Nandemonai

I haven't really played anything I would compare Gahkthun to. Closest thing I can think of would be a much more serious Demonbane. Part of it is that I'm not very far at all. (But it's such a good game that I don't need to be very far to recommend it.) As for the Persona 4 spinoffs ... Persona 4 Arena I really liked, the sequel Ultimax I liked but it was not as good for me, and Dancing All Night was also good but not great. (P4A and P4AU also feature characters from Persona 3, by the way.) Basically, think of these like fandisks. If you like these characters, these games are basically the only thing you're likely to ever see starring them again. They won't come back as main characters again, I don't think. The story in P4A is actually pretty good; each character has their own Story Mode, and even though the main plot is repeated in most of them, I still really enjoyed it because it really focuses in on that character, and they did a good job of writing them all. Ultimax resolves the cliffhanger of P4A; its main story isn't as good, but it does add some closure for the extra Persona 3 characters that weren't in P4A. Dancing All Night is basically the last hurrah for the P4 cast, they get the band back together for one last gig. I like the casts of P3 and P4. They're very young when they get wrapped up in the earth-shattering chaos of their respective games, and so it's really interesting to see the direction their lives move in. Do they want to just be normal? Do they get sucked into dealing with things like this, as one of very few people on Earth qualified to take the job? To me, P4A/P4AU and DAN are most interesting when they are dealing with this. Because you aren't going to see that in any mainline Persona game. You can't. Any previous game cast members that show up, have to be minor characters. A new Persona game has to involve a new crisis, and new characters. These newbies pretty much have to be high school students (with the exception of Persona 2: EP, the casts have all been students). If previous games' casts take an active role, then by virtue of being older and much more experienced, they'll overshadow everybody new. Note that I call these games visual novels; and they are. But P4A/P4AU are also fighting games, and DAN is a rythym game. The VN portions are the story modes. They feature long VN sections, only briefly interrupted by gameplay sections that have obviously been set to "ultimate fucking pussy mode" difficulty. (I mean, seriously, in P4A you can win most story mode fights by mashing the auto-combo button. Then you go try Arcade mode, and all of a sudden the computer can actually fight ...)

I second Kara no Shoujo and Cartagra. I'd start with KnS, then do Cartagra, and then don't bother with KnS2, it's a landmine. You should also try Persona 3 if you haven't. Hotel Dusk is pretty good. Koihime Musou has a great story. Steins;Gate is amazing. Can't believe nobody's recommended Demonbane yet (I second the other NitroPlus recommendations). Root Double has some struggles with pacing issues, but is really good anyway. I haven't gotten very far in it, but Gahkthun definitely sounds like it fits the bill. And I know you said not to mention sequels, but you might not know these count: Persona 4 Arena, P4A Ultimax, and P4: Dancing All Night are all VN hybrids, believe it or not. And now my iffier recommendations. This one's really old, meaning the translation is going to be sketchy; but I liked it a lot anyway: Eve Burst Error. And you might want to check out Funbag Fantasy, it actually has a real plot. I'm also going to give a qualified recommendation to Critical Point. The story (meaning whodunit) actually changes based on what choices you make. The true route is quite interesting, the others ... vary. Soul Link has a terrible prologue, a kickass first half, and an okay second half - but it definitely fits your criteria. Only problem is it's out of print.

So the Organization is these five girls, then? I don't see why Okabe would be so hung up on it. In fact, you'd think he'd be clamoring to join.

Having both is indeed the best outcome. But most of the time, that's not what you get. People making nukige don't often bother with good stories or plots or even characters, because they know that's not what pulls in the customers. That's why Funbag Fantasy is so unusual. Berserk is the same way; usually the ultra-violent stuff doesn't tend to bother with a good story because it doesn't need one. Game makers are mere mortals, after all. They have to make money. They're naturally going to focus their efforts on the things that make them money. That's the job of marketing, to figure out who buys your stuff, and why. So if you have a hot license, it's more important to get your game out while the license is still hot than it is to take the time to make a great masterpiece. This is the same reason anime so often get made out of half-finished manga and light novels; the anime is made during the peak popularity, which is usually going to be in the middle. So it's a double whammy. First, time pressure favors cranking something out quickly (which means smaller and easier to make). Second, you can get away with stuff in a licensed game that you can't in a game that has to stand on its own. The license has a built-in attraction to people, who will buy it just for the name. This is not guaranteed to be the way it goes down. After all, a masterpiece that has a license attached to it can do way better than a mediocre game with a license. But the mediocre game is a lot easier to make, and will still make you a lot of money. Hence why they're often described as cheap cash grabs.

Well, looking at this walkthrough, there seems to be. Not sure what it's about, since I'd have to read thru the walkthrough and I don't wanna do that for a game I haven't read yet. But there's clearly something marked 'side route'. And also a True ending. Edit: Also, the last section says シナリオ回収 which translates basically to "scenario completion/retrieval". So there seem to be a bunch of choices that just give you side content.

It says so right there " When the combined gross profit of eden* and Supipara reaches.. However, you're right. The math doesn't add up. So I give up, I got no idea how they're computing it.

That's not a lot. The next major Steam sale will probably be enough to push them over and get Supipara part 2 released. Past that, however ... it starts looking much dicier. After Supipara chapter 1 released, it didn't exactly burn up the charts. Unless chapter 2 is a significant improvement, I would not count on chapter 3 coming anytime soon. That's 200K gross, not net. That is, before all the expenses are deducted. If you buy Eden for $20 on Steam, $20 goes on the counter never mind that Steam takes a significant cut of that sale.

