Clephas

I'm fond of the style from ten to fifteen years ago, like seen in Ikusa Megami Zero, as well as the older style used in Dies Irae. However, that just means that, in the end, I like different types of anime styles. The tendency to go for excessively deformed or hyper-realistic designs in Western animation and cartoon styles puts me off, partially because I've spent so long with otaku media, partially because it just isn't as refined as even the worst anime style in modern times. I just don't respond to it. A few use the 'neutral style', which has a watercolor-type look combined with a more refined sprite design that is easy on the eyes, but that kind of thing requires a level of skill that most VN-makers in the West can't manage, so it is more of an exception than a trend. Edit: In the end, those are just my personal preferences. The idea that a certain style is prerequisite for VNs is not something I'm going to say yes to. I simply prefer the anime styles in general, for similar reasons to why I stopped watching Western media entirely. That is the more straight answer to the original question, lol

Well, looks like the LoS game wins the poll, though even fewer people voted than I anticipated.

Yofukashi's Monogatari vibes are why I immediately decided to drop it... to be honest, I got tired of the series after the first season. Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru is a pretty cute romantic comedy where Ayumu constantly flirts with Urushi while refusing to admit he is in love with her. Overlord 4 began slowly, but what was there was solid. I just have to wonder if they'll draw things out too much... Kinsou no Vermeil reminded me of Kanokon in a good way. Jashin-chan is Jashin-chan, you either like or hate it. Tensei Kenja looks to be a semi-solid isekai with an overpowered protagonist. Isekai Meikyuu Harem is unwatchable unless you get the uncensored version, which makes it nfsw. Kumichou Musume was cute, reminding me of Aishiteiruze Baby. Engage Kiss looks to be a trashy low-end fantasy with an unreliable protagonist. Utawarerumono is... Utawarerumono. If played the game, so far it follows things a bit more faithfully than with the first anime... RWBY is fast-paced and fun so far, but it shows signs that it will probably turn to trash later on.

LoS games tend to be great or pure trash at a rate of 1:2. It's anybody's guess as to whether this one is going to be one of the good ones.

For those who are still interested, I've been considering three VNs to play (I'm only going to play one for now), mostly because, for the first time in a while, there have actually been more than one notable release inside a four month period. The LoS game looks to be a low-tension mystery fantasy that is probably going to turn out to be a nakige, based on the getchu page. Wakai Seyo looks like what it probably is, a moderately high-quality charage by a company known for its eccentric VNs. Ambitious Mission is the latest Saga Planets game, but just looking at it from the outside mad me feel like it was one of the mediocre ones (there is a huge gap between the quality of Saga Planets' best games and their normal ones). As such, I decided to toss the coin and let the few people remaining in our dying community decide which I'll play for me. If I get more than ten votes on a single VN, I'll immediately start playing it, though (because I seriously doubt more than five or six people will actually vote on this... and even that is probably optimistic).

Magatsu Barai's PC version comes out at the end of this month, and Propeller's first game in ten years comes out in September.

Tsukihime Phantom Yu-No (original) Shuffle Fate/Stay Night

https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354055057378382 This is a short and complete series about a guy who dies and is reincarnated in a parallel version of himself, where he could see his status and has a skill that rewards him for repetitive actions. Generally speaking, this story doesn't really have any complex elements. The protagonist is something of an idiot about things he isn't interested in while being highly effective at learning and mastering things he does have an interest in. He does a lot of hilariously stupid stuff like stuffing himself to the point of puking to take advantage of his 'super recovery' skill which lets him restore his body to full health by eating or learning how to manipulate mana only to use it to make his muscle training more effective. He isn't the ambitious sort, he just enjoys training himself. The exception to his training obsession is Ichika, his first love from his first lifetime, who he adores utterly and never really forgot even when he was working himself to death. This story takes a turn for the slightly more dramatic (his status is pretty ridiculous even at the beginning) when dungeons begin to pop up all over the place on Earth (the first couple he squished, the second one with Ichika). I say slightly more dramatic because he is so ridiculously powerful that there are never any real challenges to his ability. The trend of him getting more ridiculously powerful with every passing day continues to the very end of the story, which is where he finally gets up the nerve to marry Ichika (who is just as in love with him as he is with her). Overall, this is a funny story where the protagonist manages to avoid becoming a harem protag despite his immense power.

