Clephas

It would be best if you had a solid baseline, rather than chasing after the peak of each era. I'd suggest taking a look at the differences in styles between games with all-ages versions and those without; taking a look at a gameplay VN every three years since 2000 (Eushully is a good reference point for this); sampling Key from each era; AXL from each era (their essential style hasn't changed, but there are significant if subtle technical differences as the years have passed); journeys into the dark (Akatsuki Works Black briefly went into the wide blue yonder with metallic-looking eyes and slightly different character designs); and oddballs like Silky's Plus that pursue a non-standard general style for non-nukige VNs. Companies that don't necessarily stand out for visual quality but have maintained an industry baseline throughout their existence, like Pulltop, are also good reference points. Just looking at the difference between Haruuru and Pulltop's more recent works is pretty enlightening about how the differences in the tools available to VN companies has made a difference in the artwork. Another issue you might take note of is that art quality across the industry hasn't improved significantly since 2010, save for a few companies that can afford to put six figures into their art budget for each game. Indeed, it can be argued that the Japanese VN industry is currently suffering from the law of diminishing returns in terms of financial investment in artwork, as the tendency in modern times has been for 'easier' character designs and fewer non-H CGs in the most-released genre of non-nukige VNs (charage), a fact I've noted repeatedly in various posts, if in an off-hand manner.

Most nukige have names that would sound disgusting in English. That one isn't the translation of the Japanese name, but the Japanese one is bad enough... One of the reasons I don't think we should bother translating nukige titles (I mean the actual titles, not the games themselves, lol). The actual translation is 'My little sister got Hemorrhoids so I inserted a suppository'. Stupid title either way... even by nukige standards

Just don't let the Japanese choose the English title. That never ends well (Attack on Titan).

One of the big reasons more Japanese VN companies are looking for an 'in' in the US market is because the moege/charage market over in Japan is saturated and generally in decline. One reason we are seeing declining Steam sales is because most people tend to go for the uncensored versions that they don't allow, so they hit up the company stores instead of Steam. The other reason is that the market here isn't growing as fast as the number of new VNs being released. It isn't like the average income of a western VN-gamer has suddenly increased to match the output, after all.

I started X-link on a whim, and I was surprised at its quality almost immediately. This post is basically a composite view of my impressions up through the Chiruouka (bad) ending that lies roughly two-thirds of the way through the game. X-Link uses the ladder-style structure made popular with G-senjou no Maou and Aiyoku no Eustia, and we all know my general dissatisfaction with this particular structure, so I won't go back over it. Instead, I'll focus on the parts of this game that exist aside from this issue. This game is set in the year of 2050 and onward, in a world where most military activities are carried out by three great PMCs (Private Military Corporations), and most of the world has gone to crap, even as technology has moved forward immensely and at a rapid pace. Human-like automata/androids are already in common use in service professions (Nurses, waitresses, airline stewardesses, housekeepers, etc), and they've more or less come to be accepted as part of the scenery. That said, they are often the target of human spite and arrogance, and, considering that they possess emulated emotions, this can cause problems. Recently, the first fully genetically-modified humans called Edited were released, but the release is considered a failure, as only a small portion survived to adulthood (by accident or design, it is not really spelled out at the point I'm at). Before the beginning of the story, the protagonist's older sister, who was considered the penultimate Edited, died in an accident that leveled her laboratory and left him in a depressive funk that lasted several years. He is broken out of that funk by the arrival of Himefuuro, a fully autonomous android designed with the ability to share emotions with humans through a kiss. By sharing his emotions with her and feeling her unconditional love for him, he is able to break out of his depression... only to become rather obviously dependent on her. X-link has five heroines: Akira, Hina, Chiruouka, Yuuri, and Himefuuro in order of their endings. Akira is a teacher and agent (this isn't a spoiler, since you find this out in a 'her perspective' scene early on) who infiltrates the school the protagonist attends as part of her hunt for something involving the corporation that runs the school. Hina is a girl with an incurable disease called Coppelia Syndrome that causes the skin of the afflicted to harden gradually over time until it kills them. Chiruouka is a rogue combat cyborg and the only third generation cyborg other than Himefuuro in existence (second generation being the ones currently used, who are completely reliant on the giant central servers to maintain their personalities). Yuuri is an Edited girl with a tendency to lie for the sake of lying who shares the exact same appearance as the protagonist's older sister. The story of this VN is generally serious in tone. Most of the characters - heroines and protagonist included - are deeply scarred and somewhat warped personalities. The story itself constantly revolves around AI issues throughout what I've seen so far, ranging from the classic identity crises to what happens when androids find religion. It is interesting enough intellectually for me to take an interest that way, and the complex emotions and motivations of the characters grant the game a pretty good degree of depth. That said, the protagonist is dense as the hull of a warship and generally inexperienced in human relationships that aren't 'family'. As a result, some of the conflict in the story is centered on problems caused by his generally thick skull. While I'm reserving final judgement until I finish the true ending and go back and play the other heroines' endings, I can say that the journey so far has been worth it, and the writer's approach to AI issues has been more thoughtful than I anticipated. As such, this gets a tentative recommendation from me. This game is pretty long, and my stamina just ran out, so I'm going to take a week or so of 'vacation' from it before I go back and finish it up.

