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Gao Gao! 3rd ~Wild Force~ is the only masterpiece of the month. 1. Resurrect リザレクト [941007] Lunar Soft Hero dies in the introduction. However, if he is loved by four women in four days, he has a chance to resurrect. One of the most difficult pc-98 games to clear. It became legendary for that. System is point and click, but game is very punishing on clicking wrong objects and on clicking some objects excessive number of times. Like, to make girl feel good, you need to click like three times on this part, no more, no less. Sometimes there was no feedback until you click some object for like 5 times. Sometimes you need to click on the area of just a few pixels and not next to it. It's a kusoge, but it spawned lots of flame and competition. Old games are sometimes just EVIL. 2. Kaiketsu Nikki 怪傑ＮＩＫＫＩ [941014] Ange 1 Nikki, the hero of the game, is a cybernetically enhanced young man from the future. His "home time" is the beginning of 22th century; his home town is the international megalopolis Shinjuku City, part of the old Tokyo. Humanity prospers, living in pleasure, relying on incredible scientific achievements. One of them is the time machine. Nikki finds out than four young, attractive school girls from 1994 got involved into some sort of trouble. Using his time machine, Nikki ventures into the past, determined to save them... and expecting a lot of... err... gratitude in return! Ange games... they are weird, clumsy, but unique in stories and heartwarming. So you need to evade the pursuit of time-travel regulation bureau and find diaries in girls rooms. Searching in the rooms is done in point and click manner and is very frustrating with systems. When entries leading to bad future are found you've got three different options of changing them - and they lead to different endings. So not a great game, but somehow it feels nice. 3. Jikuu Sousakan Pretty Angel Misty Flash 時空捜査官プリティーエンジェル ミスティフラッシュ [941014] Peppermint Kids A group of patroller trainees from the time travel academy are despatched to the 1990s in order to hunt renegade time travellers who try to change history. The story segments end very fast, and there are only countless card battles ahead. There's a bit of a comedy, but overall can hardly be recommended. 4. Rall 3 Kakuseihen ラル３ 覚醒編 [941017] Fairy Dust 1 2 3 CARON (heroine), a legendary swordsman's posterity, challenges the battle with the cruel monster GEBALZO of the new empire SHADOW, in order to save RUBYNA (the princess of RALL) confined. This game is based on the adult anime in "Superdimension SF Legend Rall" (1984) As for the animation of "Superdimension SF Legend Rall", the part 1 and the part 2(="Lamu Ru Strikes Back" 1986) were made. This game was named "RALL 3" being conscious of those anime series. However, the contents of this game are the remakes of the first anime (part 1). "kakusei-hen" of a subtitle means "awakening" in Japanese. And the ending of this game had the preliminary announcement of a sequel ("betsuri-hen"). However, the sequel is not put on the market until it continues up to now. There is a Polish and a Russian review of this game. 5. Tonight トゥナイト [941018] Xyz A monster "No. 36" landed in Tokyo and heads for America. A preventive nuclear strike is planned so Japan needs to get rid of the monster as soon as possible. Three friends take up different approaches to deal with this situation. There are three stories linked with the same preamble. Humor, eroticism, love and friends reunion - it's all thrown in the pot together to get get a fascinating omnibus work. What I especially appreciated here is that the story looks more like contemporary novelge with big backgrounds and lots of text with occasional choices selection. 6. Custom Mate 2 カスタムメイト２ [941021] Cocktail Soft 1 The second game in the Custom Mate series once again allows the hero to create the girl of his dreams; this time not magically, but by engaging the services of Custom Corporation, whose operator is nevertheless still the same cute elf who created the girls in the previous game. Creation, talking and seduction processes are all improved here, but heroines look quite ugly to me and the whole SIM concept is alien to me. 7. Charm 2 ~Niji-iro no Kaze~ シャルム２ ~虹色の風~ [941028] Acid Plan A collection of five stories from everyday life of different girls with the name of Eriko. All the story are of erotic, mostly yuri content. Creators did not even bother to save the same protagonist for each story - but introduced multiple ones with the same name... The picture improved greatly, but the "charm" of the sad youth story is gone now - it's more like series of normal yuri encounters now. 8. Gakuen Taimaden Reiko 学園退魔伝レイコ [941028] Trush In order to investigate an incident happened at a girl's school the heroine transfers there as a student. Upon arrival she feels being watched and the only student she meets runs away from her in fear... System is command selection and it's chosen to cover the shortness of the game. There are five H scenes and a fast resolution in the end 9. Gao Gao! 3rd ~Wild Force~ ＧＡＯＧＡＯ！３ｒｄ ~ワイルドフォース~ [941029] Four-Nine 1 2 Wild Force is set in the same post-apocalyptic world as the previous entry in the GaoGao series. A virus turned most of the Earth's population into mutants, and human beings continued living in artificial cities, separated from the rest of the world. This time, the story is seen from the point of view of the mutants themselves (the previous GaoGao games had human protagonists). These look more like fairy tale creatures (half-cats, winged people, etc.), and continue living on the wild, dangerous Earth, keeping close to their respective animal tribes. The protagonist of the game is a young boy named Wolf, who belongs - you've guessed it - to the wolf tribe. One day, exploring the wilderness, he stumbles upon a strange cave with lurking monsters. Together with a girl from the rabbit tribe and other fantasy creatures, Wolf discovers an advanced civilization, learn of the existence of human beings, and eventually becomes a hero who saves the new world from a grave danger. A masterpiece level work at last and 4th part even better. These works are the reasons for part 1 and 2 to be tolerated (or skipped - they are perfectly safe to skip). This work stands out as it was the first adventure work to put emphasis on relations within a party and not on story or exploration. Our wolf boy meets bunny girl and many other charming characters and they interact and grow together as persons and partners. Events take place 100 years after part 2 in an evolved world so no real need to know the previous part. Game loses a few points since it still uses command selection formula that's simplified from part 2, but still gives a monotonous feeling. But it excels in every other compartment - sound, visuals, text. Thanks to a strong affection for characters, this work feels unique from all the previous pc-98 games. 10. Bell's Avenue 3 ベルズアベニュー３ [941031] Signa Works A collection of three main stories and several short kinetic stories: 1. 小犬のワルツ 2. クレセント 3. まんだら 4. Forum 5. BA散歩 6. 月夜物語 7. minimum hour It's not clear how many stories there are this time since there are even more supplementary materials in the game menu, but the gist of the stories remains the same ero-centered as ever.

