Clephas

Now that I have confirmation from Dergonu that the game he was playing is not VN of the Month quality (he has stalled on it), I will move on to finally announcing VN of the Month for March and April.
March
March was a decent month, since it had three potential candidates for VN of the Month.  Those candidates are:
Butterfly Seeker
AI Love
Unjou no Fairy Tale
Now, despite my rating of it, I'm going to go ahead and disqualify AI Love.  Why?  Because it is essentially a borderline nukige.  It made its way onto my Chicken Soup for the Soul list, but, as I've stated in the past, that isn't necessarily an indication of kamige status.  Rather, it is an indication of how good the game is at soothing and relieving non-violent stress.
So, this comes down to Unjou no Fairy Tale versus Butterfly Seeker.  Based purely on my personal tastes, I'd probably go for Unjou no Fairy Tale, since I'm an admitted fantasy addict... but in the end, I had to (reluctantly) admit that Butterfly Seeker was the better VN.  The depth of the story, the characters, and even just the details of the important events was such that I couldn't honestly give Unjou no Fairy Tale the victory for VN of the Month, March 2018.
My reasons for excluding Etatoto from the final running are... that fun2novel's own review and private comments didn't leave me with the impression of VN of the Month quality.  Worth reading for a certain portion of the community?  Yes.  Worthy of being recommended on a larger scale... no.
April
Having dropped Taiju for the moment (SofthouseChara's newest SLG), I was left with only one viable candidate for April... Yuusha to Maou, to Majo no Cafe.  This is perhaps the weakest VN of the Month candidate I've put up in quite some time, but it still easily won over Kari Gurashi Ren'ai, which is the only other game that hit my baseline standard.  Naming it as VN of the Month, April 2018 actually troubles me a bit... given a choice, I wish that Unjou or AI Love had been released in April so I'd have a better candidate.  I almost decided not to name one for this month, but I reluctantly decided that it meets standards. 

Now that I have confirmation from Dergonu that the game he was playing is not VN of the Month quality (he has stalled on it), I will move on to finally announcing VN of the Month for March and April.
March
March was a decent month, since it had three potential candidates for VN of the Month.  Those candidates are:
Butterfly Seeker
AI Love
Unjou no Fairy Tale
Now, despite my rating of it, I'm going to go ahead and disqualify AI Love.  Why?  Because it is essentially a borderline nukige.  It made its way onto my Chicken Soup for the Soul list, but, as I've stated in the past, that isn't necessarily an indication of kamige status.  Rather, it is an indication of how good the game is at soothing and relieving non-violent stress.
So, this comes down to Unjou no Fairy Tale versus Butterfly Seeker.  Based purely on my personal tastes, I'd probably go for Unjou no Fairy Tale, since I'm an admitted fantasy addict... but in the end, I had to (reluctantly) admit that Butterfly Seeker was the better VN.  The depth of the story, the characters, and even just the details of the important events was such that I couldn't honestly give Unjou no Fairy Tale the victory for VN of the Month, March 2018.
My reasons for excluding Etatoto from the final running are... that fun2novel's own review and private comments didn't leave me with the impression of VN of the Month quality.  Worth reading for a certain portion of the community?  Yes.  Worthy of being recommended on a larger scale... no.
April
Having dropped Taiju for the moment (SofthouseChara's newest SLG), I was left with only one viable candidate for April... Yuusha to Maou, to Majo no Cafe.  This is perhaps the weakest VN of the Month candidate I've put up in quite some time, but it still easily won over Kari Gurashi Ren'ai, which is the only other game that hit my baseline standard.  Naming it as VN of the Month, April 2018 actually troubles me a bit... given a choice, I wish that Unjou or AI Love had been released in April so I'd have a better candidate.  I almost decided not to name one for this month, but I reluctantly decided that it meets standards. 

Some veterans of reading untranslated VNs refer to the period between 2004 and 2010 as 'The Golden Age of Visual Novels'.  However, you shouldn't really take that statement at face value, as the meaning is a bit more complex than you'd think.
There are some significant differences between VNs today and VNs during that period that both made it the peak of the medium's sales in Japan and produced the greatest ratio of quality VNs to crap VNs. 
One of the primary differences was that, other than moege, there were no strict genre boundaries and genre conventions had yet to slide into place in the minds of fans and writers both.  Companies were mostly experimenters during that time, sometimes basing their projects on previous works (Tsukihime and the Key games got a lot of knock-offs during this time, of varying levels of quality) and sometimes forging out on their own.  
Since there were few genre boundaries, companies were more likely to give the creative staff free reign as to what kind of story they could write, and  - ironically - this actually helped define the various genres in the years to come, as people explored the boundaries of how they could stretch a concept or theme in a story.  Some of these attempts were abortive (ie- thematic moege where all the heroines are of the same type, such as tsundere or yandere, generally didn't catch on) but others were immensely successful (ie- the definition of the chuunige genre and its gradual escape from gakuen battle mania).  However, the point is that the writers, directors, and producers of the time were allowed to fiddle with the formula a lot  more than they are now.  Most major companies nowadays have a 'signature style', that was formed during that period, even if their greatest successes weren't during that period. 
This period also killed the 'pure moege' as a genre, ending the majority genre of the previous half-decade (moege having dominated during that period due to the Da Capo series and Key's games).  The rise of the charage, a demi-moege genre that was much wider in scope and more adaptable, occurred during this period, mostly unrecognized until after the fact.  At the same time, nakige, which had previously been enslaved to the moege genre through Key and others like them, came to define itself as a new, standalone genre that wasn't necessarily dependent on moe stylization.  Even Key itself moved beyond pure moe, though it didn't entirely abandon some elements of it (as the existence of Kud testifies).
However, this age was already ending in 2009, as clearly-delineated genre norms began to form, and charage became the driver for the industry, taking us back, in spirit, to the age before that.  By 2011, the ratio of truly creative works to derivative works was overwhelmingly in favor of the latter, in comparison to the previous decade. 
That isn't to say that the years since haven't produced some great works.  That is patently untrue in my experience... but the fact remains that fewer and fewer writers are able or willing to look outside the 'genre boxes' for answers as to what to write.  I sometimes refer to our current age as the Age of Stagnation, where there is an overwhelming industry pressure to stick to genre norms and those that break the mold are so exceptional they stand out more than they should.
It is possible to create a charage kamige... but it is much easier to make a kamige out of a game that breaks genre boundaries, lol.

