Fred the Barber

Why does the "Unlike" button only appear after I click the "Like" button?

You forgot to say "away" again.

Just finished Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, which was actually really good. My expectations were pretty low given that 99% of what I heard about it on the internet was "OMG thicc", so thanks for the pro tip, @Jun Inoue. I'm a sucker for sweet, positive stories with quirky, unique characters, and this delivered that in spades. Edit: I picked up Ping Pong on the recommendation of a reformed weeb friend who said it's one of the greatest shows he's ever watched ("Shows. Not anime."). Three episodes in, and I have to admit, it's looking to be pretty damn good.

I kind of see where you're coming from with the "annoying adverts and intrusive programs" in Windows versions released within in the last seven years, but I also kind of don't since I'm pretty sure literally all of what you're talking about can be turned off, and since most of the data is anonymized and harmless anyway. I run Windows 10 on all my computers; I turn the data collection stuff off. If you're paranoid and believe that turning it off doesn't actually mean they stop collecting data, well, I can't really argue against conspiracy theories, but you can rest assured that Google is probably collecting 100x the amount of data off your web searches and that they're not even pretending to offer you a way out of that, regardless of what version of Windows you're running. I also kind of don't get the anti-touchscreen rant. Tablets are nice, man; try playing a VN on one sometime. I hardly play any VNs on my desktop since I got a good tablet. That's not to say I don't prefer a console or a PC for playing something requiring more interaction, like an RPG or an FPS, but there are plenty of games that play great on touchscreens, and it's honestly really nice to be able to curl up on my sofa or my favorite armchair with a VN, rather than sitting at my desk. And if you want to see what great games you can have on a touchscreen, go give Auditorium a try sometime. I'm not quite as old as you are, but I'm pretty close. I honestly tend to think of myself as being kind of a Luddite at times, as far as technology is concerned, at least compared to the people I work with (I'm a software engineer, so, it's a relative thing). But I promise, when it comes to technology from the last seven years or so, it's really not all bad.

I was fine with that side of it, and in fact I really liked that angle. That was a great way to end the story. I just didn't need that last performance; the one before it was everything I wanted from the game.

I wrapped up Riho's route (my last one left), which was indeed head and shoulders above the rest, including Kanade's route, just as promised. I've decided that, honestly, more games should have those scenes that force you to read at the game's pace. It's a pain, but it really does work. I felt like they abused it a little bit with the very last one in Riho's route, which honestly seemed like a kind of silly scene to me (I think they probably could've timed it better for a little more dramatic ending by chopping off most of the last ~15 minutes), but all the previous ones worked really well for forcing me into the rhythm and mood the game wanted me to experience. I also want to comment on and generalize one thing a lot of people have brought up: the fact that music, and all the characters' passion for music, is at the heart of this story is what makes it tick. I deeply enjoy stories revolving around a characters' shared passion. In that regard, I think this game is actually very similar to KonoSora/If My Heart Had Wings, and I honestly can't call to mind any other VN like that (though I'm sure there are others; it's not like I've played all that many, in the grand scheme of things). I suspect that same angle is why I like a fair amount of sports anime (Chihayafuru, anyone?). VNs often revolve around romance or conflict, which is fine, but these rare few stories that set up an aspirational, challenging, shared passion as the centerpiece of the story appeal to me on a really deep level. These people live and breathe music (just like the characters in KonoSora live and breathe gliders), and it's immensely satisfying to watch them achieve their dreams together.

Assuming you're looking for translated, there's not a lot of stuff out there in general for yuri, especially not meeting all of those three requirements, unfortunately. The best one by a long shot, of those I've played, is Kindred Spirits. It's much heavier on the romance side of things than on the plot side, but you needn't fear that it's anywhere remotely near a nukige (it's not a Sono Hana game...). The characters really make the game special: they're awesome. Flowers is also a decent choice, though it wasn't really what I was hoping for when I read it. Lastly, maybe take a look at Shadows of Pygmalion. It's an all ages chuunige with yuri elements, so it's really much more plot-focused, and has hardly any romance to it. I really enjoyed it (though not at the same level as I did Kindred spirits). All three of those are available on Steam, but the first and last are MangaGamer games while the second is JAST USA, so you can also pick them up from their respective online stores, which probably makes them a bit more money.

Just a shared universe. Two of the games are translated: Inganock has a fan translation (and very clearly so if you're a picky reader...), but Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning has an official translation, and is available both on MangaGamer's site and on Steam (same, uncut version in both places). Gahkthun is pretty good, too, but not as great as Inganock. Edit: Also, MangaGamer has licensed Sona-Nyl, supposedly the best game of the series, but that won't be out for a long time, since it seems they haven't actually started working on it yet.

The recommendations above are universally solid, but nobody's mentioned the Steampunk series, so I'll throw that one out there. I recommend Sekien no Inganock in particular. It's kind of the opposite of what Kaguya said about Symphonic Rain: lots of complexity and mystery and magic, but that all is hiding something that is, at its core, a very beautiful, simple, human story. Hold out your hand and give it a try.

Somebody who almost never posts in this thread.

No, you really don't need to know how baseball works to play Little Busters!. If anything, it'll just make things more confusing...

Closer to a year and a half, really. There was just a failed attempt at resuscitation a year ago.