Yeah, my bad.

If you liked Majikoi's style maybe Koiken Otome could fit your criteria. Chusingura is also a good option if you like Edo Period samurais and stuff.

I searched that name on VNDB but the closest thing it could find was this Ikinari Anata ni Koishiteiru is this what you meant?

Lamunation Baka Moe Heart

Hi everyone . Once again, I want to share a Last Birdling related post, but to make things fairer, we can turn this more into a general VN discussion. When I love a VN (999, Narcissu, Ever17 etc), I want to also pick up its artbook, though truth be told, this has become less of a necessity over the years. CGs of popular games are readily available online, and while it is nice to have those illustrations in print, physical space is limited. There are, however, still plenty of things that will draw my interest, as I have seen in several artbooks I own: - Interviews with developers (admittedly a struggle since they are usually in Japanese) - Fanart - Results for character popularity polls etc - 4koma (common with Narcissu related books) - Production sketches I am not too interested in character summaries or in-game walkthroughs. By the time I pick up the book, I have already completed the game anyway. At any rate, is there anything else you can think of? I would love to know. In particular, maybe things that you have never seen in a VN artbook, and you think, "Why don't they ever do this?" Here is my artbook preview post on The Last Birdling. It contains all the history, mistakes and lessons I have learned through the past five years: Thank you !

I like it when in between there are random interviews with the staff talking about baseball or some other topic completely unrelated to the game.

Like @Chronopolis already mentioned, what's really interesting is usually artist's own vision; most of them are usually tasked with specific workload and they are rarely given complete freedom over the project (although it happens, this is when we usually get really great art that feels like an extension of the game). That said, anything from additional information about particular elements, from characters to backgrounds (aka locations) is worth having, especially if we're dealing with creative people. What I love the most are typically works in progress, showing the drawing's evolution - from design and early roughs to complete artwork.