Now that I have confirmation from Dergonu that the game he was playing is not VN of the Month quality (he has stalled on it), I will move on to finally announcing VN of the Month for March and April.
March
March was a decent month, since it had three potential candidates for VN of the Month.  Those candidates are:
Butterfly Seeker
AI Love
Unjou no Fairy Tale
Now, despite my rating of it, I'm going to go ahead and disqualify AI Love.  Why?  Because it is essentially a borderline nukige.  It made its way onto my Chicken Soup for the Soul list, but, as I've stated in the past, that isn't necessarily an indication of kamige status.  Rather, it is an indication of how good the game is at soothing and relieving non-violent stress.
So, this comes down to Unjou no Fairy Tale versus Butterfly Seeker.  Based purely on my personal tastes, I'd probably go for Unjou no Fairy Tale, since I'm an admitted fantasy addict... but in the end, I had to (reluctantly) admit that Butterfly Seeker was the better VN.  The depth of the story, the characters, and even just the details of the important events was such that I couldn't honestly give Unjou no Fairy Tale the victory for VN of the Month, March 2018.
My reasons for excluding Etatoto from the final running are... that fun2novel's own review and private comments didn't leave me with the impression of VN of the Month quality.  Worth reading for a certain portion of the community?  Yes.  Worthy of being recommended on a larger scale... no.
April
Having dropped Taiju for the moment (SofthouseChara's newest SLG), I was left with only one viable candidate for April... Yuusha to Maou, to Majo no Cafe.  This is perhaps the weakest VN of the Month candidate I've put up in quite some time, but it still easily won over Kari Gurashi Ren'ai, which is the only other game that hit my baseline standard.  Naming it as VN of the Month, April 2018 actually troubles me a bit... given a choice, I wish that Unjou or AI Love had been released in April so I'd have a better candidate.  I almost decided not to name one for this month, but I reluctantly decided that it meets standards. 

First, I'll give you a quick run-down on this game... it is a game by 3rd Eye, a company known mostly for producing chuunige that are more moe-influenced than is the norm. This game is actually more of a mystery/chuuni/action/conspiracy type than a 'pure' chuunige. The world in which it is based is a future where, ten years before the story began, magic appeared on the scene. Large numbers of people became capable of using magic, and a new branch of science was built up solely for the purpose of utilizing magic as new energy source. The result of this is a society that is somewhat divided between the magical 'haves' and 'have-nots', though that isn't the focus of the story, despite what you might otherwise anticipate.

The protagonists

Senri


Senri is your classic 'bad-ass antihero protagonist'. He is clever, intelligent, and overall highly capable, with a razor-sharp mind and battle instincts that would put a Navy Seal to shame and make Golgo 13 look incompetent. His cold-blooded pursuit of his own interests, which are very opaque through most of the VN, is his primary defining feature... Oh, and he lies... a lot. He makes the protagonist of Sharin no Kuni seem honest.

Haruto

Haruto is a somewhat less beloved type of protagonist in chuunige... basically a 'justice freak' combined with being 'a young man driven against his will by the tides of fate'. He is a natural optimist and a believer in fairness above all. Unfortunately, he also has that bad habit a lot of similar chuunige protagonists have... of sticking his nose into situations he doesn't really need to get involved in. He grows a great deal during the course of the VN (as is typical of this type, if the writers don't suck), and by the end his viewpoint on the world has... been sharpened a great deal by experience. He is more likeable than a lot of similar protagonists, but it still isn't a type I prefer.

The Heroines

Fiona


Fiona, at first glance, seems to be your classic clutzy/innocent nun-type heroine. She works as a nun at a run-down church in the city's... less reputable area and is well-loved by the delinquents who frequent the church. However, she, like most of the characters in this game, is hiding a lot of secrets... She is one of Senri's two heroines.

Noa

An innocent, pure-hearted girl who is seen mostly as a ghost throughout the first part of the game. She has a really unique way of speaking, born partially from Senri's half-hearted efforts at education (mostly through handing her magazines and letting her watch AVs). To be honest, in the reading of this VN, interpreting her weird speech patterns was a bit difficult at first (she cuts apart words and puts them together in weird ways). She is the second of Senri's two heroines.

Asahi

Asahi is... a bit weird. Her personality itself is quite straightforward and honest, and she hates lies and general dishonesty with a passion. However, she is also compassionate to a fault and unwavering in the pursuit of her goals. Unfortunately - at least so it seems at first - there are a few loose screws rolling around in that head of hers. Even more so than Haruto, she is an eternal an unrepentant optimist and probably the single most trustworthy individual in the entire VN.

Riku


Riku is, throughout the VN, perhaps the least expressive individual other than Senri himself. She almost never displays her emotions on her face, and she has an almost unnatural tendency to think objectively about anything and everything, including herself. That the writer managed to grant her so much depth without making her a protagonist was an impressive feat in and of itself... and one of the reasons why her interactions with Haruto and Asahi are so amusing. She really is almost as detached as she seems most of the time, which is one of the reasons it hits so hard when she does become emotional.

The VN

Sorcery Jokers is definitely VN of the Month material. I'll say that right off the bat. The depth of the story and characters is incomparable with previous games by this company, and while it falls slightly short of a kamige, it is nonetheless something worth taking note of. Normally, I can't stand dual protagonists, as many have heard me mention. I hated Subahibi for that, amongst a number of other sins, and one of the biggest reasons it took me so long to play I/O was because I don't like going into VNs with multiple protags.

Fortunately, I managed to get past that, simply because the differing approaches to the story were the only thing that made it possible to grasp something even approaching the whole of the story as it happened. A single perspective wouldn't have done a bit of good as an approach to this VN's story, simply because there are too many things happening at too many different points for a single perspective to handle.