https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054885318680 This particular WN is one where the protagonist is summoned... by the demon lord to save him from the hero! The protagonist, Kuroki, becomes a Knight of Darkness and faces off with his trauma - the hero in question - and begins a story of endless misunderstandings and plot twists. That is, in fact, the peculiar flavor of this story. Over 90% of Ankoku Kishi Monogatari's characters are self-absorbed pricks on some level, with the gods being the worst examples of them all. The protagonist, Kuroki, and the demon king Modes are the most humane characters in a world full of narcissistic men and women. On one level, this is hilarious as it leads to an endless series of misunderstandings, turn and turnabout. On another level, it is exhausting, because everyone misunderstands everyone else. There are no Eureka moments, there are only a bunch of self-absorbed powerful deities, heroes, and monsters who all fail to understand each other's motivations on any level. Kuroki is no exception to the misunderstandings... but in his case, he is just really pessimistic about how people see him and his own abilities (despite actually being one of the top most powerful beings in existence almost from the beginning and working his ass off to get more powerful). The human side of things is Hellenistic, with independent city-states working loosely together on matters they have in common and fighting one another when they aren't. Humans are much, much weaker on an individual level than even goblins or orcs, (incidentally the biggest hole in the setting is the fact that humans are still alive at all) and so their trade routes are constantly endangered, and food production is war. The demon side is feudalistic, with Modes at the top as the king, and his vassals all taking care of their own lands. The demons are not pure evil, but a lot of the Nargol races are cannibalistic toward humans while at the same time seeing them as aesthetically pleasing (in a sexual manner). This brings me to the second major hole in the setting... the fact that every species sees the human form as aesthetically pleasing (even ones like Arachne, Empusa, and centaurs). I'm pretty sure the writer did this on purpose, but it drives me a bit crazy that a giant scorpion finds human women more attractive than his arachne wife. Overall, while this can be a fun read, it can also be infuriating at times. Edit: Adding more details about the characters... The protagonist Kuroki and one of the hero's party, Shirone, are childhood friends/osananajimi, and Reiji - the hero - is a rival who traumatized Kuroki and was the cause of him becoming obsessed with martial arts. Shirone is a dreamer who loves heroes but is too self-absorbed to realize she is constantly hurting Kuroki's feelings with her idolization of Reiji. Reiji is a handsome but animalistic guy who goes out of his way to save girls (he seems to have an instinctive grasp of where to find women who need him) and thinks nothing of guys. Reiji is one of the top two narcissists in the story, whereas Shirone is just a blockhead. Alrena, the 'main heroine' of the story, is one of the world's goddesses and the one who summoned Reiji and his party of girls. She is a self-absorbed woman who dislikes most men (including Reiji), but particularly dislikes Modes for his hideousness and the fact that he used her hair to create his wife, Mona. She is really good at faking compassion, but the truth is she cares little for most people beyond how they are useful to her. This kind of personality is actually rather typical of the more powerful characters on the human and Elios pantheon's side of things.

https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3581fh/ This series is the odd one out of my recent reviews. That is because it is a sci-fi story that contains a bit of Cowboy Bebop, a bit of Outlaw Star, and even a small dose of Tenchi Muyo(albeit a weak version with less mystic elements). The protagonist, Hiro, wakes up in the cockpit of his ship Krishna from the game he had been playing for the past few years. He has no memory of how it came to that, and his ship is floating around a random asteroid in a borderland star system of the Empire. What starts as a simple journey to figure out what is going on quickly becomes a long story of him building a harem, getting rich by slaughtering space pirates, and an endless series of troubles that seem to come out of nowhere to haunt his journey. The harem is somewhat of a slow-burn thing after the first two (Mimi and Elma) join him, as it is over a hundred chapters until more or added. Hiro is something of a hot dog ace pilot, mostly because of his experiences in the game, which gives him a ridiculously wide amount of knowledge and combat experience dealing with various threats on a tactical and personal level. Most of the series isn't terribly serious, because Hiro keeps snapping flags that might have made it so and because the writer pulls his punches on the series' dark-side, only hinting at some of the darker things that Hiro and the others come into contact with or referring to them indirectly without details. Overall, this is a fun series to read, though I would call it a space adventure rather than a space opera.

Oddly, writers are the easiest personnel to find for VNs. Artists (of quality) on the other hand are rare and often costly. I remember when I commissioned art for a VN I was trying to make eight years ago, I got charged forty dollars for each CG (high-detail) and fifteen for each sprite (not including variations of pose and expression). I imagine the basic costs have probably tripled or quadrupled by now, though. Considering that most VN readers are art bigots, it isn't something you can get away with skimping on (except for backgrounds... people are willing to ignore skimping on backgrounds).