Because most rom-com anime are made with sequels (endless sequels) in mind, so they have to drag things out forever to milk it of as much money as possible.

Alternate History Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier Muramasa Sengoku Koihime Secret History Zero Infinity Bradyon Veda (futuristic based on a completely different set of historic events) Utawarerumono is a future scenario. It is also based on a fusion of Ainu and Wajin (Wajin being Japanese as we know them, whereas the Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido and northern Honshuu that were forcibly assimilated over the last century and a half) cultural elements, rather than being purely Japanese. The religious elements in particular draw on the Ainu's animistic rituals, and many of the social positions (ouro being the most obvious) are Ainu terms.

Tbh, there isn't a lot to say about this episode. For those who were curious about Haruto's past, this pretty much reveals everything (well, since it is non-ero, it doesn't touch upon my suspicion that there was some classic Grisaia oneshota in there somewhere). It is pretty bloody - again, as usual - and it properly spotlights Haruto and the group of adults who raised him (questionable whether you can really call them adults, though). That said, it should be noted that this is obviously setting things up for the plot of the series to take a big leap forward in the next entry. As such, we can hope that the next one will be longer and the final episode of the Phantom Trigger series, so Front Wing can produce something unique (in other words, a new series, hopefully), instead of throwing us tidbits of action once or twice a year.

Both Waka-sama and Ruruha-sama are 'noja' characters who speak in a slightly archaic version of modern Japanese, so that might be a problem. There are some points that might be hard for newcomers to untranslated VNs, but it isn't THAT hard.

