ChaosRaven

Honestly, that's hairsplitting. And if grinding has the goal of level increase in its meaning, then why isn't Diablo a grindy game although it is all about leveling and item collecting?! I mean, Diablo is simply the epitome of a grinding game.

You shouldn't confuse grinding with game machanics. Kamidori could certainly get pretty grindy, but that doesn't mean that its game mechanics were bad. The shop and alchemy system was actually rather unique. Grinding just means endless spam of rather repetitive and meaningless battles. You can get that with every game, regardless how refined its game mechanics are. And I have certainly seen enough grinding in western RPG and strategy games too. But I do agree that grinding is a design flaw that can ruin even a game with superb game mechanics.

I think the biggest problem of OELVN's is that they simply have a very tight buget, because they are limited to the English VN market which isn't as big the Japanese one. Another problem is the availability of (good) English voice actors, especially ones that are also willing to do H-scenes. I think one way for an OELVN to deal with those limitations would be to 'attack' the Japanese market. They could solve the voices problem that way and also get access to a much bigger VN market. Competition would be a lot higher of course, but considering that there a lots of doujin and low buget teams on the Japanese market too, it should be certainly possible. But it also bear the danger that the English VN's get a strong J-VN touch to appeal to the Japanese crowd. Another way for an OELVN to be successful on the English market would be gameplay-hybrids. They usually have a better chance to appeal to the Steam users because of the gameplay. That's why HuniePop got so popular. Though, considering that more and more Japanese VN's are localized and published in the west, it might also get harder for OELVN to compete. Ironically, the infamous Winged Cloud company might be one of the rare English VN developers that might be able to finance bigger titles like Sakura Dungeon for example (judging by Sanatlig's review). Technically, they just do what MangaGamer did in their early times and spam lots of cheap shovelware titles to finance a few bigger ones and slowly get a loyal fan base.

Why the heck should someone who wants to discuss OELVN's post in a thread called "Popular VNs on Steam"?! The topics are not even remotely related. G-Senjou is on Steam, Eden is on Steam, Princess Evangile is on Steam, and none of those are OELVN's! And being on Steam isn't a requirement for OELVN's either, especially if adult content comes into play, despite Steam's lax adult patch control.

Ugh, not really! The VN was hardly a master piece but it was better than that.

There are far too many popular VN's for the rather small group of VN translators. Even the way more popular August got its first VN translation finished just recently, and even that was pretty much just a prematurely released beta. And Feng isn't even that popular in comparison. For official releases getting a license deal is a huge problem, because the popular companies in Japan earn enough through sales on their home market to get a significant gain by the usually much lower sales in the west. A Yususoft that sells 40.000 copies in Japan won't be that impressed by a mere 2.000 - 3.000 copies on the English market. And skilled and dedicated fan translators that also have the time and persistance to fully translate a title for fun are sparse. And personal taste matters a lot for them for obvious reasons. Still, I played Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi myself last year in Japanese, so it got my attention at least.

Well, technically there is a severe lack of everything that isn't a school life moege. And I guess if we count water sports there are a lot more...

Here's an older guide for using TA, ITH, Atlas, etc. even though I use Chiitrans with Atlas nowadays. If you're just interested in reading the missing H-scenes, that's super easy since most of it is just in hiragana anyway. XD

You seem to have little confidence in the autumn releases if you're already narrowing down your list of candidates...

Ayakashibito, because...

Just curious, since this is based on the story of the 47 ronin, I assume the heroines all die at the end?

The VN is rated highly both in Japan as in the west. However, I'm honestly a bit suspicious about it. If at least 50% of what I heard about is true, then the story is apparently very serious, violent and borderline utsuge. But if that's true than the over-moegified comedy art style and all girls cast is not only unfitting but also misleading. A more realistic art style like in Hanachirasu would have probably been much better fitting for that type of story. And the Time Loop tag almost screams for repetitive boredom a la "Buhuuu, heroine X died, but how convenient, just turn time back and try again." x 1000. There aren't even words to describe how overdone that is. On the other hand, it's probably at least decently written, otherwise it wouldn't be so highly rated. (Even though I thought that too about Root Double...) Don't really care about the missing H-scenes. It's apparently not much (unlike in IMHHW) and considering the VN has bestiality tag I consider it no loss since I hate that type of fetish content anyway.

It's almost like a fashion trend: Nobody really gets it, but everyone is desperate to follow it just because the others do.

So, after Mortal Musou we now also get Uminekken. Almost the same game, just with fists instead of arguments this time. But beware, with that Sakura Fighter can't be far anymore...

Still a bit undecided about it. Karin is pretty okay as a character, but I'm usually more into the... busty types. Maybe I try a fast play-through, just focusing on Karin and Shia and ignoring the huge crowd of other heroines. But I first need a bit of a change of pace, and it's about time that I finally start Mirai Nostalgia.