This particular WN is the first I've read that isn't another world fantasy or isekai. The first thing I found myself comparing this to was Devils Devel Concept. Why? There are a lot of reasons, but a lot of it is that the protagonist is a monster in human skin and most of the characters remind me of the characters from that VN. The setting is based six hundred years after the near-destruction of civilization earth due to a massive war (basically WWIII), and humans have the option of using the Oracle system to find their perfect job. When Ibuki, the protagonist, activates the Oracle terminal, the perfect job for him is 'Daiyoukai' (great youkai), and he immediately is given an all-expenses paid trip to the mystic world that lies on the other side of reality. One thing I have to note is that Ibuki is not a person who works hard or trains or any of that stuff. In his own words 'A great youkai is something you either are or you aren't. You can't work hard at becoming one.' He embodies his own words from beginning to end, easily awakening to his power because his unique psychological structure is perfectly suited for it. The heroine of the story (there is only one) is Tamamo no Mae/Daki, who is also his ancestor. She is pretty horrible as a person, manipulating those around her with every word, gesture, and even her rhythm of breathing. Ibuki, even as he lives with her, constantly comments that she is a 'dokufu' (poison pill of a woman), but this doesn't really effect how he feels about her, which just goes to show how much a monster he is as well. I honestly loved this story (it is over), and Ibuki was an ideal protagonist from beginning to end. However, he is definitely a chaotic evil character who sometimes wavers into chaotic neutral. As he notes 'Daiyoukai, by their very nature, are poisonous to humans, as they contain a certain evil from the moment they come into being'. Ibuki, while he is often good to those he likes, is just as often a horrible influence that subtly - often without intention on his part - corrupts those around him. Definitely a fun ride, at least for me. https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2559fp/

That's what is weird about this one... it doesn't get tedious. The author is really good at making you want to read 'just one more chapter', and it never really stops. Normally, I'd agree with you, and objectively speaking, it would be nice if he hurried things up a bit. However, when I'm reading it, I don't feel that way, oddly. @Rikuremarked that he had a similar experience with it.

Madohi Shiroki Kamikakushi (Edit: Osananajimi end is the true end) Kurogane Kaikitan Waga Himegimi ni Eikan (Majinzoku side end is the true end, all three national paths are satisfying, side-heroines get gypped) Edit: Oh I forgot. Kunado Kokuki

https://ncode.syosetu.com/n6442ez/ This particular series is another reincarnation story, but it stands out because the entirety of the story so far is concentrated in his childhood, where he is constantly dealing with problems beyond his abilities, faced with situations where revealing his true abilities would harm his family, and generally trying to keep his yanderish little sister from being lonely. His name is Alto Cranepot, and he is the bastard son of a noble who married into an Earl's family with the man's mistress, Ryuushka. Al, as he is called most of the time, died of overwork in his previous life and is often described as having the atmosphere of a worn-out worker that is at odds with his beautiful features inherited from his mother. Due to the fact that he had to touch his sister's soul while in the womb to help her and his mother survive, his sister is totally obsessed with him from the moment she is born. His teacher, Eibelle, is the series heroine, one of the two remaining ancestors of the elven race, the Arch Elves, her nickname being 'hametsu' (Ruin) for the fact that she was always the one to destroy threats in the previous ages (she is at least ten thousand years old, but as innocent in matters of romance as a girl can get). She is not only his love interest but his teacher of sorcery and easily the most adorable character in the series. It helps that Al loves her from almost the first time he meets her, and she shares that feeling. The entirety of the seven hundred and so chapters that have come out so far has only resulted in him turning eight years old, as the author is cramming an immense amount of detail into every year of his life. As such, there is no way you can consider this to be a complete story. However, it is an immensely enjoyable read, as Al struggles to have a normal life while ruining those plans with his own hands and efforts. Overall, this is a great choice for people who like isekai stories that are mostly daily life with a side of comedy and action/adventure. I don't recommend this to people who want fast-paced stories. I do recommend it for people who like their stories to have a lot of details.