The VN's structure is basically that of a kinetic novel, with the illusion of choice through a flow chart (for the first chapter, at least) where you pick and choose which events you want to see next (though you have to see them all anyway). To be honest, I could have done without the flow chart entirely... flow charts in general are an irritation more than a help, especially if they are made a central part of progressing the story. That said, as the actual switching around mostly ends after the first chapter, it isn't really a big deal (though it does make me wonder why they had a flow chart at all).

The story's mystery and conspiracy elements feel a lot like peeling an onion, as there are layers within layers within layers. What you thought was the root of things turns out to be just another layer, more than once. As things come together near the end, the knowledge you've gained through the character perspectives deepens the experience nicely, making this one of the few part-mystery VNs I've played in recent years that I didn't immediately have 'read' relatively early on.

That isn't to say there aren't points where the VN stumbles. Haruto, because of his role as the 'kid chuunige protag', is the game's Achilles Heel, as all protagonists of the type with his kind of temperament tend to be. However, his growth is enough to offset the cookie-cutter aspects of his character enough that I approved of his role... in the end. Asahi also threatens to tilt the balance of the VN into the realm of the silly a lot early on, simply because of her 'weirdness'. However, because that silliness is a vital ingredient in her growth as a character, it can't really said to be a true weakness, though it can be irritating at times.

The endings are all branches off of the true end, one for each heroine (Noa or Fiona with Senri, and Asahi or Riku with Haruto). I had no problems with the epilogues for Noa or Fiona... but I thought that Haruto had devolved a lot in his heroine epilogues, which kind of brought me back to why I didn't like him in the first place.

Overall, I felt that this VN is one of the more solid chuunige made in the last few years, especially in the sense of 'balance'. Silverio Vendetta, while it is a lot more exhilarating, also had the difficulty of disproportionately focusing the writer's attention on Vendetta, which weakened the other two paths greatly. Bansenjin suffers from reusing an uninspiring cast and being relatively boring throughout most of its length. In terms of a constant sense of tension and in terms of pacing of events, this VN definitely is the winner of Chuunige VN of the Year so far, though it isn't chuuni-crack in the sense that Silverio was. I'm actually quite proud of the fact that this company has evolved so much since its somewhat... unimpressive beginnings (Bloody Rondo), and I'm glad I stuck with the company. It is always nice to be surprised pleasantly by a VN.

Some veterans of reading untranslated VNs refer to the period between 2004 and 2010 as 'The Golden Age of Visual Novels'.  However, you shouldn't really take that statement at face value, as the meaning is a bit more complex than you'd think.
There are some significant differences between VNs today and VNs during that period that both made it the peak of the medium's sales in Japan and produced the greatest ratio of quality VNs to crap VNs. 
One of the primary differences was that, other than moege, there were no strict genre boundaries and genre conventions had yet to slide into place in the minds of fans and writers both.  Companies were mostly experimenters during that time, sometimes basing their projects on previous works (Tsukihime and the Key games got a lot of knock-offs during this time, of varying levels of quality) and sometimes forging out on their own.  
Since there were few genre boundaries, companies were more likely to give the creative staff free reign as to what kind of story they could write, and  - ironically - this actually helped define the various genres in the years to come, as people explored the boundaries of how they could stretch a concept or theme in a story.  Some of these attempts were abortive (ie- thematic moege where all the heroines are of the same type, such as tsundere or yandere, generally didn't catch on) but others were immensely successful (ie- the definition of the chuunige genre and its gradual escape from gakuen battle mania).  However, the point is that the writers, directors, and producers of the time were allowed to fiddle with the formula a lot  more than they are now.  Most major companies nowadays have a 'signature style', that was formed during that period, even if their greatest successes weren't during that period. 
This period also killed the 'pure moege' as a genre, ending the majority genre of the previous half-decade (moege having dominated during that period due to the Da Capo series and Key's games).  The rise of the charage, a demi-moege genre that was much wider in scope and more adaptable, occurred during this period, mostly unrecognized until after the fact.  At the same time, nakige, which had previously been enslaved to the moege genre through Key and others like them, came to define itself as a new, standalone genre that wasn't necessarily dependent on moe stylization.  Even Key itself moved beyond pure moe, though it didn't entirely abandon some elements of it (as the existence of Kud testifies).
However, this age was already ending in 2009, as clearly-delineated genre norms began to form, and charage became the driver for the industry, taking us back, in spirit, to the age before that.  By 2011, the ratio of truly creative works to derivative works was overwhelmingly in favor of the latter, in comparison to the previous decade. 
That isn't to say that the years since haven't produced some great works.  That is patently untrue in my experience... but the fact remains that fewer and fewer writers are able or willing to look outside the 'genre boxes' for answers as to what to write.  I sometimes refer to our current age as the Age of Stagnation, where there is an overwhelming industry pressure to stick to genre norms and those that break the mold are so exceptional they stand out more than they should.
It is possible to create a charage kamige... but it is much easier to make a kamige out of a game that breaks genre boundaries, lol.

