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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/11/16 in all areas

  1. DID YOU JUST RECOMMEND EUPHORIA TO A BEGINNER
    5 points
  2. http://rasenth.tumblr.com/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/sexism-feminism-comic-rasenth_n_5976660.html
    5 points
  3. I found this response interesting: I think he's ignoring the elephant in the room: that if games are made with a Steam release in mind, that this necessarily limits the creative process. There's game concepts that don't work (or would be considered inappropriate) when your target platform is Steam: Ikusa Megami Zero, Sengoku Rance, and the Venus Blood series, just to name a few of my favorites. Games being modularly designed with excisable ero content is a very real concern of mine. This highlights a more fundamental issue: that many of us like Japanese games for the reason that they deal with different sorts of themes and they're not bound by Western cultural values. As soon as they start consciously targeting the Western audience, they'll dilute the qualities that make the games appealing to us (fans of niche Japanese entertainment) in the first place. They tried to reassure us that this wasn't the case, but in the big scheme of things I'm not convinced.
    5 points
  4. DarkZedge

    Looking for next vn

    Since you have no parameters or particular likes I'll give you some of my favorites : Coμ - Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku - Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai! (The whole series) Cartagra - Kara no Shoujo - Kara no Shoujo Ep 2 (three vns but I'm recommending them as a series) Princess Evangile Euphoria Dracu-Riot! Noble ☆ Works Grisaia no Kajitsu G-Senjou no Maou Tokyo Babel Phew, I could keep going but I think these will suffice for the time being, tried to keep it varied so you'd have where to choose from. Hope you enjoy them if you end up picking any of these and good luck walking your first steps into the visual novel scene. Edit: Forgot about it earlier but for further reference and recommendations I suggest you take a look at @Kaguya's list It's a really well made list and has helped me find a lot of great visual novels.
    3 points
  5. Clephas

