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(official site) Novectacle's gothic horror VN The House in Fata Morgana is finally translated and released on MG's site, and will be released on Steam shortly (19 hours, according to Steam's countdown). Just what is Fata Morgana about? The author wrote a good summary on MG's blog: It's a very highly rated VN on both EGS and VNDB, and has received some pretty serious acclaim from members of the community in recent times. And the spoiler-filled content advisory that I very briefly glanced at indicates that it deals with some rather dark themes. I'm a little bit worried that it will underperform, however. It's a very unique VN, and uniqueness is not always a selling point for a lot of people. If you're one of those people who don't like ever leaving your comfort zone, I suggest that you at least give the demo a shot. This VN deserves to be a hit. I'm eager to start reading it, but it may unfortunately be a while before I'm able to. Anyone else excited for this?

I've drifted away from darker stories as I got older. Don't worry about me, though. I've got a backlog of a hundred books on the Kindle and it's growing daily, so always plenty for me to read

Wow I thought most people thought the anime was better, well color me better informed. To be honest I found most of VN to be pretty dull, sure the after story was excellent (till that fucking pissing in my cornflakes ending) and there were a handful of routes that I genuinely felt were good, but for the most part I felt that allot of it was there to pad out the play time or the content was just plain insipid.

Managed to twist my ankle by misstepping on level ground. Need to not move my foot today

The Fruit of Grisaia -The Leisure of Grisaia- love dat title e: that CG between Michiru and Sachi looks quite wonderful, actually.

Really, Eclipsed, you of all people are hoping for Maggot Baits? I never would've guessed. I don't think it's impossible or even all that unlikely, actually. I don't think MG has ever done a guro title before, and maybe they want to avoid that, but I get the feeling that they'd be okay with MB. And Clock Up probably won't stop licensing out their stuff any time soon.

Damn, nice. Hopefully some good stuff gets announced. (The drama CD announcement and a steam release for an already launched game was pretty boring last time.) (Maggot baits translation this time?! N-No? Ok ) (I still have hope!)

But those of us that do, we have one hell of a time. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I'll probably be choosing between this and Root Double after I finish Ayakashibito. I love the art style and the MangaGamer Trigger Warning Post they made only made me want to play this one even more. Here is that post btw. http://blog.mangagamer.org/2016/05/12/the-house-in-fata-morgana-content-advisory/

The ending wouldn't have to be bad to be good in this case though, the daughter could have still gotten sick threatening Tomoya to his emotional limit but than he works through this tough time with the help of his old friends. I was also kinda crossing my fingers that he would get in a romantic relationship with Kyou in the after-story. The message that life is tough and keeps trying to fuck you over, but you can survive it by facing it head on with the help of your friends and loved ones, is allot more stronger than a shallow fairy tale good ending (that kinda retcons the entire afterstory if you think about it).

It's not really that 'complex' as people make it. Once you start learning and get past the basics, which - in all honesty - do not involve anything except pure determination (and a bit of time to spare), it doesn't take that long before you'll be able to read all the simpler games and moege/charage with a bit of help. What's truly difficult in japanese is it's advanced grammar and massive vocabulary, which requires a tremendous effort through memorization - something, only very few adults are capable of. When people try to describe the learning curve for japanese, it doesn't really look like a very step progressive. If anything, it's one hell of a bumpy road riddled with deep valleys and tall montains

Thank god its friday, so I can use all day to procrastinate on my exam project!

Not to mention, not everyone has the motivation to do it, just to read a Japanese porn game

Hit a huge milestone for myself recently with completing Danganronpa, Xblaze Code Embryo, Sono Hanabira 10 and Root Double, that makes for 120 Completed VNs, working on demonbane, dear drops, and danganronpa 2

Reading Island, and I love Rinne.. I want to read her route right away.. Legend / Tradition + Time Travel + Comedy I like Setsuna. He's funny, childish and most of the time stupid. I thought he was a hetare (well he's indecisive), but he proved me wrong in Karen's route. The summer-island setting is really good...

It's from Kiss to Maou to Darjeeling Edit: ninja'd

That image is from Kiss to Maou to Darjeeling - https://vndb.org/v2412

There's quite a lot of gore in them Corpse Party is my favorite Horror series. I love the ambience, the thrill, mysteries, some of the characters and the villains, especially Sachiko I love it dearly

Huh. And here I was impressed that MangaGamer wrote up a professional-sounding explanation of the genre for a casual audience. I thought the industry had collectively decided to ignore the people they're selling to.

I'm like super-duper excited for this VN, everything in Fata Morgana looks so unique and "mature" (it might also be one of the very few VN to have a good artstyle) I can't wait to read it. Fata Morgana definitely contrasts with many other VNs and I'm really happy it got translated, I guess it's one of my most expected titles along with Himawari and SubaHibi. I'm still worried about one thing though, I read that the prose and the way of talking of some characters weren't really suited to the historical context which is a real shame if it's true.

