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One of the single biggest elements of most VNs in existence is slice-of-life. This entire post is based on this fact, and it isn't one that can seriously be argued against by anyone who has read more than a hundred VNs. So what is slice-of-life? With VNs, it is a type of scene where bits and pieces of daily life, without any particular conflict, are portrayed. These can be humorous, mildly touching, or informative. So what is the value of slice-of-life as a tool for storytelling? For one thing, it provides an opportunity to portray and develop the characters in their most 'natural' setting. Do you want to know what a character is like in peaceful times? Slice-of-life scenes are generally the tool used. Do you want to slowly develop a mild romance between two characters? Then slice-of-life is your friend. In this sense, slice-of-life is a highly valuable tool. While extreme scenes, such as violent scenes or ones with psychological or intellectual conflict, are also valuable for developing characters and their relationships, it is the slice-of-life scenes that form the skeleton to which the conflict and/or drama adds flesh later on. However, the problem with slice-of-life is that it is basically an exclusion of extremity. It is difficult - virtually impossible - to give flesh to a character with only slice-of-life. For better or worse, people bare their true strength and value (or weakness and uselessness) in situations where they are being tested by circumstance or opposition (whether intense or mild). This applies to VN characters, as well. Slice-of-life is your friend... unless that's all there is. Sadly, a lot of writers make the mistake of thinking otherwise. I can't count how many VNs I've experienced that make this mistake, to one extent or another. Slice-of-life as a tool is a valuable friend and ally... but as the sole tool for constructing a story, it falls pathetically short all too often. Edit: Understand, I came to these conclusions as a result of playing numerous VNs that made that particular mistake... and I'm including 'standard Vn romance' as slice-of-life. Romance is something I'll touch on separately in the next entry.

In case you didn't know, vndb is a database, you don't download games from it, you merely use it to find information on visual novels.

It's happening for, erm, at least three years already, I believe. It started around the time Killzone Mercenary came out and still pretty much untrue, but we live in the age of hatred so everyone outside the actual vita fanbase gets a kick out of bashing it, which is nothing new. It is indeed long "dead" in regards of big mainstream AAA titles but that doesn't have anything to do with us perverts who play weird weeaboo games. And... I'm not quite sure why we are talking about KB Otome here? Japanese publishers usually go with someone like Aksys for that kind of games to print physical copies and have a decent marketing but Aksys are a bit busy with lots of other vita otomes atm. Plus it's pretty much the first try for Spike Chunsoft to publish something completely on their own in the west, it's understandable why they wouldn't use something like KBO for their debut.

Not really my cup of tea. For real life actors I somehow prefer a real movie or television show. A VN is kind of... art for me - I just enjoy the feeling of diving into a 'fictional' fantasy world. I'm fine with Japanese or western art, but it has to be drawn art for me.

Wow Eclipsed, I didn't know you played D&D.

What the hell... This is the reason I felt uneasy buying Chrono Clock from them. How do I know they didn't pull something stupid in that game as well. Why host/ sell games with rape, if they themselves say they aren't allowed to do so and have to censor the damn things? What a stupid way to run a business.

Sound like a doujin, google detective doujin manga or something like that.

I ended up paying full Samsung price for my UHD TV, because the more I researched it, the more I found that the budget grade TVs had yet to reach true UHD (most were faking it or looked worse than 1080p). If you don't have a spare thousand to twelve-hundred dollars lined up, it isn't a good idea to go shopping for UHD at this point. Edit: the problem seems to be that no one has set a near-universal standard for UHD yet, and as a result, the generic brands are basically faking it...