Leaderboard

New update, weretiger edition. 02mai_070.s translated, edited and pushed. I pulled the 山月記 lines from Paul McCarthy's official English translation. @jengkelYou can download and build the patch here: https://gitgud.io/WJHB/saimin-yuugi-translation/-/tree/maiya?ref_type=heads. 060 (and now 070) are included in the repository. I explained how to use arc_conv to build a dataX.pack (make X some number greater than 7) earlier in this thread.

I'd say, Cinderella Phenomenon deserves to be added. It's a cool otome EVN with a story based on Western fairy-tales. The story itself is rather well-developed. Quality-wise, it's not particularly worse than its Japanese counterparts.

I'll second Highway Blossoms, as already recommended by someone earlier; it has very high-quality character-writing-and-development. Also, off in the space of recommendations not already made elsewhere in this thread: We Know the Devil. Made by the same team that subsequently did Heaven Will Be Mine, and still my favorite of their VNs, despite HWBM's relatively-larger scope and broader popularity. WKTD is a short VN which manages to be very efficient about conveying a high-impact story in a small space. Three teenagers in a Christian summer camp spend a night staying up late in a cabin together, having compellingly-messy relationships with each other and with the world around them and very much not neatly fitting into the social boxes everyone around them is trying to push them towards. (And also the devil is involved.)

I'll toss in a few more I'm not seeing mentioned here over time. For now here's 1. Love Esquire is a really good dating sim VN. Note it's not a pure visual novel, it is an actual dating sim hybrid VN with time management, map movement, stats, resources and a few mini games on top of having a lot of reading and choices. You play as a voiced Squire, and with an upcoming war you have a few things you want to accomplish before you march off to battle: You want to get some training in with your Knight partner, and you want to experience "Man's Greatest Pleasure". Your choices for girls are your farmgirl stepsis, two flavors of royalty, a brawler loli, and a shy pink haired nurse. The general style and writing for the game is silly with lots of comedy, though drama and serious plot does kick in especially later in the routes for each girl. This is the sort of game where the MC's inner thoughts are often dirty and crude, like the MC will drop his pants and smack his butt to taunt enemies as a combat minigame move. There's a light general theme about growing up and getting serious within the game, but even near the end of routes the MC is still a bit of a goofball outside of scenes where he's risking his life or dealing with a girl's heavy drama. The production quality is way above expectations for EVN. The art is really nice, it goes for some tropes like hiding the MC's eyes that might turn some people off but the girls all look great and the game has a nice variety in CGs (some of which are animated) and good UI art. The game sounds great with pleasant music and lots of English voicework too, the casting was well done and I think most people will recognize names like Kira Buckland and Amanda Lee in the main cast. They handled H-scenes elegantly enough for Steam: the base game just fades to black, but you have 2 easily accessible options to add H-scenes. There's an official free DLC (Love Esquire - Greatest Pleasure) that adds H-scene CGs, and then a much improved mod available for free on the Steam Workshop (Hip To Be Squire) that adds extra story and animation to the H-scenes. The devs themselves recommend playing using Hip To Be Squire if you want H-scenes, so I'll have a 2nd link right to the Steam Workshop page for it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/849740/Love_Esquire__RPGDating_SimVisual_Novel/ https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1884758461

i think Heaven Will Be Mine is worth mentioning as a highlight of the EVN sphere. it has an identity of its own rather than simply borrowing from the JVN format without consideration. it's a story about women trying to find their place in the world in the middle of a interstellar conflict in which they're being used as pawns. it wears the fact it was inspired by gundam on its sleeve, and asks similar questions about being a human forced to participate in war they have no stakes in. the art is also quite good,