Mother of god, that almost requires a NSFS spoiler. (NSFS = Not Save For Sanity)

I think there isn't a best one since each one has their advantages and disadvantages. Currently, I personally use Chiitrans. But since Chiitrans doesn't hook everything I have ITH_VNR as a backup. In that case Chiitrans just takes the text from the clipboard and displays it. Translation Aggregator has a better text representation than Chiitrans IMO, but its clipboard hooks are too unreliable and so I stopped using it.

Is that really from the 2006 Kanon anime? Because I don't remember the faces being that bad. But I've probably seen it 8 years ago so it's quite some time. The animation was amazing for that time though. But there was a shorter Kanon anime a few years before which was apparently a lot worse. I've never seen it though.

I think Karin from Koihime Musou is probably one of the most popular petankos. She tops most of its character popularity contests.

So, I finished the Go route of Shin Koihime Musou now. Like expected, this was a lot better than the Shouko route - and also a lot darker. The Go faction was already in the original the most dramatic side, and it's even more so this time. Unlike in the original KM the Go faction starts with Sheren in charge instead of her sister Renfa, and it's roughly split into two major arcs, the first one with Sheren as the faction leader and the second one with Renfa as the faction leader. The Sheren arc also starts with Kazuto arriving in the world of the Romance of the three Kingdoms and being accepted as a celestial messenger. But in contrast to the Shouko route there is fortunately no character overflow and the story focuses mainly on the Go family and their generals. Though, at the start it’s mainly Sheren, Meirin and Sai who form a rather powerful leader trio. Renfa and Shaoren just join later on. The main battles and events are still kind of similar to the Shouko route, just told from the Go perspective and with more focus on the interaction with the child ruler Miu. Sheren itself was a surprisingly multifaceted character. Although she often shows a funny and teasing side, she’s also a powerful and charismatic leader who will show no hesitation to make harsh decisions or even kill personally if she deems it necessary. She could turn from funny to dead serious and back in the blink of an eye. A very characteristic scene was Miu’s betrayal. Miu is a child ruler not uncommon for that time and it’s clear that everything is still kind of a game for her. When Sheren finally confronts her and makes her clear that she will now face the consequences and DIE, Miu completely breaks. Fortunately, Sheren showed mercy and spared her but I don’t think that was her original intention. Meirin also was a very pleasant surprise, since she was pretty much just a villainous dominatrix in the original KM, but here she’s a very responsible, mature and smart person. The side characters were also more quality than quantity this time. Miu and the ninja girl Minmei in particular were pretty cute. After that Renfa ascends to the leader of the Go faction and her arc starts. And Renfa’s arc is a bit more about the personal development between her and the protagonist Kazuto. With the whole Go faction still in shock and sorrow, he’s able to offer more support as in the first arc against the combined competence of the leader trio of Sheren, Meirin and Sai. The end is very similar to the Shouko route though, with an alliance with Shouko against the Gi faction. Despite being much better than the Shouko route, there were still some major flaws in the Go route too. The protagonist Kazuto often appears more as a side character and struggles to make any impact even if it gets better later on. The biggest flaw however are the underdeveloped personal stories during the resting scenes. It was obvious that they had to pay the price for including three major routes and adding an insane amount of questionable side characters. As a consequence, they made the glorious decision to ‘democratize’ the personal routes and give each character, regardless if main or side, an equal (low) amount of development time with about 4 CGs for everything ranging from H-scenes to event CG. The main stories itself are better written but suffer from the fact of getting somehow repetitive after a while since it’s essentially the same for all routes just told from another perspective. This gets particular obvious in the battle scenes since they are already told from the POV of the different factions. That makes sense with just one route, but not if you’ve routes for all factions anyway. The routes also didn't feel as rich and detailed as the original KM one for the obvious reason that they are much shorter. Overall, I would have preferred one or two bigger routes with different endings instead of the three smaller kinetic ones. But I think BaseSon learned from their mistakes since each chapter of the new Eiyuutan has three clearly defined main heroines. But Kakumei will probably be the real thing: one large game for each faction route - that's the way it was meant to be. But for that reason I’m also thinking about skipping the Gi route completely and jumping directly to Shin Koihime Eiyuutan instead since it's already obvious from the CG section that it has far too many characters for its own good. Rating for the Go route: 7.5/10 (Would have gotten more if the personal stories would have been more developed) Overall rating for now without having played the Gi route yet. 7/10 (Shouko route drags the rating down)

Good choices, I didn't see One Punch Man yet, but I liked Madoka Magica (Can't say the same for Psycho-Pass which is from the same writer I think). And Type-Moon is still one of the rare studios that consistently produce top quality animes, which can't exactly be said about Key anymore. Still, the amount of good animes past 2010 feels rather low in contrast to the time before...

So you can understand Japanese?! All animes have Japanese language versions with English subtitles, so that shouldn't be an issue anyway. Hmmmmmm, but you ARE living on earth, are you?! But yeah, Kanon faces in general were always a bit borderline... Tell me just one from post 2010!

Koihime † Musou, the harem 'classic' so to say. And the single heroine routes of Kamidori Alchemy Meister are probably more harem than most harem VNs. Besides that, there are many nukiges with harem endings like Kyonyuu Fantasy or ImoPara.