I like having the original sketches, and the in-progress or concept art. Like you guys said, the original cg isn't that hard to get. Anything setting related is nice too. I imagine the artist has their own ideas of the setting and characters, esp. if they were the ones who did the char. design.

I'd love to see more art books go in-depth about character costumes. I want head-to-toe shots, plus close-ups of important details, for every costume. Basically, give me the originally character design sheets.

Go read Symphonic Rain instead. You'll thank me later.

In the forgotten depths of Visual Novel Talk I found this. I feel a need to post here because the OP reminded me of the reason why I love Visual Novels and continue to engage in the medium. The first Visual Novel I had a deep emotional connection with was Yume Miru Kusuri. I remember distinctly, around 4 years ago during winter vacation was when I read Yume Miru Kusuri. The music from the title screen was what originally hooked me. I knew absolutely nothing prior to reading the VN other than the fact that the title music sounded tranquil but uneasy, much like my life was. I started the journey of Kouhei Kagami's life in my bed with my laptop, shortly after waking up. Within the first couple of minutes I was hooked. The opening scene continued with a different yet equally mellow track that resonated perfectly with the monotony of Kouhei's life. Kouhei was a diligent and obedient straight-A student, but was bored with his life. He observed his life and his surroundings while internally making witty and intelligent analogies. What I quickly realized was that Kouhei was me. He led a passive existence by avoiding trouble and doing what he was told, but consequently was leading a meaningless life. When Kouhei meets each of the three heroines, an opportunity presents itself to stray away from the conventional. An opportunity for Kouhei to find himself through another person. Mizuki for one, represents a path of hedonism. She is in the same situation as Kouhei, but unlike him, she is actively trying to find excitement in life. She offers the choices to live life to its fullest and in the most reckless fashion; instead of continuing to live life in its most mediocre possible way. The "Fairy" girl whose route I have not read actually, seems to represent something similar. But I can't elaborate since I don't know her story. Anyway the other girl is Aeka. Aeka was the girl who I first chose. Unlike Mizuki who offered excessive escapism and hedonism as a choice to lead a different life, Aeka presented the option of living a meaningful life with care and love. What's more, the struggles they couple faced were huge. I could not put the story down, and when I finally got the good ending to her route, I realized that I spent over 15 hours in my bed in front of a screen. When I turned off my laptop and prepared for bed, I felt so apathetic. During that time I didn't care about my life, my mind was still too preoccupied with the story I just read. It ended up taking days to soak in that story. I spent the remainder of my vacation playing arcade classics like Pac-man and Donkey-Kong. I needed to further absorb the experience, but I needed a partial distraction for my mind as well. Some might say that I wasted those days; mindlessly playing video games while contemplating my emotions over a story, but I would strongly disagree. Sure, I felt nearly depressed after Aeka's story, but that was because it made me reflect on my own life as well. As I said earlier, I myself was frustrated over the meaninglessness of my life much like Kouhei was at the beginning of the story. On top of that, it got me to think about the bullying at my school. Much like Kouhei, I played a completely passive role and avoided associating with bully victims, and sucked up to the bullies. That worked well for me, but I was starting to question that my lack of involvement was almost just as bad. Ultimately, Yume Miru Kusuri left a mark on me. The emotions and thoughts it made me experience was something that I liked. In a weird way, the style in which the story immersed me though good writing, music and visuals; gave me a sense of meaning. When I was reading and clicking for the next set of words to appear, I was genuinely experiencing something that was powerful. Nothing else had really affected me like that before. The Kanon 2006 anime kind of did, but not in the same way. In any case, I knew from then onward that I had to further explore the medium of visual novels. I've since had many pleasant experiences with visual novels but the most emotional experience that I remember since then was reading Symphonic Rain. When I have time in the near future, I intend on writing about my emotional experience with Symohonic Rain in another post. (Sorry for the long post. I personally love long thought out posts, so I know other people must as well. But I am also aware that many people don't).