    Floral Flowlove

    Now, as I stated in the previous post, Saga Planets' has two types of VNs it primarily produces... a story-focused type that doesn't avoid the kind of bitter drama that charage/moege tend to despite the moege-type visuals... and a 'strong charage' type that essentially is a more character-focused VN with many of the same strengths as the former type. Floral Flowlove is the former type, being much closer to Hatsuyuki Sakura and the other 'Four Seasons Series' VNs. As such, as in all VNs by this company, there is a definite 'proper' play order, if you want to fully enjoy this game. First, unless you are inexperienced at playing VNs, you probably would have figured out that Kano's path is the one that touches on the core elements of the story most intensively... and that is the case, so I seriously suggest you do her path last. This is my suggested path order Adelheit>Aoi Suu>Kohane>Nanao>Kano. My reasons are that Adelheit's ending is the one that goes the most out of its way to avoid touching on the protagonist's most intensely personal issues and is the most 'charage-like' path, and Suu is a sub-heroine whose path branches off of Kohane's path. Nanao and Kano share a basic flow of events up to a point that basically requires you to choose one of them and it dramatically splits off, so it is best to play Kano's path right after Nanao's. Now that I got that out of the way, I'll make a few comments on the setting and subject matter. For those who dislike Christian mythology, this VN might make you feel uncomfortable, though - given that it is a Japanese story - it isn't full of the moralist excess that a Western Christian writer would have put into it. The focus on angels does have meaning, but for most of the VN, you won't know what meaning it has. Another issue is the protagonist. He isn't a cipher in any way, shape, or form. He is an extremely emotionally-scarred, somewhat self-derisive character who also happens to be eminently capable at whatever he chooses to do (my favorite type, lol). However, his tendency to distrust everyone, despite his ability to see the nature of people's intentions, will probably drive some people up the wall. The guy is fundamentally a rationalist (which is fairly rare in Japanese VNs), save on a few issues regarding his emotional scars and the need to protect Kano from her own bad luck. The common route of this VN is fairly dramatic and interesting, and Adelheit's path branches off from the rest almost immediately after the first dramatic point. A second turning point occurs after the turn-off for Adelheit's path that sends you digging through the protagonist's half-healed emotional wounds and his past, and it is actually pretty interesting. Save for Suu's, the paths and endings are universally first-rate (Suu's path is this game's abortion, though it is fun to watch the protagonist seduce a nun, lol). I will say that I - as always - have to complain a bit about the fact that the endings only go a few months to a few years past the climax of the story (I really, really wanted to see Adelheit five or six years later, because I thought it would be rofl-worthy). However, for most people this won't be a problem. Each of the paths gives you a final snippet of the past after the credits, and it is, in part, this that made me give you that order of completion. To be blunt, Kano's revelation is a bit too big in comparison, and as a result, it would be problematic if you saw it too early on (it is meant to be viewed right before going to the final path). About nine out of ten people are going to spend this VN wondering 'who the hell is Riku?' because the protagonist never really explains her in any of the game's main paths. So... I'm not going to spoil it for you (though a lot of you will probably figure it out anyway). Emotionally, this VN definitely has impact... but a lot of it is pitying, sympathizing, or empathizing with the protagonist. I will say that Kano has seriously awesome hidden depths that come out in all the paths (think a ditz with an intelligence of ten but a wisdom of five hundred in a D&D game), as she is perhaps the single wisest, most selfless and compassionate heroines I've seen. She isn't terribly intelligent though. On the other side, Adelheit is pretty hilarious... she is easily the laziest heroine I've ever seen (though she is also one of the more intelligent ones). Kohane is the kind of girl who would make the perfect mother for a family of twenty adopted kids, and Nanao is basically your standard tsundere (on her own merits, she is probably the second-weakest heroine). The true route... you will cry, so I predict (lol). Anyway, the true route had me crying for a while, and it was definitely worth playing. Unfortunately, it is also impossible to talk much about this route without spoiling the entire mess, so I'll just stop here. I will say that they did manage to avoid the 'true route renders all the other routes meaningless/relevant only relative to the true route' screwup, which is what happens in most VNs with a true route. Overall, this VN is Saga Planets at its best, having learned from a lot of the little mistakes in their previous games. For those who liked Saga Planets already, it is crack, and for those who like a good story-focused VN that isn't a chuunige, this is an excellent choice.
    2 points
