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With Halloween fast approaching, we thought it'd be fun to create a list of VNs that fit the season on the Fuwanovel VN rec site. We're creating a list of suggestions and we'd be interested in any ideas anyone has, but we're also interested in the communities' collective opinion and put up a VN poll asking which VNs you think are the spookiest~ The poll is going to be up until the end of the week, with the results posted this Friday evening.

You said it yourself, you cant please everybody and people will look for things to bring you down with. Screw industry standards. they get paid to work excessively on the translation, you dont. And the awesome thing about being a fan tl group is that at the end of the day you dont answer to anybody outside the group. Keep that in mind. Its always good to listen to contructive critisism and advice of course without feeling insulted and throwing a tantrum, but the obnoxious ones should be ignored.

it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to not be terrible if anything. People here needs a serious reality check with this literature phd requirement to translate a vn. Especially if it's a fan tl group who spends their free time translating because they enjoy it and doing you a serious favour in the process. You will get a handful of people whining about a sentence being written a bit differently than how it actually is in Japanese or complain about some typos here and there, but then you have the silent masses who enjoy the translation and is overjoyed that they can finally read a vn that will 99% sure never see an official translation. And who's to say an official translation would be any better? I see plenty wrong with super delayed official releases. Mistakes so obvious that it makes me not believe all those checks and rechecks actually took place. But for a fan tl it doesn't bother me one bit as i appreciate the time and work being done.

Being a part of a fan-tl, I can tell you first hand what I have an issue with. I have no experience working in a VN company, so I cannot speak for them. To be honest, I welcome any criticism to our project. The problem is when people shit on your work and then going and say "well it's your work" and then proceed to tell you to work on English/Japanese. That effectively stalls a project for months and months, which is why you're seeing a lot of fan-tls stall. Unlike when fan-tls first time into play, criticism is much more prevalent because of a "set" of rules and expectations set by the industry and the individuals that work within it. So now do you not only have less fan-tls because of them being merged into companies, you have people becoming demoralized and trying to learn a language, which that in itself isn't bad. When you drill into somebody new that it needs to be "perfect", that's when problems come up. It can be very overwhelming to new people, causing them to write mistake after mistake or slow/stall their TLs/edits to a crawl in fear of looking bad. Logically, it's better to come back to it later when you know the language better to "save face", but people have lives and what might have been a completed TL with some mistakes is now an indefinitely stalled TL. I feel it would only be fair to have the same standards that were set in place when fan-TLs first started. Currently, the only people that are learning are those that have already learned from the mistakes years ago before people became more critical of people's work. New TLs/editors are actively being discouraged because of the hypocrisy that the community in general is showing. Expecting a good tl and then telling them to learn it themselves is a horrible message to give off, especially if most of the people in current projects learned by doing, rather than researching. In all honesty, *WE* are the reason fan TLs are dying. There's a major experience gap between people who have done this for years and those that are just starting out and people aren't willing to personally mentor or become more active in current projects to share what they've learned from the mistakes they've made in the past and instead say they're shit, writing stuff in Japanese to make fun of them so people who are just starting out can't read it and only a joke that "experienced" people would get or just putting people down, saying that they'll help them if they "get better" (which makes no sense and goes back to the perfection piece I mentioned earlier).

Context: a guy I met on Fuwa’s discord was told to end the TL for “his own good” and the translation team did not like him for his one too many jokes. After talking about it with the guy, I realized something. In the anime, manga, Japanese video game worlds, there’s nobody arguing over the purity of a translation, even weirder this doesn’t happen in the Light Novel world either. Light Novels are 100% text, but when translations come, nobody gets into arguments about whose translation is better or whatever. It’s the weirdest thing. Why in the VN community do have such a purity spiral for translation? None of the other mediums of Japanese entertainment have this issue even though they all need to be translated. Even when there’s an official release of a VN, all the fan translaters loose their damn minds. Like... why? I doubt our brothers from the land of the rising sun have such fervor when they translate EVNs. I think this snobby attitude over translation needs to stop because we’re not going to ever make a “perfect” translation because translation itself is a art not a science. Personally, look I thought about this before: I am going to bite the bullet and say: I rather read a bad translation than to never get a translation at all. With a bad translation, people can see how it’s bad and someone could make it better. I understand that people really care about doing their best, but there’s so many kamiges out there that will remain untranslated. The VN fandom is growing, but we’re nowhere near anime levels of mainstream thought, and I think this stupid purity spiral regarding visual novel translations is one of the main reasons why.