I'm doing a spotlight on this author for a number of reasons... one is that I'm currently going back through his works on my new Kindle (lol), but another is that I have never really understood until recently just how profound an effect his works have had on my thinking until I had the opportunity go back and marathon some of his series.
Modesitt has been writing since 1982 (the year I was born, incidentally) and has a massive number of works to look at (seventy novels across a number of series).  He writes primarily sci-fi and fantasy, but he also ventures into poetry, non-fiction, and other areas.  For the sake of those, like me, who are only interested in fiction outside of history books, I'm going to focus on his fiction.
Modesitt... is probably one of the most subtle writers I've ever encountered.  Part of that is that the current trends (straightforward writing with an emphasis on less... roundabout methodologies) hadn't been established when he first began writing.  Another part is that he is that he has been writing on the same basic themes for over thirty-five years. 
Those themes, though it isn't obvious unless you go back with an analytical mind, include environmentalism, gender politics, personal growth, and the costs of poor sociological and practical choices.  Perhaps one of the most common statements (whether internal or external) that you'll see in his books and that is probably the most important one for the reader to grab hold of is, 'See the world as it is, rather than as we would have it.'  Most of his protagonists are people who either act out this way of looking at the world or eventually grow into it.  In the Internet Age, this is a particularly relevant theme, because the sheer amount of information available means that otherwise sane individuals will subconsciously or consciously ignore information that is inconvenient to their preconceptions of what is true and what is not (we have seen a lot of this in America recently, lol).
Another thing that you'll see - primarily in his fantasy series - is the tyranny of dominant genders.  Generally speaking, in his fantasy realms, there is usually at least one realm, usually embattled by its neighbors, where a matriarchal society exists, at least one where the genders are almost equal (it tilts back and forth based on the era) and many where patriarchal societies are dominant.  One thing that is striking about the matriarchal realms he depicts is that men tend to be relegated to roles you'd normally see in females in other societies on the same world (stay at home parent, decorative spouse, etc).  Another is that he depicts an approach that is far more balanced in those realms than in the patriarchal ones, where treatment of women can vary between the casual chauvinism that is so prevalent even in the West to the pet-like treatment you see in nations in the Middle East and parts of Africa.  The reason I find this interesting is because, while he obviously thinks that a matriarchal society is healthier than a patriarchal one, he still sees the same ills (albeit on a lesser scale) that plague a patriarchal one. 
He also has a rather obvious contempt for the 'warrior archetype'.  Individuals who fight for the sake of fighting, seeking conflict out of vainglory or ambition, his books generally portray dying horribly or in incredibly stupid manners... usually after failing to back down when the protagonist of the books confronts them.  The most obvious of these is in the Spellsong Saga, where Anna, the former American music teacher turned song-sorceress, is continually confronted by the stupidity and shortsightedness of men and women who refuse to see that there is no 'honor' in killing for the sake of harmful traditions or ambition.
Another theme that pops up, his contempt for those so short-sighted as to believe the world is going to last forever or problems will fix themselves, is generally portrayed in the endless line of antagonists or passive rulers/characters who see that something is wrong but fail to take action to fix it, causing their downfall.  These characters generally see that their own lack of action is going to lead to the destruction of what they love, but they often cannot accept this and will ignore it, if it is inconvenient to their peace of mind.  This is most glaringly obvious in the Corean Chronicles and the Forever Hero.  In the Corean Chronicles, a race of humans called the Alectors or Ifrits, has made a habit of using their magic to escape each world they occupy after they render it worthless.  The Alectors have literally drained three worlds of all life in the past, using it to fuel their magic engines, using it to make their clothing nearly indestructible, and using it to control the populations of the worlds they seed and conquer.  Their attitudes bear distinctly similar tones to those of modern Westerners, particularly in their stated concern about waste (in this case, of life-force) vs their unwillingness to reign themselves in in any real sense.  Considering the end results of this attitude... well, it is rather obvious what Modesitt thinks about this kind of thought-pattern. 
The Forever Hero Trilogy is... probably the most depressing work by this author I've ever encountered.  It portrays a future where Earth was laid to waste by careless over-exploitation to provide the resources for colony ships and contaminated itself beyond natural recovery.  The protagonist is a young 'devilkid' (a sub-species of human involved for individual survival above all other things) who is captured and educated by the Empire, the successor to the Earth-based galactic government that preceded it.  Having been educated, he sets about the task of resurrecting Earth... only to find that the simple physics of space travel and the economics of the Empire make resurrecting Earth nearly impossible.  Fortunately, as a natural immortal (he doesn't age), he has the time... and the intelligence to work it out.  He is perhaps the most ruthless and amoral of Modesitt's protagonists, but his cause is enough to grasp the reader and not let them go.  This series also deals with the 'dirt and grit' of a far more realistic sci-fi environment than is common in modern science fiction, where the details tend to be sanitized outside of dystopian efforts.
I generally recommend this writer to those who like reading sci-fi and fantasy that makes you think, characters that are good at the beginning but grow to be great as their role requires them to, and those who don't mind their comfortable way of looking at the world being jarred on a regular basis. 
 

This review was written by fun2novel and edited for grammar and style by Clephas. 
Etatoto review
The mystery genre is one of the most interesting and captivating genres in fiction (Clephas: We are all entitled to our opinions). While there are many mystery vns out there, finding one that has an addictive, twisting plo, and a satisfying ending is a difficult task. It is even harder if you’re looking for something really unique and different from the usual murder who’dun’it, detective, mystery plots... Such as something that will make the reader doubt and rethink what they think they know but also gives satisfying answers.
Welcome to Kieta Sekai to Tsuki to Shoujo -The World was Prayed by The Girl Living A Thousand Years- or Etatoto. Okina Seiji comes back to his home town for a visit. After his arrival, he reunites with old friends and makes new ones, goes to school with them, and spends time bonding with them. However, the real reason for his visit is the mysterious death of his mother, and his goal is to find out the truth. Nothing goes as planned, of course. As the story progresses, the mystery grows more and more complex, questions are raised, and more mysteries are uncovered. This is ALL you need to know, as saying anything more than that will ruin the plot. So, if you’re looking for a good mystery visual novel that is not quite the usual kind of mystery, something complex and twisty, this is a game for you. It’s not quite as complex as the Infinity or the Zero Escape series, but it’s definitely worth your time.
In terms of art the game made a few odd artistic decisions. While the backgrounds looks great, and the main characters are all drawn well, some of the characters look as if drawn by a completely different artist than others. On top of that, their sprites look rough and sketched in comparison. CGs have a similar problem due to a strange artistic decision to draw the h-scenes in one style and the other CGs in a different one. The non-H CGs look rougher, almost sketched. These CGs still look good and match the atmosphere, so perhaps it was an artistic decision rather than a budgetary one (Clephas: It is Lacryma... it was probably just a fumble).
Speaking of production values, the music deserves special recognition. The music is superb, with a variety of deep soothing compositions, atmospheric music, emotional music, and perfectly timed moving pieces. However, there aren't a lot of them, so they might come to feel old with repetition. That said, the music is so good that it shouldn’t be a deal breaker for anyone.
There are a few low points in Etatoto’s writing as well. Most of the characters are not especially well developed and leave you much to be desired. Though,  this wasn’t a huge deal breaker, as the story was good enough to pull all the right strings.  The reason for this is that most of the game's focus goes into the story, rather than the characters. The romantic elements are a bit sub-par as well, since almost every route develops its romantic relationship in exactly the same way, with pretty much the same amount of time spend on each heroine and with the same ‘date’ spot as everyone else... Not to mention, it takes a while for the story to get going. The first few hours were very difficult to get through, but it is still worth it, in my mind.  Those slow peaceful times are used to introduce the characters as well as do some clever and obscure foreshadowing about the events to come.
On a technical side, things aren’t perfect either. The auto skip function doesn’t work as expected (Clephas: Lacryma's technical staff sucks), and sometimes it just doesn’t work at all. At other times, it takes a little longer to load the backgrounds after you resume from a saved game. These are relatively small annoyances that could (and most likely will) be patched later; so, thankfully, they don’t become an obstacle for enjoying the experience of the VN as a whole. 
In conclusion, talking about Etatoto is difficult without spoiling the intricate details of its plot. It’s the kind of VN where you should avoid searching for more information than is contained within this review. This gives you a good idea of the pros and cons of the game, and with a little patience, a mystery lover will get hooked on what is probably one of the best mystery visual novels in a while.