Did I say shoujo? I meant just about every sodding romance manga. Back when I started reading manga, most of what I read were shoujo manga's. Very, very long shoujo manga where the couple only get together at the very end, if at all. Whilst I nowadays stand against this practice, for reasons I will later disclose, I can understand how one would enjoy the "dramatic" situations, "romantic" moments, standard "comedy", and stories about friendship and high school experiences. What I just described composes 90% of all manga I've read. After all, these elements are to my taste. Unless done badly, as they are many a time. Typical plot development goes something like this: Female Protagonist is a loner or has bad friends. Love interest resolves these issues. Alternatively, skip step one and start with good friends already. Because of some random event or plot convenience, the Female Protagonist is either attracted to or forced to interact with Love Interest. Tales of Friendship and slightly romantic events ensue. Eventually, one (or both) of them realise how close they've become, and consequently act overly conscious. This leads to their partner misunderstanding the situation. Somehow, the issue is resolved, and the couple grows closer still. When things are looking particularly good for our couple, the love rival arrives, and somehow makes more progress in two chapters than the main couple in twenty. Misunderstandings ensue. They clarify the misunderstanding, still, some other event causes yet another. Rinse and Repeat. (Optional) The couple actually enters a relationship. Done well, I can live with it. After the initial misunderstandings, it's only natural for the couple to realise how much they actually care for each other and confess. But that's not how it goes in manga. Oh, no. The only ones they are fooling is themselves Scratch that, They aren't even fooling themselves. After a certain point, the main couple is very much in love, and very much care for each other. Yet, for some mind-boggling reason, the author must find a way to ensure they are not in any condition to confess, either due to unforeseeable or uncontrollable circumstances, or because of some incomprehensible misunderstanding that always pops up at that opportune moment for a confession. This can still be done well, assuming I'm not reading a 200 chapter manga. But guess what? A great deal of manga prefer to be segmented into smaller chapters with a spread out story; and it shows. I can hardly imagine the amount of money the mangaka would lose if they condensed their "150 chapter" manga into a measly 40. What if instead of having a new misunderstanding crop up every couple of chapters, they actually acted on their feelings? Boring. It'd end in no time at all. Because, as should be obvious, it must end after the confession. Any more than that and you're into blasphemous territory. I kid. If the manga has the guts to progress past the confession, I will almost certainly enjoy it. So those aren't the ones I'm fulminating against. If out of 100 chapters, 40 of them involve an after confession relationship, then you get my seal of approval. Go ask Kimi ni Todoke (which, for some reason, just refuses to end). Back into our slow romances, I can't claim to be particularly satisfied when out of over 200 chapters, only about a couple of them involve an official relationship. Looking at you, Mr. Hana yori Dango. Then perhaps something more accessible, say, about 88 chapters, would be better? Shiawase Kissa 3-choume didn't bother to grace us with so much as a kiss, so I'm not sure about that (not that a kiss is necessary in a romance - CLANNAD knows what's up). If you want a slow romance done well, follow Cross Game's example: Make it more of a side thing that's continuously going on, but don't ride the plot on it. Until an official relationship is established, romance doesn't make for all that strong a mount. Don't like sports? You prefer more "shoujo-like" topics, like friendship and goodness? Fruits Basket has you covered. Though I guess those are kind of avoiding the issue. Can you make something almost purely romantic entertaining, even if there's no official relationship? Dengeki Daisy says yes. Even if it's about 100 chapters? "Why not?" answers Kaichou wa Maid-sama. Clearly it can be done well. This all on the table, can someone explain to me how the highly rated Ao Haru Ride manages to be one of the most irritating romance manga I've read? It has a quarter of Hana yori Dango's size and triple the pointless drama! In one chapter, the couple (who still hasn't confessed to each other) go from kissing to having the biggest distance between them yet. And things just keep getting worse and worse. Despite how literally everyone, including themselves, know they love each other. This whole manga is very painful to digest as is, so I had to go add copious amounts of . It should now be fine.

Nosebleed is just too over the ending to like the series

One thing I just considered about h-scenes in Fate route: (kinda spoiler, and speculation)

Started reading th No Game No Life novels I just received this week. They're super fun and I almost finished volume 1 in a day. I'm going to be super depressed when I finish all 4 currently released volumes and have to wait for the 5th to be out in October.

Joke's on you for not playing the Realta Nua version. There are some crazy people on the internet who constantly try to say that the Realta Nua version isn't as good because it lacks the 18+ content and I just find that perspective so baffling when I consider how unimaginably bad the h-scenes are, to the point where they are actively destructive to the overall story. The Realta Nua version is the superior version by far and with the rewrites they did, it's also considered the canon version by Type Moon. Basically, what I'm saying is that you're playing the crazy, outdated version abandoned by the developers. If you liked Fate so far, you should get the real version and keep going, you'll continue to really enjoy it. It only gets better.

Well, to be fair, fair market value is pretty subjective. Fair market value is wherever the meeting point between what the people selling are willing to take and the people buying are willing to spend. So work that was intended to be done for free anyway would logically have a lower value that work someone was paid for from the start. That said, the value of fan translations is more complex than simple time invested. Many fan translation projects build up fairly loyal fanbases, and some of those fanbases get quite big. I can't speak for anyone else, but when I heard Sekai Project brought in the fan translator for grisaia no kajitsu, that's what motivated me to buy it; because I already knew the quality would be high and trusted the translator. Each game itself also has a fan base, that can be appealed to or not based on other factors. If you license a game that has a fan translation, DMCA every fan-TL patch of it, and then don't do anything with it for 2 years, that fan base is likely to be somewhat miffed, and probably not likely to give you money. If you get it out quickly, more people are probably going to buy it. So buying an existing TL can greatly reduce the time from license to release. And since you start getting return on investment faster, you have less of your capital tied up for less time overall. Again, look at Sekai Project with Clannad. They raised money for it, with the fan-TLs heavily promoting the official project, and they got it out in a reasonable time frame. I don't know how their sales or doing or what their margin on it is, but I imagine they made a pretty hefty sum on it. On the topic as a whole, I don't much care one way or the other. Fan translations aren't going anywhere; there are just too many VNs for the three major publishers to work with, even if they hired every fan translator in sight. There are also Japanese companies that are never going to license their stuff to the west for whatever reason. But at the same time, I feel that if publishers are buying up big name fan-TL projects, that'll drive TLs to the more well known VNs in hopes of getting bought out, and away from the lesser known games that fewer people are willing to work on already. So it's a somewhat mixed bag.