Hi people! It's been a while since I posted anything (for me, anyway), and I wanted to go ahead and get the March releases explanation out of the way before I started on Waka-sama. Love Commu I played through one route of this game, but it was not really something I could keep going through to all the endings, primarily because the setting is pure nukige while the setup and execution is pure moege. Don't know what I'm trying to get at? Well, I'll go ahead and explain. Essentially, the game focuses on the protagonist being a teacher of the Love Education subject, which essentially allows him to get into a relationship with his students. The problem? Most of his students are either innocents about sexuality due to their upbringing or the very reverse. Naturally, this results in various wacky antics... and this would normally be a pure nukige with a kichiku-style teacher. Instead, we get the adult version of the classic charage protagonist romancing (by accident at times) a bunch of girls who would normally be underage for him. While there were a lot of smile-worthy moments in the common route and I didn't hate the endings, this isn't the kind of game where you'll love the setting or get engrossed in the story. It is classic charage from beginning to end, with the setting being the only exception. Sakura Iro, Mau Koro ni I actually plan to go back to this one eventually. It is a first-class charage with a solid cast of heroines and side-characters, as well as a decent protagonist. As such, it is unusual enough that I felt I could go back and enjoy it later. It wasn't good enough for me to delay playing Waka-sama though. Waka-sama no Zasuru Sekai I'm going to be blunt going in... Minato Carnival's new game is, theme-wise, completely out of character. That said, it reuses a lot of resources from Tsujidou-san, being based in the same region, though without the same characters. The themes focus on Japanese mythology, youkai, and deities, and it is pretty screwy overall. A few notes about this game's story... it is darker than you'd think from the usual Minato style. It is often casually violent, with lots of casual deaths and a huge number of bad (dead) endings you are required to read through to get to the true (Waka-sama) ending. The former element is very much in line with Minato Soft's style (the casual violence with superpowers), but the way people die off right and left in this story is more something you'd see from a horror VN company than this company. Now, that isn't a complaint. If anything, I was amazed that Romeo still had this kind of game in him after all these years of spitting out reruns of his old games. Waka-sama is a great character and heroine. She is a sea goddess (at times she reminds me of the Cthulhu Mythos, though it is usually humorous) and is pretty badass... The protagonist, Ryouga, starts out as a high school dropout and ends up going through hell to become her High Priest as she is resurrected into the modern world. Unfortunately for them, things are not as simple as an ancient evil goddess being released from entombment, but to me, that was good enough reason to follow the story from start to end. I won't say that this game is very good at stimulating the emotions. Most of the events in the story, even the deaths and bad endings, are treated too casually to create a seriously emotional reaction on the part of the reader. Early on, the game feels like a new Majikoi with bad endings, but about halfway through, the more serious elements take over and make the story go bigger and bigger in terms of scale. If I have a complaint about this game, it was the way it felt like reading something written by a guy on a Ritalin high. Yeah, it was frequently a fun read, but the very things that made it a fun read prevented me from empathizing with... anyone, really. Ryouga is so even-keeled and insightful in general by the end that it feels like he was a male clone of Waka at times. Is this game worth playing for Romeo fans? Yes, I believe it is. Is it a kamige? The jury is still out in my mind, so probably not. This game would probably be very hard to replay, as a lot of its attraction comes from the surprises it throws at you constantly. Not to mention that this game is looooooong. I mean, it took me about 28 hours to complete, even though it is essentially a single-path game with branching endings.

He created the setting from scratch and is generally seen as defining the style of the early harem charage genre. His influence can be seen anywhere where you see a kind and proactive protagonist surrounded by a bevy of bishoujos who have a good (or at least, well-explained) reason for falling in love with the protagonist. Honestly, Spiral was something of a disappointment to me... it failed to accomplish anything and the heroines were all human, which was weird, since what is the point of a multi-racial setting if you don't have a good mix? tbh, whether the game is something to look forward to or not will depend on the choice of writer. If it is the same writer as Spiral (the DC III pathetic third-rate moege writer Takeuchi) then I won't want anything to do with it, as he managed to completely fail to give life to the setting, while having plenty of opportunity and elements of the setting to do so. The Shuffle FD's and expansions were generally decent, but part of that is because Agobarrier was there to consult with on how to fit the new stories into the existing setting. Now that he's gone, I honestly can't bring myself to be optimistic after Navel's abominable choice of staff for Spiral.

lol... it is really good, and no, there is no way to outright play it in English. If you were desperate you could use a text hooker and MTL, but the writer has a taste for weird/old kanji so it probably wouldn't be even as reliable as the average MTL. Of those I listed above, Hitodenashi and Ouka are the ones that would probably be the easiest to read (well, most AXL games aren't hard, so them too), but even they would probably have stumbling points.