This was one of the group of about forty VNs I played in my first year after I began playing untranslated VNs.  It was also the fourth chuunige I played that was untranslated.  For those who are interested, this game was written by Takaya Aya (the writer of several kamige, including Komorebi no Nostalgica and Otoboku 2).  He is a writer who can handle just about any genre, including nakige, chuunige, charage, serious drama, and deep science fiction. 
Alicematic is his first chuunige, written in 2006, during the 'golden age of VNs'.  It is based in a version of our world where the dimensions that comprise reality are collapsing, and as a result entire swathes of the world are becoming unlivable, the survivors driven mad.  The protagonist, Marume Kuroudo, is summoned to an experimental facility based on an artificial island in the Tokyo Bay in order to participate in an experiment to alter the currently unavoidable extinction of humanity and the end of the world as we know it. 
He and the others summoned, are told that they must fight to the virtual death (pain and sensation included) in a virtual realm to supply the mental energy to alter the fate of the world.  
Now, this game has a pretty diverse cast.  The protagonist, Kuroudo, is a wild, pure-hearted type who knows his own limitations as a person and devotes himself to the things he feels are important without hesitation (he uses the odachi).  Sayane, a young woman constantly dressed in the goth-loli style, is a master swordswoman with a passionate heart and an iron will (she uses the standard katana).  Kuroe and Shiroe are twins, with the older sister Shiroe being hesitant and gentle and her younger sister Kuroe being an overprotective siscon (their weapons are kodachi).  Iori is an unsociable young woman whose hobby is observing people (her weapon is an executioner's sword).  Rikka is a cheerful, talkative, and active young woman (and the most normal of the heroines) who wields a crescent-spear.  Fuyume is a blind and innocent miko who is also a talented onmyouji and can see the souls of people and objects.  Nobotsuna is a seemingly light-hearted womanizer who quickly befriends Kuroudo and the others, his surprising wisdom coming out at just the right moments.  Kei is a cross-dressing young woman who is also a master of western sorcery (also a confirmed lesbian).
Common Route
This game's common route changes depending on what choices you make throughout it leading up to the heroine branch-off, the events occurring after the prologue changing the most dramatically.  While there is a lot of repeated text, it can mostly be skipped using the skip function on subsequent playthroughs.  This is a technique used a lot in early chuunige, because events tend to accelerate rapidly in chuunige once you get into the heroine paths.  The differences mostly lie in which heroines you interact with the most and the fate of a certain antagonist that appears early on... as her fate is usually related to how things turn out in the heroine paths, somehow.
Route Order Suggestion
I honestly suggest that you use the exact route order found in the Foolmaker walkthrough: http://sagaoz.net/foolmaker/game/s/alice.html
The reason is fairly simple... despite not restricting any of the paths but Fuyume's, there are assumptions made about your preexisting knowledge for each path. 
Sayane
Nine out of ten people who play this game through the end of the prologue without picking a heroine will choose to do Sayane's path first.  Why?  Because she is the heroine who leaves the most vivid impression in the prologue, by far.  As a result, for the second time around... I ended up picking her again (it was a toss-up between her and the twins).  Sayane's rather twisted value system is the basis for why the actual buildup to relationship formation is so... long.  However, the reasons make sense, given the events of the prologue, and the romance is... beautiful in a sense that is rare in visual novel romance in general. 
The battles in this path are first-class (really all the battles in this game are), and the last battle is just... superb.  I laughed, I cried (a lot), and I felt my heart wrench with empathy for Sayane and Kuroudo.  This is an excellent path, and, even if you play none of the other paths, this one would make the game worth playing (though I might end up saying the same for some of the others as well, lol).
Kuroe and Shiroe
I just ignored my own advice... but I don't like Rikka, so that was inevitable (her type of heroine is my least favorite, because they are so common).  Kuroe and Shiroe are a pair of twins that are one year younger than Kuroudo.  Shiroe is the older sister, a gentle-mannered girl with a tendency to view her own motivations negatively, particularly when it comes to Kuroe.  She is rather obviously in love with Kuroudo almost from the start (the incident that brings it on is fairly obvious).  Kuroe is the younger sister, and the dependent half of the pair (most otaku media twins operate on the theory that one is dependent and the other dominant).  She loves her sister first, second, and last, lol.  She is also an aggressive violent tsundere with a fondness for jump kicks and a generalized dislike of men.
Kuroe and Shiroe's path has a much different focus than Sayane's... the swordsmanship aspect is far less important (the fights in this path are mostly short ones), and it is very much about the twisted psychology of the twins' dependent relationship, their past, and how it effects the experiments when Kuroudo gets mixed up with them (hint: the results tend to be mixed).  Generally speaking, the path itself can probably be called one of the weaker ones in the VN from a chuunige perspective, but it is emotionally rich and generally enjoyable to read.
Rikka
I'll say it right out.  Rikka is the heroine I like the least in this game.  She is mostly a comedy relief character.  She is genki, she eats a lot, she makes random sexual jokes, and she is in a deep manzai relationship with the protagonist and other characters. 
That said, her path is of even quality to the others so far.  This path... will probably be hard on people who like Sayane (I won't go into details), and I had to wince at some of the things that happen to the characters here.  However, in exchange you get a series of three first-class swordfights, a bunch of lesser fights, some seriously crazy turns of events, and a nice ending.
Iori
Iori... by the time you get to this path (I recommend doing it last amongst the initially-available paths for reasons I'll mention in a moment), you'll have some idea of her personality.  On the surface, she is calm and collected, but underneath, she is very much like a lonely child who desperately wants the love she never received from her parents.  However, she also has a tendency to instantly make decisions others would procrastinate on, and there is little in the way of hesitation to her personality.
Her path... is split into two parts.  The first part, which is treated pretty much the same as the other heroine paths, is a sad ending (almost like a Tsukihime-style normal ending), that feels bittersweet.  It is also fairly revealing about Iori's personality and her limitations as an individual.  The second part has you start from the beginning of the game from a slightly different point, and it dramatically alters events when it comes to how Iori, Fuyume, and Kuroudo interact with one another and eliminates a major story element common to all the other paths, including Iori's first path.  How it differs most radically from the first version, however, is in how Iori deals with her personal issue that pops up in almost every path of the game.  Let's just say that the issue is confronted much earlier, at least in part because Iori held close contacts with the others at a much earlier point.  This is also the most revealing path so far for the Cthulhu Mythos elements in the story.
Fuyume
Because of Fuyume's tendency to refer to herself in the third person, whenever she talks, I get the feeling she is putting herself down (my backbrain keeps interpreting her name as Fuyu and 'me' as that deliberately servile appellation some retainers to wealthy or socially high-ranking individuals use for themselves).   However, her personality is fundamentally kind-hearted and gentle with a strong flavor of curiosity about new things and a tendency to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.
This path... is very emotional, both in the romantic and in the story/drama parts.  While this path doesn't have any superlative fights, the flow of the story is the most 'complete', and I honestly loved the way the relationship between Fuyume and Iori strengthens throughout the path.  I smiled, I laughed, and I cried... and in the end, I was left with a sense of completeness, as this path put an end to the story as a whole. 
Overall
This game is one of those that was hard to appreciate fully on the first playthrough.  Part of it is that, when I first played it, I was unfamiliar with much of the terminology (occult, scientific, and swordsmanship) involved.  However, the largest part was that I simply didn't have the understanding of the concepts involved necessary to fully appreciate how this story plays out.  Most who read this game will be satisfied entirely by the sword-fights and the story, but, later on, if you have a wider understanding of the concepts involved in this game, it becomes a much richer/deeper read. 