  6. Seriously, that is really petty of them to go to such lengths to cover up their lies. I'll be sure to spread this information around in hopes that this comes back to bite them. There's only so much I can tolerate before I start speaking out against something.
    2 points
  7. Hello everyone, Aizen-Sama here. I’ve been only around this community and forums for around 6 months by now, and even though I may not be the most knowledgeable when it comes to VN’s in general, I think that I possess enough knowledge about the translation scene. That’s right, today I’m not writing a post about Luna Translations, but one about my opinion on the translation scene, translation groups, and the community revolving them. Let us establish how this community and market actually exist in the first place. Piracy and fan translating, they are both mutually exclusive to each other and they are the foundations of what we consider as the “western visual novel community”. After some years where piracy slowly started to decrease and official releases started to be a thing I can safely assume that there are three types of people now, one who will support every single game localization and buy the Visual Novels instead of pirating them, one who will pirate everything and anything, or one that will mix between these two because either there is no other access to the game in Japanese to apply the English patch (in other words, you can’t buy the game legally because the Japanese market is already a very difficult place to access with Western VPN’s, mostly because Japanese publishers block them to not let people outside Japan buy these games online, which is usually the only way to get them in the first place) or the individual simply doesn’t support some releases or companies that release VN’s in particular (I’ll set people that want to buy legally a game with a fan-translated patch but can’t do it, so they have to pirate the VN even if they don’t want to as an example). This last example leads to another concerning issue, the relationship between translation groups and the community itself. It’s partly human nature; when a group establishes itself and releases a patch (no matter whether it’s full or partial) we automatically create what is called a “power level” between these two types of people, the users that translate and work on translating games in one way or another (editing, QC’ing, etc…) and the users that simply play the releases made by the first ones. This so called “power level” is what should be avoided at all costs, sometimes the community must remember that the people that belong to translation groups (whether they are official or not) are part of the community as well, and have their own stances and way of doing things. Those “power levels” are automatically made, and they are the primary reason of this community’s fragmentation into several “sub-communities”, which is a problem mainly for the translation groups. What I’m trying to say here is that what is constantly happening right now is that what this “power division” has made is to categorize groups by number of patches released (the more they have released the more praised they are) and that has ultimately lead to two things; groups distancing themselves from the community, which is a very bad thing for both of the parties involved, and groups distancing from each other. What I mean by this last statement is that there is no communication between teams, which leads to what is happening in the actual society that we live in: the individualization of people (Tl-teams in this case). But regarding that aspect, some groups have managed to find a solution to this matter. Let’s put @Arcadeotic's (Euphemic Translation) and @oystein's (Elevator TL) groups for example; both of them have found a way to make the community feel closer to their groups thanks to their “Public Discord Server Policy” (that’s how I call it) and both of them are in the TL Leaders Discord Server (basically a group to try to unite translation teams more, an initiative from Arcadeotic and I). That group has opened my eyes in many aspects regarding team stances towards piracy as well as opinions about the community and it's relation with the Tl teams. This group has also helped me in getting to know people that otherwise I would have never met even if we were active members of this forum and interacted with each other sometimes, like for example Dergonu, Oystein, Kardororororo, and many more. What I’m ultimately trying to say is that banding together is a rare thing for groups now, and this is the first step to create a community feel again, something that, in my opinion, is being lost little by little and needs to be stopped. I’ll mention another issue that many people find itchy, and that is the topic of “the sense of entitlement of a loud minority”. I’d like to make myself very clear about this; I know that there is a silent positive majority, and that compared to the amount of people that complain about things about projects and English patches this majority vastly overcomes the “minority”, but the matter of fact is that this “loud minority” is what gives people that are new to the community a bad impression about it from the start. I’ll set two examples to demonstrate the last point I mentioned: firstly, I’d like to address the Koiken Otome Project, one that took approximately three years to finish. It’s a topic full of controversy, firstly because people firstly speculated that Flying Pantsu was going to “definitely sell out to the localization companies” and they made a ruckus about it. First of