Abyss Homicide Club - Because it is a doujin game from 2009. I've pushed it repeatedly on various lists, and I generally recommend it to people who like chuuni horror, but so far I've only managed to get a very small number of people to play it, sadly. Gensou no Avatar- For similar reasons, a doujin game from long ago (in yall whipper-snappers' eyes, anyway). This one I found interesting and generally enjoyed. Iroha ~Aki no Yuuhi ni Kagefumi o~ - For some reason, this game doesn't seem to be very well known, but I found it to be a pleasant read. Ore no Tsure wa Hito de Nashi - a strange charage that popped up in 2010. It was a decent read, but I've yet to converse with anyone who admits they read it besides myself, lol. AXL games in general (besides Shugotate)- Perhaps because they are old-fashioned, AXL games rarely get played by Westerners. People who can get past the somewhat old-style artwork (think 2009 or so) seem to fall in love, but that pretty much requires people like me constantly bugging their friends to try them... Ouka - A weird game that has horrible artwork but a great story. I recommend playing it even if you only play Saya's path (best true immortal heroine ever). The story is excellent, and it has depths that are hard to see without playing it. Jesus 13th - Another weird one, this time sort-of Cthulhu Mythos influenced. It's one of those games that is hard to explain to others and you have choice but to just shove at them until they give up and play it.

Is it true that girls in frilly costumes mind-controlled by magic bunnies roam the streets of Akiba, pretending to fight tentacle monsters when they are really looking forward to being caught?

Hapymaher... there is literally no competition.

https://vndb.org/c34478 https://vndb.org/c42600 https://vndb.org/c52656

... just copy-paste the Japanese title from vndb into Google and type in Sagaoz after it. 90% of the time, the game save or the page it is on will pop up. Then you just use ctrl+f and paste the title. No fuss, no muss.

Kamio Ami is the permanently dominant personality in the room regardless of what else is going on. The name of the VN is Semiramis no Tenbin... Even in the first h-scene, Ami is controlling the protagonist, and he does pretty much what she wants, regardless of whether he realizes it or not... Of course, if you don't like manipulative heroines who control others and situations through sheer intellect, charisma, and force of will, she might be hard to stomach, lol. Edit: Oh, as a side note... sexually dominant heroines are a rarity in most eroge because of the preconception of gap-moe... basically, strong-willed tsunderes being do-M in bed or cool-faced girls ending up with an ahegao... Another girl I'd like to call to your attention is Kanata from Devils Devel Concept... regardless of the path, she is usually in control to one degree or another, regardless of the form the h-scene takes. However, in path 2, she is totally dominant.

Evolimit Komorebi no Nostalgica Fake Azure Arcology Re:Birth Colony Bullet Butlers Ayakashibito Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier (just avoid the Shinsengumi endings) Akeiro Kaikitan (Avoid Youko's ending) Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori Tenshi no Hane o Fumanaide Yomegami World Election Sakura, Sakimashita (despite the themes, i consider the endings to be happy, though worthy of tears at the same time) Lunaris Filia Toppara Zashiki Warashi no Hanashi Toki o Tsumugu Yakusoku

My regular re-reads I'll list below. 1. Devils Devel Concept 2. Evolimit 3. Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier 4. Komorebi no Nostalgica 5. Houkago no Futekikakusha 6. Tiny Dungeon (really Rosebleu games in general, since I love the style, lol) 7. Draculius 8. Izuna Zanshinken 9. The Silverio series Now, having said this, I've had people ask me why I've only read Dies Irae, most Nitroplus games once or twice, and a number of other chuunige VNs. The reasons are simple... most Nitroplus games just aren't as good after all the behind-the-curtain stuff is revealed. Dies Irae also suffers on a second and third playthrough because you can't recapture that sense of 'wtf is going on?!!' that you have the first time through. Games that rely on that tend to be harder to read a second time through, because the gap in sheer exhilaration leads to nostalgic sadness, at least in my case. I have to wait five years between Dies Irae replays, hahaha. The fact is, you might be surprised at what games you enjoy replaying the most... they might not be in your top ten or even top twenty. You might find yourself replaying a game solely to reclaim a single glorious moment halfway through (I've done this before, lol). Replaying VNs is... weird sometimes.

It was obviously done by someone who is either a literalist or is Japanese. The reason I say this is because many of the word choices are odd and the grammar's awkwardness speaks to the fact that the person in question was trying to align the rhythm of the lines with the original Japanese ones in a lot of cases. This is a stumbling block a lot of translators never get past, because they fail to realize that the differences in grammar make some rearrangement necessary. This is a stumbling block that is, ironically, born of a decent or good understanding of Japanese.