This was one of the group of about forty VNs I played in my first year after I began playing untranslated VNs.  It was also the fourth chuunige I played that was untranslated.  For those who are interested, this game was written by Takaya Aya (the writer of several kamige, including Komorebi no Nostalgica and Otoboku 2).  He is a writer who can handle just about any genre, including nakige, chuunige, charage, serious drama, and deep science fiction. 
Alicematic is his first chuunige, written in 2006, during the 'golden age of VNs'.  It is based in a version of our world where the dimensions that comprise reality are collapsing, and as a result entire swathes of the world are becoming unlivable, the survivors driven mad.  The protagonist, Marume Kuroudo, is summoned to an experimental facility based on an artificial island in the Tokyo Bay in order to participate in an experiment to alter the currently unavoidable extinction of humanity and the end of the world as we know it. 
He and the others summoned, are told that they must fight to the virtual death (pain and sensation included) in a virtual realm to supply the mental energy to alter the fate of the world.  
Now, this game has a pretty diverse cast.  The protagonist, Kuroudo, is a wild, pure-hearted type who knows his own limitations as a person and devotes himself to the things he feels are important without hesitation (he uses the odachi).  Sayane, a young woman constantly dressed in the goth-loli style, is a master swordswoman with a passionate heart and an iron will (she uses the standard katana).  Kuroe and Shiroe are twins, with the older sister Shiroe being hesitant and gentle and her younger sister Kuroe being an overprotective siscon (their weapons are kodachi).  Iori is an unsociable young woman whose hobby is observing people (her weapon is an executioner's sword).  Rikka is a cheerful, talkative, and active young woman (and the most normal of the heroines) who wields a crescent-spear.  Fuyume is a blind and innocent miko who is also a talented onmyouji and can see the souls of people and objects.  Nobotsuna is a seemingly light-hearted womanizer who quickly befriends Kuroudo and the others, his surprising wisdom coming out at just the right moments.  Kei is a cross-dressing young woman who is also a master of western sorcery (also a confirmed lesbian).
Common Route
This game's common route changes depending on what choices you make throughout it leading up to the heroine branch-off, the events occurring after the prologue changing the most dramatically.  While there is a lot of repeated text, it can mostly be skipped using the skip function on subsequent playthroughs.  This is a technique used a lot in early chuunige, because events tend to accelerate rapidly in chuunige once you get into the heroine paths.  The differences mostly lie in which heroines you interact with the most and the fate of a certain antagonist that appears early on... as her fate is usually related to how things turn out in the heroine paths, somehow.
Route Order Suggestion
I honestly suggest that you use the exact route order found in the Foolmaker walkthrough: http://sagaoz.net/foolmaker/game/s/alice.html
The reason is fairly simple... despite not restricting any of the paths but Fuyume's, there are assumptions made about your preexisting knowledge for each path. 
Sayane
Nine out of ten people who play this game through the end of the prologue without picking a heroine will choose to do Sayane's path first.  Why?  Because she is the heroine who leaves the most vivid impression in the prologue, by far.  As a result, for the second time around... I ended up picking her again (it was a toss-up between her and the twins).  Sayane's rather twisted value system is the basis for why the actual buildup to relationship formation is so... long.  However, the reasons make sense, given the events of the prologue, and the romance is... beautiful in a sense that is rare in visual novel romance in general. 
The battles in this path are first-class (really all the battles in this game are), and the last battle is just... superb.  I laughed, I cried (a lot), and I felt my heart wrench with empathy for Sayane and Kuroudo.  This is an excellent path, and, even if you play none of the other paths, this one would make the game worth playing (though I might end up saying the same for some of the others as well, lol).
Kuroe and Shiroe
I just ignored my own advice... but I don't like Rikka, so that was inevitable (her type of heroine is my least favorite, because they are so common).  Kuroe and Shiroe are a pair of twins that are one year younger than Kuroudo.  Shiroe is the older sister, a gentle-mannered girl with a tendency to view her own motivations negatively, particularly when it comes to Kuroe.  She is rather obviously in love with Kuroudo almost from the start (the incident that brings it on is fairly obvious).  Kuroe is the younger sister, and the dependent half of the pair (most otaku media twins operate on the theory that one is dependent and the other dominant).  She loves her sister first, second, and last, lol.  She is also an aggressive violent tsundere with a fondness for jump kicks and a generalized dislike of men.
Kuroe and Shiroe's path has a much different focus than Sayane's... the swordsmanship aspect is far less important (the fights in this path are mostly short ones), and it is very much about the twisted psychology of the twins' dependent relationship, their past, and how it effects the experiments when Kuroudo gets mixed up with them (hint: the results tend to be mixed).  Generally speaking, the path itself can probably be called one of the weaker ones in the VN from a chuunige perspective, but it is emotionally rich and generally enjoyable to read.
Rikka
I'll say it right out.  Rikka is the heroine I like the least in this game.  She is mostly a comedy relief character.  She is genki, she eats a lot, she makes random sexual jokes, and she is in a deep manzai relationship with the protagonist and other characters. 
That said, her path is of even quality to the others so far.  This path... will probably be hard on people who like Sayane (I won't go into details), and I had to wince at some of the things that happen to the characters here.  However, in exchange you get a series of three first-class swordfights, a bunch of lesser fights, some seriously crazy turns of events, and a nice ending.
Iori
Iori... by the time you get to this path (I recommend doing it last amongst the initially-available paths for reasons I'll mention in a moment), you'll have some idea of her personality.  On the surface, she is calm and collected, but underneath, she is very much like a lonely child who desperately wants the love she never received from her parents.  However, she also has a tendency to instantly make decisions others would procrastinate on, and there is little in the way of hesitation to her personality.
Her path... is split into two parts.  The first part, which is treated pretty much the same as the other heroine paths, is a sad ending (almost like a Tsukihime-style normal ending), that feels bittersweet.  It is also fairly revealing about Iori's personality and her limitations as an individual.  The second part has you start from the beginning of the game from a slightly different point, and it dramatically alters events when it comes to how Iori, Fuyume, and Kuroudo interact with one another and eliminates a major story element common to all the other paths, including Iori's first path.  How it differs most radically from the first version, however, is in how Iori deals with her personal issue that pops up in almost every path of the game.  Let's just say that the issue is confronted much earlier, at least in part because Iori held close contacts with the others at a much earlier point.  This is also the most revealing path so far for the Cthulhu Mythos elements in the story.
Fuyume
Because of Fuyume's tendency to refer to herself in the third person, whenever she talks, I get the feeling she is putting herself down (my backbrain keeps interpreting her name as Fuyu and 'me' as that deliberately servile appellation some retainers to wealthy or socially high-ranking individuals use for themselves).   However, her personality is fundamentally kind-hearted and gentle with a strong flavor of curiosity about new things and a tendency to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.
This path... is very emotional, both in the romantic and in the story/drama parts.  While this path doesn't have any superlative fights, the flow of the story is the most 'complete', and I honestly loved the way the relationship between Fuyume and Iori strengthens throughout the path.  I smiled, I laughed, and I cried... and in the end, I was left with a sense of completeness, as this path put an end to the story as a whole. 
Overall
This game is one of those that was hard to appreciate fully on the first playthrough.  Part of it is that, when I first played it, I was unfamiliar with much of the terminology (occult, scientific, and swordsmanship) involved.  However, the largest part was that I simply didn't have the understanding of the concepts involved necessary to fully appreciate how this story plays out.  Most who read this game will be satisfied entirely by the sword-fights and the story, but, later on, if you have a wider understanding of the concepts involved in this game, it becomes a much richer/deeper read. 

