Vokoca

Dunamis15 had some quite awesome atmospheric music too. I can't find my favourite one on youtube, but this was pretty good too: http://youtu.be/5Pydjcxe6fo Also, the Senshinkan battle music is simply glorious, but again, no links, other than a compilation. Nice pick, my faovurite from the VN was Lose control.

^ I loved these parts, what a disturbing satire. Also, damn AXANAEL, getting me addicted to Kagome kagome again. Is that song haunting me, or something? Chaos;Head, Corpse Party, Robotics;Notes, now this... o.O

I'm reading AXANAEL at the moment, and even though the pacing might be seen as too slow, I enjoy it a lot so far. It is a story about a deadly Russian roulette with a mystic gun that grants your wishes provided you survive the game. The story is told from the perspective of six characters, and you can freely pick from which point of view you want to read the story - it is segmented into pieces, and you have to read to a certain point with all of the characters to continue, so you end up switching perspectives a lot. A lot of the time is spent building up the characters and motivations, and they're quite interesting - from a psychopath yandere with a box cutter to a failing doujinshi artist, they each gain the motive eventually to pick up the gun, I imagine. Can't say how well it compares to the other VNs yet, as I haven't finished it, but there were nods to Steins;Gate already, and some plot points/crutches might be taken directly from Chaos;Head, which is awesome.

You guys worry me with the Hoshizora post. I still have to finish Yume's route (I think I'm about halfway through), and while I like it so far, it's nowhere near Komomo/Kosame-level. And Mare's route sounds just... ugh, why is it the last route if it is just fanservice? I was distracted by other VNs and wasn't in the mood to get back to Hoshizora, and you aren't making it any easier. On another note, I can't get enough of these gaijin and the village-yakuza-woman in AXANEL: "Nice Indojin! Japango...OK?!"

Just started reading Axanael with my roommate. I really like the story structure, the humor is good (except for the "Kore wa jiken?!"... seriously, stop ), and the story seems to be quite intriguing, even if it's slow to pick up. If there was one bad thing, well... that h-scene was really unexpected. From how the VN appeared, I really didn't expect any to be there... sasuga Nitro+ and one positioned right in front of the OP, too? Madness. We skipped most of it just because... lol reading h.scenes with someone, no; so there hopefully wasn't too much going on beside the psychopath yandere sex.

Well, I really need to get back on Hoshizora and finish it this weekend, damn. Came across Axanael yesterday, and I really want to read it - looks simple enough, and it's Nitro+... I need something simple to read in japanese for once. But damn, the backlog... and the started VNs... Well, it's your fault for picking these things. I've finished a whole playthrough without even knowing the illusion system existed, and I feel like I had a better experience than if I knew it did... it took out all the things you mentioned, for example. But then again, there are the "bad" ones too, and I suppose it does add to the story-telling if you use them a lot.

Muv Luv (specifically Unlimited) has some animated sequences in it, and so does MLA. Though most of the 'animations' are done with sprites, the scenes I mean are actually animated cut-scenes, if you will... but they're short and very few. Can't really think of anything else, they mostly use sprites or effects for this kind of thing... Chaos;Head had some animation in the intro if I remember right, though not so sure if there's any more later on. I think there isn't.

Do you mean strictly in OPs like in Katawa Shoujo, or animations directly in the VN? I'm reading Senshinkan right now, and that one has animations even in the backgrounds and in-between scenes. I've never seen a VN with this much budget before... As for animations in OPs, quite some VNs have it. Rewrite, Fate/stay night, KimiNozo, MuvLuv, KonoSora...

Oh, thank you! I'll try reading again when you do, even if it means I'll get stuck on every single sentence. I know some of the history already, and I will have to learn it in detail either way because of uni, so I should be safe, I think. It's the writing that gave me the most trouble, but yeah... my japanese is still pretty bad. I did make it through some VNs without too much trouble, but yeah, this is a whole different level. Should be worth it, though! Also that thing with the kanji you like scares me more than anything else, but I can see the appeal of it.

Chaos;Head went into some weird directions after the first half, which probably turned off a lot of people, but I enjoyed it a lot. Well, even I enjoyed the first half better, admittedly, because it had an awesome murder mystery/psycho-thriller atmosphere. But as crazy as the plot got, I still liked it a lot. I might be a sucker for ridiculous things that hardly make any sense, but I loved the main twist involving the protagonist. Saya no Uta (although I think 5pb. has nothing to do with this one?) is one of my all-time favourite VNs, so yeah, I loved it. I could also add Dunamis15 and Disorder6, which are the opposite of Saya (5pb. but no Nitro+). It's said that they are somehow related to the X;Y VNs universe, but I think they honestly just said that to increase sales, since I didn't spot any connections while reading. That said, Dunamis15 is like a post-apocalyptic Higurashi with darker twists but weaker plot, and Disorder6... well, I really liked Disorder6, actually, but I think I enjoyed it much more than I should've. You see, the main heroine has an extreme case of split-personality disorder, and that makes the character so much fun... The story is basically a murder mystery with sci-fi mixed in. But it's mostly about the heroine who steals the show, as you can never be sure if she's your friend or a dangerous murderer - the fact that the MC has amnesia and is for some reason handcuffed to said crazy girl doesn't help at all.