Yes, many times. However, I have a few pieces of advice for you. 1. Make sure that it has been at least a year (preferably two or three) since you played it. 2. Are you the type that rereads novels? Then you should be ok in theory. Overall, I only reread ones where there is a strong emotional or intellectual element that might take on new facets on a new playthrough. Devils Devel concept is one where I only got a fifth of what was going on the first time, and with each successive reading (up to five now), I've found something new to obsess over. Clannad is a nakige, so as long as you like to cry, you should be fine. Emotional moments are emotional moments, after all.

Ok, anyone who has read some of my rants about microtransactions will wonder why I decided to play this f2p smartphone game... until you remember I'm also a Nasuverse fanboy. I made the questionable decision of picking this game up about two and a half months ago, and since then I've been left with a lot to ponder. First, I'll list what I like about this game. 1. Relatively easy to play for free, in the sense that simply doing free quests and story quests can get you the in-game Saint Crystals necessary to roll for higher-rarity servants with only a bit of patience. 2. Charity Servants, the ones that you can get from completing event quests, are often really good (there are exceptions, even so far, but meh), so if you just do the events, you can still build a decent party before going for the higher-difficulty story quests. 3. Leveling up Servants can be fast if you have the items ready. 4. Battle system is decent, if sometimes deliberately frustrating (to encourage you to spend money, probably). 5. Support Servants borrowed from friends can let you clear hard quests easier. 6. The story of the main game is extremely well-written (though the translators made a lot of obvious stumbles by not fixing the language into English grammar at some points). 7. Manages to recreate the often ambiguous emotions drawn out when you played FSN or watched anime like Fate/Apocrypha that gave the series such grandiosity, along with the usual Nasu humor. Negatives 1. Too many obvious ways in which they try to get you to spend money, with the constant summoning campaigns and sudden difficulty spikes during and post Camelot. 2. Blatant Japanese-style gacha-addiction builder. 3. Missions can be extremely long irl time, and AP regeneration speeds make it possible to play seven hours a day on story missions during half-AP campaigns... which eats at rl a bit too much. My Experience My rule when playing standard video games that I already know I want is 'I'll spend $60 and no more', and I kept to that rule, with a lot of headaches from temptation and obsession with cute or awesome Servants (Evil Artoria is just sexy in her portrait at final Ascension, lol). I've managed to enjoy the story of the main game and laugh through the events so far (the GudaGuda events were hilariously designed and written). However, the lack of breathing space between events and summoning campaigns leaves me feeling exhausted even if I only play a few hours here and there. Every time I wanted to sit back and enjoy the story, there was that time limit to get all the great skill-up and ascension items I didn't want to have to farm from the game nodes, and now there is an event coming up that requires you have completed the main story through Solomon... which is annoying as hell, since BB really looks cute, so I want her in my roster to stare at with drool dripping from the corners of my mouth, like with Medusa Rider and Evil Artoria... Yes, that is the level of obsession this game can create for Fate fans. The fact that several familiar faces are available in the beginning-of-the-game gacha (including Archer from FSN and Heracles) is tailor-made to draw a Fate fan in and trap him with his own lust. I don't recommend anyone with a collector's tendencies or addictive tendencies in general play this game, as it is a potential money sink for any such individual, sadly. Since I am such an individual, my words should have weight, lol. It takes real effort for me not to look at the summoning campaigns when I don't have Saint Crystals or summoning tickets. On the other hand, this game manages to actually tell a good story, and, having just finished Camelot (which is a difficulty spike on par with suddenly dipping into a Souls game when you thought you were playing Ar Tonelico level), I can tell you it is worth at least going this far. While it lacks the huge emotionality of Fate/Apocrypha or the original FSN, it makes up for it with the sheer number of personal stories and glorious ends the various Servants manage to meet. The fact that this definitely feels like a Fate story in both depth and detail makes it even better for a Fate fanboy. However, where things fall short is that we have yet another silent protagonist, similar to Fate/Extra. While this makes, justifiably, the Servants the stars of the story, it can be a bit frustrating that your only inputs are frequently humorous interjections. Personally, one thing that has had me laughing on numerous occasions is how gloriously weird some of the Berserker characters are... since they are all psycho to one degree or the other, this can lead to some... interesting results. While our friend Lancelot from Fate/Zero makes an appearance, most of the Berserkers can and do speak, even if their manner is downright crazy or obsessive.

