Leaderboard

Yesterday I finished Loopers. What can I say - it's pretty typical KEY story in a short format, with all pros and cons that come with it. I loved it - but I'm easily moved, and I like KEY formula, so the fact that this VN adheres to it didn't bother me at all I think the fairy tale prologue sets the mood perfectly, and it tells what this story actually is, allowing to adjust expectations. Because I have to admit, seeing the premise and R07 as main writer, it's easy to expect more, and then get disappointed - which can be seen in some reviews. I think it's a similar case like with ATRI and PARQUET - the setting isn't the main point, it's just a stage to tell a story. And while surely R07 added his own flavor to it, especially in the early chapters, this is still unmistakably KEY story. Needless to say, it fulfilled its "nakige" mission, making my eyes teary many times. I think the closest to this from the "big" KEY VNs would be Little Busters - there are some clearly visible parallels. But at the same time it isn't just "LB! abridged" I think this was first VN I read that in addition to voiced MC featured third person narration. That was nice, made it more "novel-like" I guess Art is nice, music and voices too, although the voices have too much of dynamic range - some shouted lines are waaaay to loud. To sum it up - YMMV, but for me it was 8/10. If you're not tired of the KEY formula yet, want another dose, but don't have time for behemots such as Clannad or Summer Pockets - go for it There's English translation available in Switch version, and unofficial patch that ports this translation to the PC version. There's also multi-language Steam version in the works, but no release date yet I played Japanese PC version, so I cannot say much about TL quality. Reportedly there are some errors, but it's not bad.

Oh, well, I personally like all kinds of artstyles, although if you'd ask me for my favourites, they'd likely turn out to not be non-anime, but more stylized/unconventional spins on anime art... Like Steins;Gate for example. The point being, I'm a weeb, I like anime-style things and most people that will ever look at a visual novel for more than 5 seconds are either like me or Japanese. From their very beginnings, Japanese VNs had a pretty strong connections to anime and they are made primarily for Japanese readers, who seem to be pretty conservative with their tastes. Non-JP VNs are made primarily for weebs, often very explicitly copying Japanese media to appeal to Western otaku. While writing about VNs I always advocated for non-JP devs to avoid being copycats, but mostly in the sense of creating their own narratives and experimenting with style. I don't think rejecting anime art is needed that much, the thing you should probably try to avoid is being generic and uninspired, which a lot of VNs (from all sources) are. Plus VNs, no matter who makes them, are currently offering very thin profit margins, sadly making anything more than mild experimentation quite a big risk. You can make a non-anime one, but unless you absolutely nail the presentation, it might very easily appeal to no one – the weebs or JP otakus won't like the departure from what they usually enjoy and the broader audience still won't find your "waifu power point presentation" interesting enough to check out. Thus, I don't think VNs can really free themselves from anime art, or have much reason to do so. They won't get meainstream any time soon, considering they didn't already and the younger generations generally have the attention spans of gerbils.