This review was written by fun2novel and edited for grammar and style by Clephas. 
Etatoto review
The mystery genre is one of the most interesting and captivating genres in fiction (Clephas: We are all entitled to our opinions). While there are many mystery vns out there, finding one that has an addictive, twisting plo, and a satisfying ending is a difficult task. It is even harder if you’re looking for something really unique and different from the usual murder who’dun’it, detective, mystery plots... Such as something that will make the reader doubt and rethink what they think they know but also gives satisfying answers.
Welcome to Kieta Sekai to Tsuki to Shoujo -The World was Prayed by The Girl Living A Thousand Years- or Etatoto. Okina Seiji comes back to his home town for a visit. After his arrival, he reunites with old friends and makes new ones, goes to school with them, and spends time bonding with them. However, the real reason for his visit is the mysterious death of his mother, and his goal is to find out the truth. Nothing goes as planned, of course. As the story progresses, the mystery grows more and more complex, questions are raised, and more mysteries are uncovered. This is ALL you need to know, as saying anything more than that will ruin the plot. So, if you’re looking for a good mystery visual novel that is not quite the usual kind of mystery, something complex and twisty, this is a game for you. It’s not quite as complex as the Infinity or the Zero Escape series, but it’s definitely worth your time.
In terms of art the game made a few odd artistic decisions. While the backgrounds looks great, and the main characters are all drawn well, some of the characters look as if drawn by a completely different artist than others. On top of that, their sprites look rough and sketched in comparison. CGs have a similar problem due to a strange artistic decision to draw the h-scenes in one style and the other CGs in a different one. The non-H CGs look rougher, almost sketched. These CGs still look good and match the atmosphere, so perhaps it was an artistic decision rather than a budgetary one (Clephas: It is Lacryma... it was probably just a fumble).
Speaking of production values, the music deserves special recognition. The music is superb, with a variety of deep soothing compositions, atmospheric music, emotional music, and perfectly timed moving pieces. However, there aren't a lot of them, so they might come to feel old with repetition. That said, the music is so good that it shouldn’t be a deal breaker for anyone.
There are a few low points in Etatoto’s writing as well. Most of the characters are not especially well developed and leave you much to be desired. Though,  this wasn’t a huge deal breaker, as the story was good enough to pull all the right strings.  The reason for this is that most of the game's focus goes into the story, rather than the characters. The romantic elements are a bit sub-par as well, since almost every route develops its romantic relationship in exactly the same way, with pretty much the same amount of time spend on each heroine and with the same ‘date’ spot as everyone else... Not to mention, it takes a while for the story to get going. The first few hours were very difficult to get through, but it is still worth it, in my mind.  Those slow peaceful times are used to introduce the characters as well as do some clever and obscure foreshadowing about the events to come.
On a technical side, things aren’t perfect either. The auto skip function doesn’t work as expected (Clephas: Lacryma's technical staff sucks), and sometimes it just doesn’t work at all. At other times, it takes a little longer to load the backgrounds after you resume from a saved game. These are relatively small annoyances that could (and most likely will) be patched later; so, thankfully, they don’t become an obstacle for enjoying the experience of the VN as a whole. 
In conclusion, talking about Etatoto is difficult without spoiling the intricate details of its plot. It’s the kind of VN where you should avoid searching for more information than is contained within this review. This gives you a good idea of the pros and cons of the game, and with a little patience, a mystery lover will get hooked on what is probably one of the best mystery visual novels in a while.