Finished Hapymaher and it was a bit of a so-so experience. Not exactly unexpected though, considering Chrono Clock had its fair share of problems too. But the first half of Hapymaher was actually pretty good. The dream world scenes had a sense of mystery and danger, while the real world scenes were more light and slice of life oriented. The iteration between both worlds was decently paced and kept things interesting without neglecting the lighter moe parts. And the heroines were not only very likable, but also contributing to the plot, with Maia being the highlight as the mischievous loli-villain of the dream world. Until that point the VN was scratching on an 8 rating in my book. Unfortunately, the second half couldn't keep up wih that quality. The VN teases Alice in Wonderland in the first half, and just when you're about to tumble down the rabbit hole and experience a world of wonder and mysteries... you get stuck in the entrance and can't move forth or back anymore. This was just about the time when the endless dream starts with the party, christmas and gender-change events. Instead of giving you an interesting sub-plot in a fascinating meta world, the VN just throws the whole plot overboard and tortures you with slice-of-life and bogus events of almost unparalleled boredom. I had to heavily abuse the skip button to make it through that mess with a healthy mind. And the routes weren't much better. Yayoi's didn't fit at all to her personality, Maia's did barely exist and Alice had so many personality changes in her route that I hardly knew who she was at the end. Saki's was probably the 'less worst' since it at least followed the main plot around Maia, but the revelations were still very minor. And the so called true-route was just the continuation of Alice's apruptly ending half-route. Still enough to ridicule all other routes, including the actual main plot around Maia and let you end up with a girl you hardly know or care about. So yeah, the plot was certainly not developing the way I wanted. The VN has still some rather good points. The heroines are all very likable, especially Yayoi, Maia and Alice. Saki was the only one that didn't really click with me. She was a bit of a bitch and I didn't like her voice that much. In contrast to her Maia was just fantastic. Hapymaher was good when she was on the screen and unfortunately she didn't have much screen time in the second half. Her seiyuu also did a marvelous job in making her mischievous, dramatic and mysterious. And Yayoi was just gorgeous. The art is certainly one of the strongest points of the VN - it's certainly one of the most pretty VN's I know. The music is also pretty decent, offering good tracks for both slice of life and dramatic scenes, even if the tracks get a bit repetitive after a while. Heroine rating: Yayoi = Maia > Alice > Keiko >> Saki Overall rating: 7/10 (The plot certainly wouldn't justify that rating, but it gets lots of bonus points for art, music and heroines) Some personal observations: I played Hapymaher at the same time like Fatal Twelve and it gave me some comparison material why HapyMaher's plot failed and the one of Fatal Twelve succeeded. Fatal Twelve has about 15 character sprites, 60 event CG's and lots of background locations just for the plot and it's a medium length VN. HapyMaher has just about 10 character sprites, and despite its 75 event CG's only 20 - 30 are relevant to the plot - the rest are H-scenes. There's also a severe lack of background locations with almost the whole dream world consisting of 'plantified' real world locations. Add to that a long length VN and it's getting clear why it's difficult to make a good story out of that. Although the H-scenes in Hapymaher are certainly gorgeous, they sacrificed too much for it.

