt pretty nice. My own set of friends are just whatevers or smh if I weeb out on them

Oh, also Neko Para Vol. 0 has no adult version at all. The 18+ version you see on VNDB is a package edition that comes with an 18+ art book, the game is the same and is only ecchi.

Confession: Today or yesterday already(?) I passed the hardest exam in my whole career to become a lawyer I'm just a few a few steps away from getting my degree, weirdly enough I don't feel happy at all, is like I should feel happy about it... and my friend today scolded me for that, he actually got angry with me >_> fuck off

Came into this thread expecting nothing but a link to your blog. Was not disappointed.

Experience tells me these are the exact items required for self-castration. I support your decisions, Ren.

I need a new VN to play. Some of the things that have been suggested to me I have put into a poll for you guys to vote on. These include Gahkthun, Comyu, and Forest. Which one should I play and I'll play these 3 in the order of votes they get from highest to lowest.

oh ok. yeah that was hell just cause it felt fast paced and came out of no where. ill try not to use slow down time as much as possible cause i think its a little cheap, plus you get penalized for it. btw, about the first case

Phantom of Inferno should be on the list. Only available english version is the interactive DVD version, rated at 15+. As far as I know, there's no "remedy." edit: Several other Hirameki International releases also count. Yu-u-e-n-chi/Amusement Park, KoiYoubi/Day of Love, Natsuiro no Sunadokei/Hourglass of Summer, Majo no Ocha Kai/Tea Society of a Witch, Ishika & Honori, and Exodus Guilty. For all of these, the english releases were done via interactive DVDs and had the adult content removed. Natsuiro no Sunadokei and Exodus Guilty had all-ages console versions as their initial releases, then the adult versions were released, and then Hirameki International did their usual stuff.

You guys are getting a discount (I don't know how Valve charges differently for each region.) The price in the US (and in Aus) is 50 USD, which is equivalent to 200 Brazilian Reals.

I'd block you in a heartbeat, and wouldn't even feel bad about it

Well, I'll get around to that again too, don't worry How does a SonoHana review of every single game sound?

BOOOOOOOO! Go back to reviewing yuri, you has been!

I assume they'd do the same. It'd be weird to have a machine translated introductory chapter and then a properly translated closing chapter. Plus, if they're gonna do machine translation on a 2 to 10 hour VN, they're not gonna properly translate an over 50 hour VN like Closing Chapter.

Regarding the "recent" Fine Bros escandal...

Now I can slap this google doc on these filthy casuals. Thanks for the wonderful list.

Yes, actually a good series. Legend and Space was fun. But I see nobody mentioned The Sims yet. Can you manage not killing your Sims in 10 minutes?

haha yeah.. I probably have done it twice too in this thread.. but who cares? I know these feels.

The 'level 10 promotion' is a trap built into the series... promoting at level 10 means inevitable worthlessness for most characters, lol.

Happy Birthday, @Kawasumi May you be even weirder and edgier this year

https://a.pomf.cat/fownuw.mp3 ( ＾◡＾)っ✂╰⋃╯

HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU LUCKY BASTARD

Ooh, a new update Read it, seemed highly interesting. The world seems really intuitive, can't wait to read more of this

fate stay night, because i heard the vn was better than the anime... did not dissapoint

I'm not surprised about the already out there topic, but it's fun to get your voice out there. I'm still getting used to it. My first VN, DanganRonpa, which started my Upupupupupup craze on this fascinating series. Played all the games with my Vita, DR, DR2, and DRAE. Can't wait for V3!

First off, I would like to say welcome back! Second off........ well god damn that sounds rough.

Confession: I'm likely to still recommend you all not to get married, after disappearing from here for over half a year. I moved back from Hawaii after one month of staying there. We never had the chance to explore how our lives would have been there. I had to return to California to sign papers for the family business, and in the process revealed to my parents my relationship and the existence of their lovely grand daughter. My wife and I haven't talked in 2 days, and we're likely to get separated.

Welcome to fuwa, hope to see you around fellow newcomer.

I can already hear my imouto cringing from over here.

That you played Muv Luv for an obviously different reason I did, and that it's useless arguing about it in the first place.

So, in the ongoing "Fred quit his job and is interviewing" saga: Confession: I got my first rejection today Confession 2: But I got my first offer last week I just finished my third full-day interview today (so I'm absolutely exhausted), and my last full-day interview is Friday, so I'll probably hear back from both of those mid or late next week. I have no idea why I started up four of these in parallel - interviewing is vastly more taxing than just working... hopefully I won't do this again for a long time.

