Okarin

Final 8 was for teenagers back in 1999, so if you were younger the game wasn't really for you, mechanics or story- and character-wise.

You should probably enjoy the pen and paper RPG greatly. But I do realise that pen and paper RPG is entertainment from a bygone era. Digital RPG (computer and console) are far better known. I myself played digital RPGs first.

Yes, Vampire the Masquerade. It has recently gone through a 20th anniversary edition with some new books. The original ran from 1991 to 2004 in a 13-year cycle (13 is an important number in-game, since it allegedly is the number of vampiric clans, though I think it's not really accurate. It's also the same number of letters in "the Masquerade"). The above is for pen and paper, there has been 2 PC adaptations: the one with the Brujah protagonist in the early 2000s and Vampire: Bloodlines in the mid-2000s, which let you pick a clan.

It's interesting to note that, while Vampire hadn't levels, it had an experience system. Anyway, a system can be skill-based. If you get the same powerful ability (for example, stopping time, stopping freaken time) if you advance your skill to level N, or if you advance to character level 19, then it's basically the same.

The opposite of level scaling is the insane grinding of Bravely Default. If you don't grind, you don't win, baby. As easy as that. I'm much less willing to do grinding today than when I was a kid. A flawless game without grinding is Fire Emblem and its derivatives -you play the battles in order, and though there are bonus battles for leveling a bit (talking about Awakening), there just isn't much room for grinding. Not that the system is balanced, because there are classes and characters much better than others. The level thing has been discussed a lot in the world of RPGs. Vampire and World of Darkness had a level-less system 25 years ago, but you could still get to be godly, with level 7 Disciplines and all that munchkin shit. No matter what people said, the gist of the game was being superhuman and meaning it. In truth, talking about pen and paper RPGs, there are already all kinds of systems. With levels, level-less, more unforgiving, less lethal, with more powerful characters, with characters weak as kittens, make your combination. In digital RPGs they tend to make player characters powerful, since it's tied to telling a grand history of heroism, sacrifice, or so.

"Merry Christmas" was probably made popular by the song that wished that, "and a happy New Year". So as to avoid the same word twice. There's nothing inherently wrong with wishing a "happy Christmas". Christmas can be happy indeed. Oh, and frohe Weihnachten.

Record of Lodoss War's Pirotasse would qualify as underling with devotion. But then again, Lodoss is 20+ years old.

Yes, you're the best artist. Screw that fag, Na-Ga.

There exist very few really innovative works in anime and manga (it's hard for me to talk of VNs, since it's a world as big as those ones, but less known; most of them are untranslated. But I'd say the same). When one appears, then suddenly all authors around the place copy them to death. Take harem. Some forms of harem existed back in the 90s, such as Tenchi Muyo or even Nadesico (the unknown precursor to harems), but it really took off with Love Hina in the early 2000s. Japanese have always loved the high school setting, and Love Hina just introduced the dorm full of girls and just one boy thingy (that we also see in If my heart had wings, for example). It also reinforced existing tropes and created some, and since it was wildly popular, it established a genre. Thereafter, if you wanted to produce a harem anime, you looked up to Love Hina. And the stream of harem anime has been endless. Of course, Western works aren't exactly better. How many doctor shows are there? How many about policemen or crime investigation? Once you establish a genre, you create a market to be exploited. And if you deviate considerably from the established tropes, and from the public's expectations, you get outside your genre. But, it can still be good, or just not, it depends.

Tales of "Pestiria"

Well, you generally have to do something (i. e. get one or more choices right) to score with a girl. Like in Katawa, running track with Emi and showing her your effort (and what happens after that) gets you into her route. That's at least somewhat realistic; you don't suddenly get crazy about someone if you don't have a "kickstarter" experience, unless it's platonic love. Especially true for women...

Yeah, bad endings can be heavy hitters in Katawa. Even though, there's a certain neutral ending that tore my heart to pieces, play and find out...

Another thing worth commenting is that Katawa deconstructs a lot of stereotypes commonly found in VN routes. Take a look at TVTropes. As such, you'll enjoy it more if you know the medium. I know I said before Katawa is really good as a starter VN, but it can work either way; for the veteran as well as for the newbie. That's why it's so well considered.

Let's say it's better to play it early in your VN-reading career, because you'll encounter lots of better VNs (and most of them are sadly untranslated). That's not to say playing Katawa is an underwhelming experience. It isn't.