To be blunt, a database site will never be perfect. VNDB is the best of the group, but that's mostly because there isn't anything else worth mentioning out there... and the effort it would require for a new site to surpass its utility is probably beyond volunteer helpers. Why? Because vndb already fills its niche pretty much completely and mostly free of corporate influence. While it doesn't combine a news site like most other otaku databases do, it doesn't really need one... and the most important stuff (the existence of and release dates for new VNS) are posted regularly. Edit: I should also mention that the main reason I hate erogamescape is for all the horribly wrong tracks it sent me off on in my first two years playing untranslated VNs. I ended up buying and playing horrible games that had been bot-hyped about a half-dozen times, and that still infuriates me, even today.

Erogamescape suffers from the results of being directly exposed to the much larger (currently and past, though who knows about the future?) VN market that is Japan. To be blunt, you get people down-voting stuff for kicks, company-owned or hired bots in the hundreds voting others up, and no real effort on the part of the site administrators to rein it in. The troll voting is worse on vndb, to be honest... percentage-wise, there are a significant number of fake players who vote games down or up without even playing them, based on the fact that their votes predate the games' releases (shouldn't it be relatively easy to fix that? oh well). That said, the real issue with Erogamescape is that you can't trust the ratings on anything that is hyped (in other words, by one of the big names before they went down) by a relatively 'big name' company... or anything mainstream, really, if you aren't a huge charage fan. In other words, Erogamescape requires too much filtering and preexisting knowledge from the viewer/reader/observer to even get what the real ratings of a given game are... whereas vndb is a bit simpler. Anything translated, cut off 90% of the ten, 9, and 1-3 ratings (since people either way overrate or way underrate depending on their prejudices and experience), then recalculate the average. The rest, subtract all votes prior to two days after the initial release. That's if you are paying attention to voting scores. VNDB is relatively simple to figure out... just find the tags you have an interest in, then set the list so the highest rated ones (usually translated) come up first, and browse. The primary virtue of the site is the huge amount of basic info it holds on most of the VNs released since VNs came into existence. Also, another way to figure things out is to find a member of Fuwa who shares your tastes, take a look at his vndb profile, then figure out what you want to play from that. The issue with vndb for the whipper-snappers (AKA, 'you young people') is that it is a PC-specialized site. It is meant to be navigated via PC browsers with a keyboard and mouse, not finger-swipes and tapping, so it is extremely unwieldy when done from smaller tablets and smartphones. VNDB's secondary utility lies in the fact that most Japanese games have the Japanese-language (kanji and kana) available to copy to a search engine in order to discover walkthroughs, websites that sell the games by download, and other stuff. Searching a game by the romanized name is generally a dead end for that kind of thing, and remembering the precise kanji for the whole title can often be annoying, so that is seriously convenient, at least for me. Honestly, if you can't navigate vndb, I dunno what to tell you... of all the otaku database sites I've navigated over the years, it is the easiest, at least for me. Myanimelist is a pain in the rear to navigate, as are most of the other anime database sites. VNDB is a breeze in comparison, since it doesn't present you with a dozen similar titles or barely related titles even if you put the exact one in the search box... What is lacking on vndb is decent summaries/intros of most games, since most are poorly-translated translations of the Getchu or official pages, lol. Edit: oops forgot to answer your question in my urge to rave, no, it isn't illegal, since most games have pics on their official sites. What is illegal is ripping the cgs and posting them online for profit...