all, what if they really “sold out” to one of them? That is, in my opinion, a good thing (primarily because I belong to the “buy everything” type of guy instead of pirating unless it can’t be avoided and tend to support official releases), but mostly because, the fact of the matter is that they spent working on an English patch of a game that contains more than 40K lines three years, and the entire effort is theirs, that means that even if they decided to not release the patch for whatever reason, I would have been totally in favor. Why? Because it’s THEIR work and THEY did it, not the people that feel entitled to have the English patch. Same goes with the problem that revolved around the time of release. Again, I’ll repeat, the matter of fact is that they could’ve released that patch whenever they wanted because since THEY did the patch, they decide when to release it, simple. The second example I’ll highlight in this post talks about Shinku Translations and the controversy that revolved around the SakuSaku patch. If you don’t know what happened regarding this project I’ll quickly sum it up: Shinku Translations made a deal with Sekai Project to release the game officially, what ultimately made people who were waiting for a fan-patch very pissed. The comments on their website were mostly full of “sellouts” and “I already bought the game in Japanese, now I’ll have to buy it again, gg boys” and many more that blew my mind. That was the perfect demonstration of the entitlement that people slowly begin to have when a project is close to being finished. I’ll repeat myself once again, just like Koiken Otome and Flying Pantsu, it was THEIR work, so they had the right to make a deal with Sekai Project and do whatever they wanted to the patch. And, as Akerou explained in one of the comments, it could lead to more titles being localized, which, in my opinion, are good news! People have to start realizing that sooner or later, the entire scope if not most of the translation scope will shift towards official releases instead of fan-patches. As a last argument regarding this matter, I’ll mention a couple of YouTube comments that I found in the official OP video of SakuSaku published by Sekai Project’s YouTube channel, they basically said this: “That's a low punch SP. That's just low. The guy translating it is almost done. If you buy the translation from him and release it in the next 2 months I might forgive you. If you do it less than a month you are forgiven.” “Well just pirate the release when it comes out. This is one of the cases when piracy is completely justified.” These two comments are part of the “entitlement problem” that I’ve addressed before, and I hope they highlight what I’ve been trying to tackle (take into account that these comments are just the surface, just look at the ones in Shinku’s page and you’ll get a grasp of what this community broods sometimes). Last but not least, I’d like to address Fuwanovel as a platform for translation projects and my opinion about it as a Leader of a translation group (in this case, Luna Translations). Don’t get me wrong when I say that. I love Fuwanovel as a site. It’s one of the principal, if not the main responsible for the appearance of a community that revolves around Visual Novels in general. I love this site, and I appreciate the people that back this site paying monthly (I hope I can do it as well when I get the chance) and the mods for doing their jobs correctly and every other person that supports this site. But, I’d like to tackle the issue of trying to host translation projects in a forum-based website. I’d like to point out that the system created in Fuwa worked very VERY well at the beginning stages of the creation of this community. Basically, the “Fan Translator Skills” thread and the “Translation Projects” thread were probably very useful and effective back when the community was niche and not a lot of projects and teams crowded the scene (I’m not directing this towards the “Fan TL Discussion” thread, by the way). But, as a leader of a translation team (and I’m sure that many people will agree with me on this) I just think that Fuwa’s way of hosting projects is not as effective as it was probably two or three years ago. What I’m trying to say here is that, just like VNDB exists, a platform that focuses solely on helping teams and individuals to work on projects will certainly appear at some point, or at least needs to appear at some point. Summing up, Fuwanovel as a forum focused on the discussion of Visual Novels and the fan translation scene is a very good and positive website, and it’s totally needed for the community to keep growing, but! Fuwanovel (the forums) used as a platform to support projects and teams may have been very effective in the past but not anymore, since now the scope is very broad and more complex compared to when all of this started. Finally, to close this rant, I’d like to say that if I had to sum up things probably the most important issue would be that the community is losing the sense of being together, and groups, as well as individuals, are distancing themselves from each other, which is something that has to be avoided at all costs. I’ll personally try to do whatever I can about this matter and little by little this problem will hopefully be solved in the future, because together we can do great things. Let’s try to make the translation world great again, as Trump as it sounds.
    2 points
  8. sevencamelot