Did you actually get it working with ITH? How? But yeah, you can say that again. I was doing fine with the dubbed prologue, and the following descriptions of the scenery were quite manageable for me too, even though the dictionary was getting really difficult - but the fight scene was where it got absolutely ridiculous. Those technique names, fake kanji readings... and the overall advanced grammar... what a nightmare. :x I'm only properly studying japanese for the second semester now, so I might be jumping in way too soon, but this VN really is so tempting... Highlighting one line at a time sounds like a great idea, the walls of text scared me so much I had to give up without even having the power to finish the prologue completely. :x

Yeah. In the end, I hid the text completely and made it automatically copy to clipboard and just used TA instead for the vocab and such.Well, even with that it's very hard, I think I'll have to wait with this one and stick to something with small textboxes for now... even Meikyuu sounds like a much easier option compared to this.

Tried updating ITH several times, but with no luck. As for the max limit, I think it was 150, which it crossed very often-- I wonder if it can somehow grab the lines separately instead? Thank you! I haven't noticed the slider at all, and I kept wondering why it isn't in the text settings or preferences... It seems to sort of work now, I'll just have to arrange all that text somehow.

Read through what I could understand of the Senshinkan prologue, and it was beyond amazing. I have never seen something so epic in a VN, and to think that was just the prologue... Unfortunately, I can't get ITH working with it at all, and VNR has serious trouble with the long text (it takes text from the whole NVL textbox at each click, no matter how much of it appears, which results in it being too long for it to handle 95% of the time), so I won't be reading this until there's some sort of a fix. ;_; It's so frustrating to have bad japanese and such epic things coming out, I really need to go crazy on the kanji or something.

You just crushed the little confidence I had in my Japanese.

You make me want to go check out her route right now, despite the other VNs and my japanese... Though if I remember correctly, Kajitsu was translated relatively fast, right? Then the wait might not be so bad.

Protagonist with Voice Acting, and... hm, I also like the prospect of Early Branching Plot, though haven't read many VNs with these yet. It definitely sounds better than going through the whole common route again and again though. Oh, I also like High Amount of Bad Endings.

I never said I disliked her route. As out of place as it felt, I liked it, it had some very nice moments in it. In fact, I don't even really dislike her as a character or anything. It's just that she was the Sunohara of Grisaia for me. She was so amazing as a comic relief character that I just couldn't really take her seriously by the time I got to her route. I also really disliked how ----------- Just got to the part in Hoshizora where

All these people who love Michiru almost make me feel bad, but then I always remember how hilarious it was for her to get trashed by Makina and she still remains the best punching bag character. As for the h-scenes in Grisaia, they were probably the first ones I didn't mind, since they were nicely written, and in some cases even funny, definitely the exception for me. Much more bearable than the Hoshizora horrors. I've started secret route, though not far enough to judge anything, just two or three scenes in... hadn't had much time to read this week. :/ Also read some more of Kyonyuu, and I can't decide if it's ironic or not that I actually like the h-scenes in a nukige of all things, when I usually really dislike them in regular VNs. It might be because they aren't obnoxiously long... or because they aren't the usual boring crap? Or maybe I'm just into weird stuff, that'sprobablyit. Anyway, I need to finish Hoshizora asap so I can pick up Senshinkan and attempt to read that. Plot sounds amazing and just the "Protagonist with Voice acting" alone sold me super hard on it.

I have no idea what this is, but it looks damn awesome from the description on VNDB. I think I'll need to get this.... backlog or not.

Yeah, you can either use Visual Novel Reader as you mentioned, or you can use ITH and Translation Aggregator, which would be the better choice if you need to use the dictionary often. It has more words in it from my experience.

Just finished Kosame's route... aw, it was so sweet. <3 I'm glad I left it for last from the 'normal' routes, definitely washed away that bad aftertaste from Aoi's route... and that incest. Just the secret routes left now, I guess? I only liked her as a comic relief character, honestly - never could take her seriously after all those amazing jokes. And her route wasn't bad by itself, it just seemed very out of place compared to the rest - at least it did to me. You'll see what I mean when you read it.

I heard the re-translation was so horrendous that it was much worse than the first one, so stick with Amaterasu's.

Oh my god, this is so true! I'm jumping the bandwagon as well, Aoi's route was absolute suffering. Also, this is not really hate, but I dislike the characters that are being insufferable bitches just because they might act nice for 5 seconds somewhere down the line, before they remember their rotten attitude again. And this is coming from someone who actually likes tsun/kuuderes... well, as long as that dere part is actually there.