Now, it isn't entirely the companies and community's fault either. There's also those people with low self esteem who take constructive criticism as shit talking. NOBODY would spend an hour on a post unless they either hated somebody or genuinely want to help, regardless of why they would. Those that can't take constructive criticism have to accept that it's part of learning and if there's any help and knowledge to be gained. If anything will speed up learning more than looking at books, it's constructive criticism on your own work. Doesn't mean you have to go re-writing and re-translating the entire script or that it has to be perfect. That takes months and months and can kill projects. Yes, this makes it imperfect and puts the quality lower than an official TL. Here's the thing: does it still read well and get the meaning and characterization across? If so, you've done your job. People who know Japanese and English are the toughest critics, and it's understandable. But there's a fine line being being helpful and demoralizing the team. I've seen so much destructive criticism from outside our project not for translation errors, but because they prefer literal over liberal, or something that's related more to preference. I trust my TL to do what he needs to do, and that could be why our project is still alive. He's come back after 2 years and is re-TLing it and he's actually pretty good with idioms and English. I encourage him to write liberally as I correct him or use more appropriate words. It's pretty interesting tbh how far we've come since our starting point two years ago. Some people like it more, some people like it less. But there's no doubt in my mind he's gotten better, and I also feel that I can match his expectations as the editor. If other people feel differently, then that's understandable. But that's life, and if people want to help, I'll listen. If people don't, then there's no point in listening. It's why I'm usually not demoralized, yet continue to learn what I need to for the team. Also, it's a bit idiotic to use destructive criticism on a TL. Giving resources to help get better doesn't count as constructive either because of how overwhelming it can be learning English from textbooks, as well as some people learn more by doing rather than researching and studying. You lose TLs that way, and that's one of the ways projects can die.Take some time away from what you're doing and help out. They'll probably make the same mistakes over and over again, but that's learning and expecting people to pick up what others are saying right off the bat is ridiculous and unfair. Therefore, it's everyone's fault. Sure, there's some blame that should be placed more on others, but people also have to be able to take criticism, since there's people out there with patience who *are* actively trying to help and are pushed aside due to fear of destructive criticism from them. Some people are also truly stubborn and just don't want help, which can't really be helped by anyone. You gotta accept help in order to be helped, after all. It's just a big mess in general and there's so many ways you can look at it. My opinion is very unpopular though among certain individuals, but I consider it the reality we live in. There's so many other things I can say about this topic, but I'll save it for another day

Yeah, sadly. I really liked how this VN did the introductory chapters, but at the Christmas chapter the story gets completely random and loses any real momentum, and it never picks it up even in the character routes. I feel, if it continued the same story model it used in the first four chapters for the later ones, it could easily become a masterpiece, but, unfortunately, in the end it's just above average. I actually agree with the most points in your review. I guess, my character rating would be a bit different. I liked Keiko, mostly because I found her character the most relatable to me personally. I liked Yayoi before I reached her route, but you can probably guess why exactly I stopped liking her after that. Overall, I gave this VN 7/10 as the final rating, but it's definitely not the strongest VN with this rating in my list. Also,

The day a fan tl group selects something other than a regular moege and chooses something people have hyped up and have waited for for a long time to play, then i suspect you'll get quite the following. You can have a masters degree in both japanese and english and people will still complain. But this is how the world is. Cant do anything about that. Too bad about the translator though. I'm sure ambitions have been the death of many groups and translations. Both finished and unfinished. Important that everyone is on the same wavelength or drama and disolvement will likely happen.

How about Root Double ?? I think it fits the halloween requirement.

That's a good idea, though you have to be careful. Dem localization companies might hit you with a Cease & Desist if they find out you're doing another variant of what Kiririri is doing. He is a well-renown translator in multiple companies. One of the biggest guys around. Even bigger than Moogy. If we are going to make a different varient, we should release it anonymously to avoid a C&D using a VPN. We got dis boys. Sharing is caring, after all. People have forgotten how to share, so it's important to remind them.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure yet how much of an untranslated section we'll have, but I'll keep Sayonara o Oshiete in mind if we do. Killer Queen was a pretty fun Battle Royale, I just wish the improved remake Secret Game got a translation.

I need a new link for "Maitetsu 18+ Restoration & Bandaid Removal" FAKKU ver. I want to remove the bandaid.

"Roses are blue, violets are red, I have to go to the bathroom." - Rough translation

I suppose, because they are from the same company. What about Killer Queen -maybe this nots exactly creepy one- (VNDB) or Sayonara o Oshiete (VNDB) (I love the Opening remix). I do not know about more visual horror novels. Srry.

What about this VN. It also has a animation. I did not read it completely, but does it have that 'creepy' theme? Spoiler image : Here.