    Rewrite

    Man am I the only one that liked Kotori? I love her personality. Plus her route was the best with a nice plot twist and imo had the most emotion. I know people wouldn't agree with me here, but I thought Lucia route was the worst. I might be biased also because I don't like what they did with her character. Just found it too unrealistic to just forgive her after she killed thousands of innocent people and attempted to kill the protagonist. I mean how can you just be owells about all that.
    2 points
  9. "Episode 1". ;_; I hope that trend will die before it grows.
    2 points
  10. Clephas

    Saga Planets

    As I've been playing Floral Flowlove, I've been recalling my experiences with Saga Planets. This is one of a very small group of companies that has never produced a 'complete kusoge' in my experience, and they always manage to maintain a certain level of quality, though they do their best work in VNs with a strong protagonist. Saga Planets is unusual amongst VN producers in that their games (at least in my experience) always maintain a certain baseline of quality... and in that they don't attempt to erase their protagonists' individuality. In my opinion, this company's two best games are Natsuyume Nagisa and Hatsuyuki Sakura... and these two share elements that are common to Saga Planets' best works. One is that they have stories with a certain 'ache of sorrow' to them. Another is that the moe-like surface hides a more sorrowful, sometimes bitter experience that is generally not found in most games with a moege art style. They follow a far older storytelling pattern, in that they don't try to eliminate bitter experiences and painful catharsis from the story, and this tends to benefit them immensely. More recent works, like Hanasaki Work Spring and Karumaruka Circle, have been closer to what I call 'normal charage', save in that they have strong protagonists. I'm not saying they were 'weak' (in fact, by normal charage/moege standards, they leave a bit too strong of an impression as a whole), but they do suffer in comparison to the other works I listed above. Now, coming back to the topic at hand... there is one other quality that the best Saga Planets games share... and that is there is always at least one (sometimes two or three) heroine paths that are... abortive or just immensely weak in comparison to the others. In Hatsuyuki, it was Shirokuma's path, and in Natsuyume Nagisa, it can be said that all paths other than the true one are abortions, considering the content of said path. This is a nearly unavoidable aspect of what I sometimes refer to as a 'story-focused VN'. For better or worse, there is almost always a true/main heroine in these games, and it is hers and the protagonist's story that are most important. Other heroines are frequently given less of an impact or the true heroine has an immense impact even on other heroine paths, as she is just so central to the game as a whole. This can be somewhat frustrating if you happen to like/love the heroine in question, but it is just one of the prices of reading a great story, sometimes. Edit: The above kind of ignores the 'side-trips' the company took into other genres early on, lol. Edit2: As an example of a heroine that some of the people here might be familiar with whose impact on the other paths in the VN is pretty obvious, Kagome from Comyu is a rather obvious example, as is Suzu in Ayakashibito. To be blunt, there is not a single path in either game where either of those heroines is separated from the protagonist, making it rather obvious to anyone who played any of the paths in the game who they were 'supposed to' love the most, hahaha.
    2 points
  11. @sanahtlig You should be Fuwanovels official journalist with a main page slot . You're always putting up interesting Vn related news topics . Well i guess you got your blog for your own writings, though it'll be good promotion right?
    2 points
  12. Limerence_

    Rewrite

    I loved Lucia's route the most too. Maybe it was because the romance in her route was most prominent.
    2 points
  13. akaritan

    In search of vns

    Maybe give Planetarian a shot. It's a short tearjerker by key.
    2 points
  14. http://sketchtoy.com/67346559 It's pretty mutilated, but oh well.
    2 points
  15. It finally had come to this. http://plamoya.com/en/travel-cat-p-98316.html Apparently, Plamoya has currently an ongoing sale with 16% off the original price; it's quite a bit, considering we're talking about an over 2 year old figure, which had a re-run and somehow still remains in circulation. Regardless, I'd still have to fork almost all of my spare monthly cash (I'd otherwise waste on other meaningless stuff anyway), which makes me wonder - is it truly worth it? Or perhaps, should I postpone it for a bit longer, in hopes it won't suddenly disappear again and get an even more interesting deal? That aside, there's one person on mfc, currently selling his for 70$, which is used but in perfect condition. It would still have to travel all the way from Minessota, but that's definitely a cheaper deal, considering the shipping costs, which skyrocketed lately in terms of anything sent to EU. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, guys and gals
    1 point
  16. DarkZedge

    Looking for next vn

    It's Jill from VA-11 HALL-A an amazing vn and an amazing character.
    1 point
  17. After reading for 3 days straight I finished Ever17. It's one of those VNs which I start to read and suddenly it's 1 am and I notice that I've been reading for 4-5 hours straight. First thing that I noticed was that it doesn't waste my time. I started reading and in less than an hour, BAM you're trapped. Enjoy! There is no long and boring common route story for the characters which can sometimes kill a VN's enjoyment for me. The story captures you and doesn't let you go until the end. Another thing that I really liked were the philosophical questions. It reminded me of how much I loved Ghost in the Shell's philosophical aspect. I enjoyed Sora's route the most, maybe it's because of the VA Hiroko Kasahara (Phorni from Symphonic Rain). Overall Ever17 was a great read and it's been a while since I enjoyed reading through a VN without getting bored. As for my next read... I guess I'll give Canvas 2 a try.
    1 point
  18. Barktooth

    Rewrite

    I did really like Kotori in the common route, she was probably my favorite character. But her route didn't impress me much for some reason, maybe it's because it was kind of like the introduction to the whole conflict between Gaia and Guardian. And I do agree forgiving Lucia for that is kind of ridiculous, but it still didn't ruin the route for me.
    1 point
  19. https://twitter.com/_RukaNep/status/763820894628098048
    1 point
  20. They must know, just look at that neon sign
    1 point
  21. Nutaku has a long history of undisclosed censorship, but this is surprisingly little known among eroge fans. DMCA abuses suggest a deliberate cover-up. Nutaku caught abusing DMCA takedowns to censor evidence of censorship Fuwanovel forum thread
    1 point
  22. So much right now.
    1 point
  23. No. Figurines are manifestations of bourgeois capitalist greed. The clothes are removable, though, so maybe.
    1 point
  24. castor212