FYI, to give folks more time to finish Deardrops, we're intentionally not starting next month's reading club just yet, since it seems like a lot of people (including me!) still aren't done, and we want to give people a chance to finish and talk more. Now, that said, it seems like enough people have finished or at least made substantial progress that I figured I'd offer up a few discussion prompts to get the ball rolling, so without further ado (even if you reply, don't feel obligated to answer all of them unless you really want to): What's your favorite aspect of the game so far? Anything you don't like? Who's your side favorite character (i.e., outside of the heroines, Shouichi, and Gonda), and why? What do you think of the way the text forcibly goes to auto-mode in certain concert scenes? Does it make it more immersive? Less?

I can't imagine playing a VN without listening to the soundtrack, TBH. Music is super important to me, and I'm particularly partial to games that make good use of their soundtrack: for instance, Key games get deservedly knocked for their content, but their music is top-notch and put to extremely good use. Half of the reason I like Little Busters! is probably the soundtrack. Conversely, if a game has a crappy soundtrack, it really hurts the experience for me, but even if it's terrible, I won't even consider turning off the BGM; I'll literally just drop the game instead. The godawful soundtrack (especially the happy poppy everyday music with the world's worst synthesized brass) was a big contributor to why I hated Princess Evangile with a passion. Fortunately for me, I have a pretty low bar for what I consider listenable. I think Princess Evangile is the only non-nukige VN I've played where I really loathed the soundtrack. Everything else is at least tolerable, and usually I quite like what I hear in games.

True, loading screens are my main motivation for playing games. Or at least you'd think that, given the amount of Destiny I play. Next person is an early riser.

I'm just here to point out that you forgot my homeland's preferred term, y'all, so I thought I ought to visit that horror upon you.

I remember multiple times in college when the smoke alarm went off because of people burning popcorn in the microwave, including one time at 3 AM that managed to confuse me so much that I turned off my alarm, thereby causing me to fail to wake up at the required time a few hours later. Since that was Thanksgiving Day, and the alarm was so I would make my plane on time, I missed my flight and was late for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Bad times.

I do remember having trouble with OsaDai, but I think the solution to the trouble I had was pretty clearly described on the place I bought it. Don't recall any issues with the OsaDai fandisc, and I don't recall issues with anything else I've ever gotten from JAST USA (which I inevitably buy digitally, and which includes at least Steins;Gate and Demonbane playing through completely with no problems), but then again, I never played Shuffle (and don't particularly want to), nor did I play any of the * Days games.

Just finished Kanade's route and got started on Riho's route (not looking like I'm going to finish the whole game by April, but I'm going to try!). I'll echo Turnip's comments that Kanade narrating so much of it really helps the route feel more complete. In general, I'm a fan of VNs that let the heroines narrate for a while (the longer the better, almost), especially when that means you see the protagonist from their perspective, so I'm hoping that Riho's route will deliver more of that. I also liked a couple of the new characters who appeared in her route, especially Megumi and Johann, both of whom ended up being much more interesting than they looked at first blush. The story arc was solid and well-resolved, and felt both thematically appropriate for the game (in contrast to Rimu's or Yayoi's route) and quite different from anything I'd seen so far in the common route. Kanade hadn't really been properly shown off elsewhere, and it was pleasant getting to see her really shine. Also, I feel like the CG artist really loved Kanade; every last CG of her looks stunning. The sprite artist, well, not so much (though her secondary sprite is kind of cute, I suppose). On to Riho's route!

Looking over stuff I've played, the best fits that are also pretty solid games are: Deus Machina Demonbane (because "Book Heroine" is not a very common tag, and Al has far and away the best route anyway) The Steampunk series (the romance in Sekien no Inganock is definitely a little off-kilter) There's an incest route in Chrono Clock too, I suppose, and it's a pretty good game to begin with, but it generally feels pretty straightforward, so I doubt it's what you're looking for. Do have to agree with skrewball's suggestion of Funbag Fantasy, though — it's certainly more interesting than a run-of-the-mill nukige.

Keep an eye out for our release of Majo Koi Nikki. It's a surprisingly close fit to what you're asking for.

Confession: I just took a bite of this blueberry muffin I'm eating for breakfast and a veritable geyser of blueberry juice shot out and got all over my monitor and desk and keyboard. I still can't even believe what I just saw was physically possible.

I'm confused: if it's okay to say something is "underrated' with the intended meaning that not enough people appreciate it for the quality one perceives it to have (that part about appreciating and quality are inseparable from the definition of "underrated," BTW; if you were trying to drop that part of the definition, then I think you're simply incorrectly redefining the word to "not well-known," which in practice isn't what people actually mean when they use it), why is it not okay to call something else "overrated" with the intended meaning that too many people appreciate it for the quality one perceives it to have? I'm not saying the word "overrated" isn't overused (which it certainly is) or incorrectly used (which it probably also is); I'm just saying that the statement "Sword Art Online is overrated" is a perfectly rational thing for me to say. Moreover, to be clear, I agree with you that I'm expressing an opinion when I do that; it's not some factual statement. Actually trying to argue over whether or not something is "overrated" would be pretty silly. But having a discussion wherein various people express whether they think something is overrated doesn't really seem fundamentally problematic to me (if arguably a little uninteresting, unless there's further elaboration on why people perceive it that way, and also perhaps arguably somewhat contradictory, since if everybody thought something was overrated, it would seem that, by definition, at least some of them were demonstrably factually wrong).

Actually, I think you're around the right age, just not born in the right place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThunderCats

It's because you're taking the picture at an angle to the sheet, thereby inducing foreshortening.