Yes it is, that's the reason for introducing Blueray, of course. However -talking about DVD movies, if you have a lot of movies already in DVD format, the leap can be... not advisable. I guess Blueray can playback DVD though, but I'm not sure because I still don't have any Blueray player. I talked about movies but all video media is the same, anime included.

Well Katawa Shoujo isn't "the saddest VN ever", whoever said that needs to play moar. And about playing more... obviously each girl brings something different to the table, so why not give them a go?

Not sure about that, there are countries that, while not being at war, have a lot of security problems. Bribes, robberies, violence, et cetera. I heard some places of Africa with no war are at the same time not very nice. Or places in the Far East such as Thailand. Or autocracies such as Turkmenistan or Belarus. Also with my previous post I tried to take into account the OP's anxiety problem. In theory, if you're not feeling completely okay, a trip can be tolling, because of the change of environment, the unfamiliarness, and so on. It's... just stressful (if you're not feeling well in the first place). Despite the stress, the trip can still be a lot of fun, and a meaningful experience. The OP just has to make a decision.

Well, by far the most "dangerous" thing there for you is taking those planes. I know of a famous mental patient that felt ill after traveling to Japan (long journey), with interesting results, maybe you know about this. What I mean is that plane travels can mess your mind up. Italy is a country as safe as the next one, but there will be undoubtedly people there, especially if you go to tourist places, so take that into account. You don't specify if you're being forced to go or not -but if you feel safer where you are, don't go? Your decision really.

Bloke, South and Central America are huge, and populated by lots of different people with different background. Much like the hundred nations of the Persian Empire from 300 XD Also I'm sure there's such a thing as neuter Spanish. Just try not to add too much quirks and personal expressions.

About what Nosebleed said before about British English and American English, well, those two originated in Britain and have had like 200 years to evolve separately. Separated by a whole huge ocean. Much as Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal's Portuguese. Or Mexican Spanish and Spain's Spanish. But English as a foreign language has been taught worldwide from several decades ago. It hasn't had time to evolve distinctly. And, like Nosebleed said, don't confuse mistakes with distinct speaking patterns. No two Germans speak the same English, I guess? There's no need to separate English into 6 billion dialects. Hell, not even C3PO could keep track of them! Also, it should make sense for European English speakers to use the British variant, for American speakers to use American, and for people close to Australia to use Australian, if only for proximity and exposure to the local variant.

Sorry, but what's the difference? @kenibatz A LP is not a review. It's not putting some minutes of the novel, then giving a critique. As the name says, it's watching someone fully play the game (without repeating content, obviously) and giving their comments. The fun is, precisely, how each "letsplayer" addresses the game and adds their personal comments. I've seen boring people doing LPs, granted. So, using some kind of humour really spices the whole thing up, if not you might as well play it yourself and make your own laughs and facepalms, right?

About this thing about art and perspective, I suggest playing Rin's route in Katawa Shoujo. Perspective is pretty easy to explain. If I enter a room with people sitting there, what I see and what they see is different. I see people sitting, they see a person entering the room. I hope the idea is easy to get. The position we currently occupy in life can determine most things. By position I mean: social, psychological, economic, et cetera. Even spatial position can be critical (if you can avoid a car accident or a robber, for example). Subtle art means what the artist wants to portray. Meaning, if you don't directly ask the artist, you probably will never know. There are pieces of art that are perceived differently before and after you get an explanation about what they represent. And that's because we can't fathom what the artist was feeling or thinking when he/she did it -the psychological term "problem of other minds", aka we can never get to fully experience another person's perspective. But some art is just left there, ready for different people to give different meanings to it. In the end, what counts is the meaning you give it.

I don't recall any death. Not in the things I read. They all live happily ever after ^^

There's room for maintaining every language that there is, nice and tidy. But, if people don't learn English as a foreign language properly, they'll be bad translators, and the ball will roll downhill. In the 90s, the videogames' manuals (talking about Sega Genesis/Megadrive) were translated here in Europe to at least six tongues or so, and of course they were well translated. That's a thing to look forward to. I think it's a matter of skill rather than anything else. As people are now lazier than decades back, they do their work more poorly.

The island setting is nice (I dug Never 7), but the details about the storyline seem a little... off. Anyway, it doesn't feel like an instant masterpiece, somehow. Just another regular VN. We'd have to see the writing on the routes to dissipate doubts.