So, I just spent 5 hours over the last two days doing nothing other than labbing Fureraba. My findings: - 1. getting flags with the girls through questioning isn't that important, because they can't progress past a certain point unless they hit a day in the calendar to have their phase-switching event on. For almost all of them, it's Saturday or Sunday. That means getting max affinity with a girl on monday makes it pointless for you to talk to her more that week, since the event has to happen before you can get new affinity points in the next phase - 2. it's not possible to get all four girls to phase 4 and ready to confess. There simply aren't enough Saturdays for all the events to happen before the timer runs out (Each girl has four events and Misaki has an additional one, and she also can't be spoken to during the first two weeks). You can however max out three girls with some days to spare. - 3. Getting two girls to stage 3 will trigger little scenes of them getting jealous of one another and unlock some additional dialogue during common route scenes. This applies to all girls except Misaki and if you have all three of the others on stage 3, you will see all the scenes (they don't override each other). These scenes are also not day-based like the character events, so they can happen early or late. That's it. If someone is wondering why I went and crammed through the common route 8+ times with the skip button for a title I finished around a year ago: ¯\__/¯

Crimson Gray is a pretty creepy vn that could go on that list. Enigma could also be on this list since many of the endings are just real dark man. Honestly, none of the vns that I played on this list have actually scared me. I have felt very tense while playing them though, especially some parts of Kara No Shoujo.

That's because you're on the Time Chart Menu. Click on a random block (as in get into the game itself) and do the "fn +F1" thing.

I don't think it's that toxic here on Fuwa compared to elsewhere. I have seen statements like "ïf you aren't able to read the VN the way you are intended to read it, you have no business reading VNs" (essentially banning all translations). "VNs should all be rewritten to adapt into American culture because people don't get Japanese culture. Also non-Americans shouldn't read VNs if they can't accept American culture everywhere". "Doki should be banned from releasing anime subs. They use British English, which is unacceptable". Fuwa bashing tend to be based closer to facts in the translations and generally more reasonable. If you release something, which breaks immersion and general readability, you essentially ruin the VN. People rightfully get upset when they pay for what should be a masterpiece and it's worse than just garbage: not only isn't it enjoyable, it spoils reading the VN in Japanese as well, meaning for a number of VN readers (the people who are most into VNs), reading the translation is much worse than not reading it. If you use a machine translation yourself, you know what you get (or should know). If you pay a human to do a proper job, you want a proper job. That is essentially what the translation bashing on Fuwa is all about.

Yeah, I didn't include this on my thing because I've only tried to read it once or twice as opposed to a great many of times but that's another one I struggled with. Then again I tend to have a bit more difficulty with any visual novel of the sort with a dude surrounded by girls and no other men, even if they are just throw away characters. The entire setting of Grisaia just wasn't for me but I know people love it so it may become one of those I try again and again in the future.

YU-NO I've heard fantastic things about this visual novel, and have attempted to play it more than once - but every time I try it kinda drop it midway because the system is infuriating, and the art is pretty old. That said, apparently there's a remake coming soon, so there's that. Steins;Gate, CLANNAD Now before you raise pitchforks and torches to burn me at the stake, let me explain. Apparently these few VNs had a pretty good anime adaptations (some of the best, actually), and because of that, most of the twists are already spoiled for me, and I don't get any interest playing it. My policy now is that if an anime has a VN counterpart, I will always play it first, or wait for it to be translated, unless there is beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will ever be translated. SubaHibi I've also heard great things about this, but seriously, the first chapter really turned me off, and while the second and third chapter had its moments, I really need to get into the mood to enjoy this series. Also, because its seriously weird (in a good way, though weirdness need some time to get used to). I will eventually finish this... someday. Kara no Shoujo 2 The extended flashback scene was WAAAY too long, and while not bad per se, overstayed its welcome. I'm going to get back to it soon, since its Halloween and all. ... Pretty much a lot more which I've forgotten (Phenomeno, KoiNatsu Resort and Myth is some I kinda remember), these are the most memorable ones. Cross Channel is generally a slow burn and I can emphathise with dropping it because until beyond the halfway mark its seems like a weird slice-of-life and you have no idea what's going on. It gets better later though, though I must admit, the ending really left much to be desired.

Pretty much what @Plk_Lesiak said. Fan TL? I'll take whatever I can get. Official TLs? They are selling them, so they'd better be good.

I know nothing about the game, but this song sounds epic.

Congratulation for finally reaching Licia's arc there (Sorry for the belated congraturaly message here), and once again keep up the good work there.

I'll do my all to stop the FD from getting localized