This particular series follows a guy who dies after being trampled by an escaped horse as he is revived in another world and told to live freely. He is given two major growth cheats right up front (20 times experience gain, plus 1/20 experience to next level) and becomes immensely powerful in a relatively short time, while gathering a group of friends and lovers around him (he only has two lovers, which is pretty low compared to most isekai protagonists). Throughout most of the story, he picks the jobs he wants to level up at random or based on his needs at the moment, so you can't really say he is an intelligent and far-sighted protagonist. In addition, he is highly reliant on the moral support of Haru and Kyaro (his lovers) to keep himself balanced. The theme of this story is very much a 'normal guy his given immense power but no purpose', and it is only toward the end that things become truly serious and he is forced to stand against fate. Since the protagonist doesn't become morally defunct (something that happens to roughly half of the serious isekai protagonists I've seen so far), chapter for chapter, this isn't a bloody series. Nor is it graphic. The protagonist tends to try to save everyone he can while not endangering those close to him, but he doesn't have a hero complex. It is more a situation where the protagonist has the power to do something about it, so he does. The story itself is fairly solid and internally consistent, even if it appears to go off on tangents regularly (the intermissions with the two idiots and their monster donkey are a perfect example of tangents turning out to be important). However, it is also a long story to read, and it gets off to a relatively slow start until the events that result in him buying Haru. Overall, it is a complete series that never truly loses its shine from beginning to end, so it is worth reading for those who like isekai stories.

It's already translated.

I couldn't get into Heiwa Deshita. The first one I read part of but put aside because it didn't match what I wanted at the time. I'll look at the second one, eventually... I read a couple of Mobsekai-types already, but I'll keep it in mind.

To be honest, Sairin Yuusha is one of the worst WNs I've ever read. I kept reading until it cut off because I thought it would eventually get good, but the protagonist is weak and there is never any real progress with the heroine. The story itself is a revenge story about a hero who is murdered by his own party right before he is about to fight the Demon King. Thirty years later, he is summoned again and starts on a journey of revenge, forming an alliance with a former demon queen and generally wreaking havoc on his enemies in a world that he feels betrayed him. His revenge is pretty graphic - so those who like that kind of thing will probably get off on this - but, to be honest, he is so focused on the revenge part of his journey that he never really grows as a person until right before the author stopped posting it (literally in the last volume). If the writer had included some softer moments to cushion the constant 'push forward and get revenge', I would have liked it more. I also would have liked it if the heroine's personality had fit her role in the story, but unfortunately, she often was the source of me being jerked out of my immersion in the story.

Probably thinking about Der Werewolf. It has a similar theme (reincarnator is a commander in the demon army). It is also completely released in english in both manga and ln form (decent but more mundane than this one).

This particular WN is remarkable for a lot of reasons. The protagonist of this story is reincarnated in another world as the adopted son of a lich general in the service of Dairokuten Maou (lol, if you can guess who else got reincarnated, I'll clap in congrats), and he joins the demonic armies as a commander while hiding the fact that he is human behind a skull mask and lich's robes. The story itself begins after he has already begun to become famous as a conquering commander but before his real talents have been shown to the world. The protagonist really is the most powerful mage in the story, having survived his grandpa's spartan (and inhuman) training methods, but his major talents actually lie in strategy and administration, meaning he is more general and administrator than he is a mage most of the time. There is no actual romance in the main story (despite the fact that about seven women have fallen for him by the end), so those who desire romance in their stories shouldn't go after this one. The closest he comes to a romance is his surprisingly intimate relationship with Sati, his maid who was a slave of the lord of a city he conquered in the prologue. Within the story, Sati is the personification of the 'common humankind', whereas Jiron (the protagonist's aide-de-campe, who is an orc) represents the monster races' common people. The viewpoints these two provide during the story just with their comments and actions help to provide perspective, a technique that is often used by skilled writers. Most of the story goes back and forth between Ike (the protagonist) overcoming incredible odds to push the Demon King's agenda forward and him building up his territory of Ivalice using his knowledge of Earth. I honestly thought a lot that him revealing his true self to Lilith would have made for interesting results, but, unfortunately, to the very end, Ike only reveals himself to a very select group of people who saw through him anyway. This story is complete, thankfully, with a prequel gaiden story and a single after story attached after. If you like strategist/tactician protagonists in fantasy worlds, it is a good choice to read.

The grind obsession is a bit annoying at times. However, it becomes less tedious after he leaves the village.

