Vokoca

What, that looks awesome - and here I thought it was just a fandisc. I've actually liked Tsukihime more than Fate when it comes to the story, the low score is caused mainly by the bad (almost nonexistent) sound design and lackluster soundtrack that is barely even playing - and the reused twists in a lot of the routes.

Didn't we have a thread for this already? On topic, a lot of my favourite BGMs were already mentioned, like the entire Umineko OST, SubaHibi OST... There's so many! To pick one that hasn't been listed yet, though, have this chuuni greatness:

Sure, if they stop flaunting the Zero Escape name and the VN stands properly on its own - and is well written, which is, as you said yourself, very difficult in this genre - then I'm all for it. Otherwise I can't help it but feel sceptical.

Fan projects based on an existing game.... yep, waiting for this to get shut down.

Just finished Down the Rabbit Hole 2 in Subarashiki Hibi. I don't even know what to say... it convincingly lured me into the feeling where I thought I had everything figured out, and then it just hit me over the head with an amazing mindfuck. I've really liked it! Not sure what to expect from the other arcs though... I think I've read somewhere it switches main characters between arcs, but.... Yuki is such a great MC, I don't want a different one. Also picked up Dorapeko, since I felt like trying something from Alice Soft, and this looked like a simple starting point (that and Rance not only seems hard to find, but I'm not a fan of rape and the like). Finished the first chapter, and I've enjoyed it to a certain amount. That is, I enjoyed the rather random humour, I like the overall ridiculous feel of the VN, and those bad ends are fun to collect. Can't say any of the characters are really likeable though, on the other hand - and the MC is downright terrible. None of this is such a huge problem though as nothing really is serious enough to really be bothersome, so I think I'll continue this on the side for a bit.

You might've just given me the final push here, I was considering trying this thing for the longest time. Just out of curiosity, I was looking at the series, and... Shining Days? Cross Days? Island Days? Summer D-- w-what is even going on? Has anyone played the other releases from this series? I figured I'd just pick the best one since they're all probably more or less the same. Played that one.

Well, visual novels are called 'adventure games' in Japan, so... A visual novel with such freedom wouldn't probably have a very good story (much like how a lot of Clannad's value is in After Story), but I'd really like to see something crazy. Clannad can't be the only VN with a ridiculously convoluted flowchart, can it?

Other than Clannad, I've only played Rewrite, Little Busters! and Kanon, but all of those have a set common route in one way or the other. What I'm looking for is a VN that branches out really early on, none of those really do. Ever17 kind of has two common routes, and F/sn is just three big routes with bad ends all over. ^^;

How does that one work? Could you elaborate a bit? Hm, that sounds exactly like what I'm looking for, thanks! I'll definitely keep this one in mind. I'm just trying to look for a VN with the most 'freedom', per se - I wonder just how far it can be taken considering the limitations. Anyone else know of any?

Yep, nearly got lost in those two choices at the end.

Clannad was one of the first VNs I've read, yet I keep thinking about it almost after every single VN I finish. That's not necessarily because of nostalgia or because it was the most amazing VN ever - it's because of its structure. I've loved how the common route was nearly non-existent, changing based on the choices you've made, instead of being just a set scenario where you would collect flags up to a certain point like most other VNs do it. My question is, do you know of any VNs with a similar structure? The more variety and choices, the better. I don't really care what the genre is - and I don't mind untranslated VNs, I might actually prefer those.

And finished Rui wa Tomo wo Yobu. I was a bit unsure on how to rate this at first, since I wasn't exactly happy with the VN's structure, and one of the endings really rubbed me the wrong way - but after finishing the whole thing, I feel like I can give it a well deserved 9 out of 10. Most of the issues I had with the story were resolved and explained in one way or the other in the true route, so I came away satisfied. It's also worth mentioning that this VN's writing alone deserves a rating that high, as it's unlike anything else I've read so far. Now it's time to dive into SubaHibi for real~

Haha, yeah, she is.

How about getting something with Win8? You could play pretty much all the VNs you want then.

Almost done with RuiTomo, just the finale left, I assume. The biggest questions and issues I've had with the previous routes were mostly answered, and Akaneko is cute, so I'm satisfied so far. Curious about the ending, though.

The only thing I can think of that wasn't mentioned yet is Kara no Shoujo. Most likely not what you're looking for genre-wise, but it technically only has one heroine.

What's this Umineko commando? Should I be scared...?

I'll conclude by saying that this VN is quite the treat, so experience it well my friend. (❀◦‿◦)

Finished the first arc, Down the Rabbit Hole, in Subarashiki Hibi. Well, rather than finished, I've accidentally went straight for the true (?) ending instead of finishing all the other content first. This might actually finally teach me to never refuse yuri use walkthroughs-- I've always felt like choices are a fun part of a VN, and discovering its structure and such is a part of the experience, but I really don't like getting the good/true endings before the bad ones. It just seems to take away from the 'lesser'/bad endings' value, if that makes any sense. I still feel like cheating while using a walkthrough, but... to the people who've read SubaHibi, do you think it's better to use a walkthrough in this case? I remember someone said they got the endings out of order in the last arc too, so that'd probably be good to avoid... As for the story itself

That said, you still haven't seen anything, Chiru gets absolutely crazy.

But I haven't said a word about that either. Just like I wrote in my previous post, if it's not your native language, then you shouldn't work with the text at all - definitely not at the official level, at the very least. I'm just looking at this from the consumers' point of view - we shouldn't readily accept something as bad as the "translation" MoeNovel pushed out. Being badly translated is one thing, but being horribly written too... come on, no one should pay a single cent for that. Translating is a job like any other, and we shouldn't be paying for a shitty job.

Making steady progress on Iyo's route in RuiTomo. I'm probably behind the halfway point now, since the plot-twists are trickling in already. Edit: Finished Iyo's route. Well, that went in a slightly unexpected direction, though it didn't blow my mind entirely. I've had most of the things figured out already. Still, probably the most interesting ending from them all so far. Just the true route left now. Not sure if I'll read it right away or stuff something short in between. I'd like to read more Killer Queen, but I still haven't recovered from the boredom-trauma.

I disagree with this, actually. While it is only obvious that each language has its quirks and that making a 1:1 transition is nearly impossible - let alone between languages that have close to nothing in common - it is the translators job to localize the product with all the nuances as close to the original as possible. I'm not asking for a word-to-word literal translation, that in itself is a bad translation; what I mean is, if there is a certain nuance in language A, the translator should find the closest thing to it in language B and replace it with that. Every language has different idioms, for example - rather than translating the saying mechanically, you should use the closest one your language has to offer - thus still staying close to the original, in respect to the languages at hand. I'd also disagree that bad English has no effect on the quality of the translated work. Of course it has. You can all me a grammar Nazi, but if I am presented with two stories and one of them is riddled with spelling and grammar errors, I will prefer the well written one. And I'm not even talking about official products here - if you are selling something in a certain language, you'd better make damn sure it's written well. Whether it's your first language or not should be beside the point - if you can't write it in your second language well enough, don't write/translate it into that language at all in the first place.

Wow! What an announcement! Makes me wish there was some sort of a counterpart to green light, which would let you ban games based on votes. I'd definitely contribute on this one.

Don't get your expectations too high when it comes to the horror, since the VN goes through a bit of a genre shift around the halfway point. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not what you'd expect at first, I suppose.