    Rewrite

    Akane I admit theres a huge seiyuu factor going on tho
    1 point
  25. Barktooth

    Rewrite

    I also liked Chihaya the least out of the main cast but really enjoyed her route. It wasn't my favorite though, that would probably have to be Akane's. Lucia's is a close second, that scene in the church where Kotarou hugs her hit me right in the feels.
    1 point
  26. All figurines are cancer, but if you want it, go for it
    1 point
  27. Decay

    Rewrite

    Favorite character was Chihaya, least favorite route was Chihaya, funny how that works out. Actually, I've seen a LOT of similar opinions so I don't think I'm the crazy one here. I think my favorite was Akane's, I really enjoyed the darker and more serious tone to it.
    1 point
  28. http://miyuli.tumblr.com/ http://miyuli.tumblr.com/heartsforsale http://hivemill.com/collections/lost-nightmare PS: The comic was published free by the author.
    1 point
  29. Welcome to the community :3
    1 point
  30. RimiNishijou

    Ave

    Welcome~ Welcome~
    1 point
  31. havoc

    Looking for next vn

    Here are some recommendations from me, fate/stay night Tsukihime Utawarerumono Grisaia Muv-Luv series, First game is not great, second game is acceptable and third game is great. (link is to the third game)
    1 point
  32. DarkZedge

    Along comes Ethos

    Welcome to Fuwa, nice to see you're trying to be more active in the forums. Best of luck.
    1 point
  33. shadowolf64

    Along comes Ethos

    Hello! Nice to meet you. Hope to see you around the forums!
    1 point
  34. Limerence_

    In search of vns

    You may want to try Ef: A Fairy Tale of The Two. It has a similar art style to Eden (since their both by Minori) but it focuses much more on romance and drama. Do you have any preferred genres?
    1 point
  35. akaritan

    VN pictionary

    Yup, you got it .
    1 point
  36. SCG_1037

    VN pictionary

    it is the maid from the house of fata morgana (https://vndb.org/c45457) , am i right ?
    1 point
  37. Fred the Barber

    True or False

    Gonna go hack Fuwa, make this the default avatar, then come back and edit this response to "true", brb Next person likes squid.
    1 point
  38. https://twitter.com/nagi_37se/status/763292766990323712
    1 point
  39. Deep Blue

    VN pictionary

    It's pretty good but there is something there that doesn't quite fit.... why does she has that little beard there??? D: D;
    1 point
  40. Funyarinpa

    Looking for next vn

    Sorry, since it's quite a weird VN, but Umineko No Naku Koro Ni is an amazing although insanely long VN. It's about a rich family that is gathering on a family mansion on an island, but is stranded there for two days due to a typhoon- it starts off as murder mystery and goes insane, wonderful, beautiful places.
    1 point
  41. Not too much of interest was revealed IMO, and sometimes that was the fault of the questions and sometimes the answers were vague and didn't actually reveal anything. I do note /VNTS/ was going berserk with anti-Sekai and anti-Herkz cheering. Watching the reactions was almost of more interest than reading the actual answers supplied.
    1 point
  42. Barktooth

    Fuwanovel Confessions

    LOL, I would be 110% more stressed if I knew I was in possession of illegal substances, so no thanks But hey, hmm.. I could probably get an Adderall prescription and sell it to people....
    1 point
  43. I'm actually really anxious about having to go to college soon too. No idea what I want to study and I can only imagine how much stress it will bring compared to my peaceful NEET life... Good luck man, and congrats on moving forward in life.
    1 point
  44. SCG_1037

    VN pictionary

    This is the reason i did not go to a art university http://sketchtoy.com/67344499
    1 point
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