Basically, you want to recreate Atlanta Nights only as a VN this time. I have to agree with Zalor, this seems unlikely to succeed. Both the examples I know of fit his pattern of a smallish group that had a specific goal in mind. Atlanta Nights was a snow job to make fools of a predatory vanity press that dared to attack real authors, and Katawa Shoujo was also based around a particular idea.

You know that there are people who played Destiny for, like, a thousand hours ... and then were like "this game sucks!" at the end? Sound, ah, familiar?

So basically, denpa is this trope? Sounds good to me. I'm pretty sure we've never gotten anything like that in English before, or I probably would have played it by now.

It's a common fact in many VNs that there's unhappiness for whoever you don't pick. That has always kind of bugged me. In fact, even though they're the most ridiculous endings of all, usually the harem endings are the happiest. That's kind of silly. If you want romance that feels real, I recommend picking up Spice and Wolf and Crest/Banner of the Stars. Edit: Oh, and the Yuka route of Crescendo. I actually find she has the best bad ending of any game I've ever seen.

Yes. I like to tell myself that this wouldn't change anything; that a good game is a good game; and that I would play an otome game with a good story. But in practice, if I'm being honest with myself, I probably wouldn't play the gender-bender version. It just doesn't have the built in appeal that a bunch of cute girls does. I haven't played Ozmafia for that reason (well, and I'm not sure I'd like a game about the mob).

It's a very useful trick to keep in mind. If a webpage is acting funky in your browser, the first thing to try is reloading the page. The second thing is to restart the browser. And the third thing is usually to try a different browser.

Had no such issue. If you've tried multiple different browsers and you still see the problem, then contact Sekai support.

Oh. In that case, this is an important question to ask. I'd ask Sekai Project directly, though. There's like 30 days left in the Kickstarter, they might respond. It must suck being a fan of games that natively speaks Italian. I remember the days when English-translated video games were very hit or miss; it sucked bigtime.

For the love of god, I hope so. I'd hate to see the result of the game of Telephone what would happen if you translated from one language to the other.

I'm going to pretend to apologize for this in advance. You'd think Azuki and Coconut would like that, though ... No, not really. Translation is more expensive than most people think. Japanese-to-XYZ commonly costs several cents per character. They're offering six translations for $100K, but you also have to remember that rewards and Kickstarter's cut eat into that hundred grand before it goes to pay any translators. They also have a significantly more complicated job mastering and testing the blu-ray itself - after all, you don't want the Korean subs to be timed poorly, or to crash on people's players like His and Her Circumstances did - and I have no idea how much that costs. So it's probably true that a hundred grand is probably not Sekai's cost to add these subtitles, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was much closer than you think. And I don't really have a problem with that; it is a stretch goal. People are getting the OVA at a discount. Incidentally, this is why so few games get released in English compared to the Japanese release. The cost of a good translation is actually fairly significant, and when the average sales are taken into account, the money often just isn't there.

Yes. I should clarify that I'm only talking about this year. Koihime managed it a few years ago. After the voice patch was releases, its sales went way up. For like a year after that, it would regularly be in the top 5 on MangaGamer's site. In their year end reviews, Koihime was #7 in 2012, #9 in 2013. After that it fell off, but it made the hard copy bestseller list at #7 in 2014. (Subsequent years did not actually have a seperate hardcopy bestseller list.) Another interesting thing is that Imouto Paradise actually moved up. It made #3 this year (well, last year); the year before (2015) it was only #4.

I wonder when they're going to license more Moonstone games. Both of the ones they have made the top ten list in 2016, despite not actually being released in 2016. Evangile is actually the only non-nukige title to achieve that feat on MangaGamer's main storefront. I know they already have W Happiness and Imopara 2 (which ought to do quite well when it finally gets released), but those are both nearing release. Since monster girl heroines seem to be hot right now, maybe Magical Marriage Lunatics? Or maybe they'll go for something similar to Princess Evangile, with Ojou-sama to Himitsu no Otome?

But this still describes Danganronpa. Most of your time playing the game is spent in the VN view, talking to people. Everything else you do is related to the narrative in some way. So my question still stands: Why do you claim it's not a VN? Hell, according to this definition, Persona 4 Arena is a VN. And before you say otherwise, have you played the Story Mode? "Half an hour of reading, followed by 2 minutes of a fighting game at the 'cakewalk' difficulty setting, and repeat" is certainly completely concentrated on narrative. (Sure, there's other things bolted on that clearly are not VNs, like the online multiplayer or the other game modes. That's beside the point.)

Since when is Danganronpa not a VN? Are Aselia, Virtue's Last Reward, or Yumina not VNs?

You're required to have a pair of eyes in the back of your head, too. I happen to be related to a teacher, so I thought maybe I had an in at the supply store, but no. Turns out you have to actually be a teacher yourself or they won't even talk to you. They take 'em out when you retire or change jobs, too.

Best is easily Steins;Gate 0. Worst is ... I think I'm going with Zero Time Dilemma. I liked it, but ... well ... it didn't deliver on the cliffhanger from the previous game (which was actually retconned to be non-canon) and it didn't deliver a game that was better than VLR (or even as good) either.

Yes, it's almost certainly a security precaution intended to prevent people from signing up with a throwaway email address, buying something, then posting the login info online. No, it doesn't solve the underlying issue, the same way that murder being against the law doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't matter that the problem can't be fully solved if there are partial solutions that get you most of the way there. In other words, this is why we can't have nice things.

Some unexpected family issues came up. No progress this week.