Before I forget: Ziva best girl! Diniz sounds like quite a character I must add. Huh, it's actually quite hard for brazillians to understand the european portuguese, sometimes incredibly so. I don't know if it's the same for them, but our languages are considerably different as of now. As you said, we do share quite a few rules and "merging" the languages seems to be somewhat of a goal our countries are aiming to achieve, but we're not quite there yet.

Well.. Guess I'll just quote myself ...

Sure, but let's say I'm rating something. I'll go by Aselia. Some events feel forced, and, as expected of an old game, the art is bad and the voice-acting can range from meh to pretty bad. The OST is mostly ok and the gameplay is nice at times and tiring at others, and for a VN with that many routes it can get pretty frustrating if you plan on playing it more than once. Still, I gave Aselia a 9.5 out of 10. Normally, I would rate any game with those qualities as lower than that. My judgment is most likely biased because I really liked certain aspects of the story, but it probably isn't deserving of that rating.

Usually when I am casually talking to friends, I say that I have bad taste as a joke because people rarely like stuff I do. It is also the truth that stuff that I like has lots of flaws and is stuff that is aimed at horny teenagers who will consume anything with boobs. I would say that bad taste is used when majority's likes differ from yours. It doesn't mean that someone's taste is bad but it just happens to be used like that.

Honestly, this has been known for a while, and isn't anything new. People who really, really care, already have an imported Japanese 3DS or have already CFW and gotten out of region lock to play japanese games. To the vast majority of the rest of us, as long as the story makes sense, and is close enough between translated versions (IE german, english, french, etc. Basically EU) we could care less. You think that the gamecube fire emblem games probably didn't have an entirely rewritten script? You must be silly. Sure, you can get up in arms about it, being that this is a japanese translation community, but it really doesn't change the fact that this has been going on for literally decades. Old news is really old. All that matters at the end of the day is consistency when talking about the game with friends. It would be extremely amusing if they did screw with the EU versions though. That would be a social experiment in action right there.

Happy birthday @Kawasumi you beautiful bastard! One year closer to invading Norway, huh?

It's always good for their concern and it's certainly a possibility, but it's definitely something a professional needs to diagnose. There are so many kinds of depression out there, and they all suck. I should know, I've been working on mine for years now. Best of luck!

This is the problem that Steam reviewers and dumb ass bloggers who don't know what they are talking about have created with visual novel games. They put stupid and funny ideas on people's heads and discourage playing VNs. Many players are too embarrassed to play VNs because of all the labels that come with them. Play a VN with a cute loli girl, you're pedophile. Play VN with rape, you're rapist. Play VN with murders like Catagra or Kara no Shoujo, you're a murderer. You play VN with tentacles, you get called a "sick fuck". This is pure bias and ignorance and it can be difficult to convince closed minded people because of their culture/religion clashing with VN ideas.

I'm really out of ideas ...... the site for me is already quite complete.

Dies Irae, Muramasa, Eustia, and White Album 2 are my picks that I want to win.

Porn without porn (aka To Love-Ru) has an audience. It doesn't really deserve an audience, but hey, it's there.

Hello @sanahtlig, How do you do? Thank you for the criticism, and my apologies for unintentionally casting potential doubts to the localisation itself. However rest assured, I'm not part of the localisation team. English education in my country isn't as up-to-date around the world, and I've been studying last year after learning about the many differences. Believe it or not, we're on the same page when it comes to giving importance to the company's impression -- I requested the localisation department to provide liberal English translation for the Kickstarter video (as the original Prefundia version was literally a mess), and also asked Connor Krammer/AmbiguousGravity from Reddit to help edit the Kickstarter page before launch. Admittedly I tend to get too excited when it comes to updates, but I'll make sure to triple check all contents with native staff members before publishing next time. We're aware that we should be more responsible especially we raised so much money, and just like how we handle most of the campaign issues - we hear what everyone has to say and we will try to comply or do better with the best of our abilities. Thank you for pointing this issue out, and especially for backing our campaign, we really appreciate it!

Hello, Hirei from Degica just popping by on the thread here. Funny that you should mention that our Kickstarter updates are lacking in editing skills... Just wanted to reassure you all again that we do have native English speakers on the team, like myself. The translation team has not been the one doing all the updates on the Kickstarter page as they are busy translating Muv-Luv itself. Helrouis is indeed from the Philippines, however he's trying his best at English which is a secondary language. As community manager he's been responsible for a lot of communication with you all and getting your feedback to the rest of the team. Which I would hope most of you appreciate and would forgive him for minor English mistakes. @sanahtlig If you have any issues with our editing or translations let us know. I can see that you're somewhat upset and I'd be willing to speak with you via PM or email. However, I would like to think that something as minor as this would not deter you from supporting our Kickstarter and further translation projects. Cheers, comrades! ;p