To be honest, this is probably the best of the last six WNs I've read in the last month. It is also complete. This one is a 'same world, different protagonist' story from the same world as Elf Tensei kara no Cheat Kenkokuki, and the protagonist of that one is the father one of the two heroines. However, even if you haven't read the first story, this one stands on its own quite well. The protagonist, Souji, was a player of a game on Earth that was insanely realistic, with time compression that allowed him to spend 168 years testing everything that world had to offer. The game had several unusual aspects. For one, it was single-player. For another, it had permadeath. One thing all the players noticed was that, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how long they lived, things always ended in tragedy. Souji in particular, lost his beloved Kuna over and over again, and one day when he was about to try to save her again, the end of service for the game was announced. As he was about to despair, he was offered a chance to go to a real world where he would have a chance to save Kuna for real. Naturally, he leaps at this chance and is reborn with all the built-up knowledge of that world's magic and crafting techniques he had put together over the 168 subjective years he spent in the game. The protagonist is definitely a cheat character, but that doesn't mean there aren't struggles. In actuality, while he doesn't struggle with the day to day issues, dealing with the issues important to him is always a struggle, meaning this isn't just an overpowered protagonist dominating the arena (in fact, for most of the story he is merely overpowered for his rank, not overpowered compared to everyone around him). The romantic parts of the story are fairly cute, but the WN in general is pretty no-frills as a whole, with relatively little normal SOL and a ton of action and drama. Overall, it is a good story if you want something that more or less sticks to the plot for the entirety of the story, but it isn't something you'll enjoy if you want to see a lot of side-tracking and swimsuit scenes, lol.

Niito Dakedo Hello Work ni ittara Isekai ni Tsuretakareta This is a WN by Katsura Kasuga. An unemployed NEET named Masaru goes to Hello Work (the official Japanese employment agency) and signs a contract for what he thinks is playing a video game, and instead he gets dropped into a world about to be destroyed (or so he is told) and told to test Itou's (apparently that world's god) new skill system for twenty years (incidentally, the amount of time until the end of the world). If he survives the twenty years, he'll be sent back to Japan with twenty years worth of six-figure pay to arrive at the same time he left in his young body, if he dies he... dies. The draw of this series is, as usual with Isekai these days, harem. The protagonist, Masaru, doesn't have any hesitation about building a harem, and after a bunch of semi-hilarious events early on, he actually manages to form one with four heroines (one cat-girl slave, a priestess, a mage, and a loli judge). The first half of what was written before the author dropped off the face of the earth is mostly SOL with adventurer everyday life. It is the second half where things start to expand into having a real story, where the harem becomes almost incidental to progressing the plot. Perhaps the most frustrating part is that the story cuts off in the middle of the final chapter... Rettougan no Tensei Majutsushi This one follows a similar plot to Shikkakumon no Saikyou Kenja and Shijou Saikyou Maou. The protagonist was a great sorcerer who defeated the demon lord with his friends, but because of his eyes, he suffered from persecution. As a result, he decided to use magic to reincarnate himself two hundred years later, where he was reborn in a body he designed from the ground up. This story, before it was cut off by the author's likely demise (given the fact that ALL his works stopped being released within a two-week period). Honestly, given how high-paced this one was, I would have been happy to read it once it was complete, but the abrupt stop in the middle of things getting interesting pretty much killed any fondness I might have had. Isekai Shihai no Skill Taker This one is by the same writer as Rettougan and literally cuts off in the last volume (much to my frustration). However, as summoning isekai go, this one is notable for the protagonist being a pretty fascinating martial artist, as well as a kichiku character with a fondness for tentacles and beautiful women. I honestly enjoyed everything about the story, and while I nearly flew into a rage when I saw it cut off literally in the last part of the story, I can imagine what was likely to happen next fairly easily. The protagonist of this one has a tendency to indulge in 'enlightened self-interest', which means he is generally selfish but realizes that the world doesn't revolve around him and he is willing to take action to make things better around him. [Edit] Maou to Ryuuou ni Sodaterareta Shounen wa Gakuen de Musou suru you desu I started this WN last night and finished the ten volumes that have come out so far about ten minutes ago. It was too early for me to make a new post, so I chose to include this one in this post. This story follows a young villager who gets trapped in the seal containing the Maou and Ryuuou from three hundred years before. Unlike them, he is not permanently trapped, so they decide to train him (despite his lack of talent), a task that takes several subjective centuries (time passes slower on the outside than it does on the inside, to the point where a year outside is three hundred inside). The villager, Ruisha, has an intense desire for power, which reaches the levels of madness at times, and as a result, he gladly spends the next three hundred years learning from his teachers (who become closer to surrogate mothers and wives to him as time goes by). The above chapter is actually the first volume of the WN, and once it was over, he went back into the world and headed for the Kingdom, where he accidentally enrolls in the Magic Academy, where he pretty much does the same thing every op protagonist in this kind of story does... forms an accidental harem and turns the school castes upside down. This story is incomplete and the writer has slowed down his releases significantly in recent months. However, what is there is fairly high quality. In particular, the quality of the romance/ichaicha is extremely high, as is that of the battle scenes.

Irotoridori is the only surprise on that list... I'd more or less given up on seeing anymore Favorite games being translated. Hopefully, Sakura Moyu will come eventually (Favorite's best work).