This is the second game in the 9 -nine- series, a half-chuunige series that began last year.  For my comments on the first game, look below.
 
I'm going to be blunt... all my complaints about the previous game in the series still apply here.  While a little more information is revealed in the second game than the first, and two of the characters (Haruka and Sora) come to life a great deal more than in the first game, it has to be said that the sense that I should have waited for all the games in the series to come out before I played it is unchanged.  Oh, I liked Sora as a heroine (the interplay between her and the protagonist is frequently worthy of laughs).  However, I absolutely hated the way it trailed off at the end, right after revealing something of absolute importance.
The battle scene in this one (there is precisely one worthy of the  name) is good, and the writing (of course) is first-class... but playing a game like this in pieces is immensely frustrating. 

Yay!  Two catgirl harems in one month!!!  lol
Anyway, this is the newest game by Moonstone's crappy subsidiary, Moonstone Honey.  It is a straight-out catgirl harem moege from beginning to end... which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The game is set on an island that has been completely built up with leisure facilities of various types (amusement park, pool, beach, a mall, etc), and the protagonist is a young man in his early twenties who is given a chance to take charge of resurrecting the stagnant pool business. 
I'm going to be blunt (as usual) here... there really isn't a lot to this VN except endless ichaicha between the protagonist and the three catgirls.  The protagonist accepts the catgirls' presence and change to a human form with relative ease, and within a few days, he has them working part time at the indoor pool he is running.  While problems pop up along the way, they are solved quickly and with relative ease, and the girls make the transition from 'just pets' to his harem rather early on (albeit without h-scenes). 
The catgirls' names are Mikan, Lime, and Lemon.  Mikan is the innocently affectionate type, constantly trying to be helpful and showing her love for her master in an honest and straightforward manner.  Lime is a mischievous type, showing her affection and trust by teasing and playing small pranks on the people she likes.  Lemon is... a classic tsundere.
Don't expect a real story or any kind of drama in this game.  The whole point of the game is to enjoy the ichaicha between the protagonist and the catgirls, so there isn't a whole lot extra outside of that.  How the girls transformed is never explained (in fact, it is pretty much forgotten ten seconds after they first emerge), and there is no step-up of affection from them toward the protagonist, as they already love him pretty much from the beginning (it just changes to romantic love later on).  This is a kinetic novel, the choices only deciding whether you see a CG or not.  There is no H content during the main part of the game, but the rather long after story contains about twelve h-scenes for those who are interested.
Overall, if you just want some catgirl harem action, this is a decent choice, but if you don't want what amounts to an old-style moege (not a charage) this probably isn't a good choice.

This is the latest release by Saga Planets, the makers of Hatsuyuki Sakura and Natsuyume Nagisa.  This, like many of the games by this company, is an emotional game that sort of edges around being a straight-out charage, though it can't really be called a story-focused or a true nakige.  This kind of genre ambiguity is common to this company's better works, so in that sense, it probably wasn't a bad choice, overall.
First, I should say I skipped Akane's path.  I played the first three heroine paths and enjoyed them, but Akane's path was so... cliched that I had to skip it after the midpoint.  I was also impatient to get to Ria's path, lol.
Anyway, this game begins with Ichimatsu Ouro, the protagonist, encountering the princess of a fictional north-European superpower, and her dragging him to a school for elites as a result.  I'll be straight with you about this... disregard the getchu page info entirely.  Even the best of the info there is misleading, probably deliberately. 
Anyway, Ouro, who was looking to get away from his life anyway, takes advantage of entering the new school, getting along with Sylvia, Elle (Sylvia's bodyguard), Rena (a friendly fashionista who is also Sylvia's friend), and Ria (a smoker and delinquent girl he meets on the rooftop) while managing to gradually make his own niche at a school mostly full of rich people. 
Now, it needs to be said... there should have been an Ayaka path in this game.  Ayaka is a snarky little ass at the beginning, but she would have made a great heroine.  Moreover, it was rather obvious that the writer wanted her to be one (there are lots of elements that could turn her deredere at a moment's notice), so I'm expecting an FD with an Ayaka route, later, lol. 
Getting back to the rest of the game (I'm writing this at nine in the morning, after not sleeping to finish it), Sylvia's path is easily the strongest of the three heroines that are available from the beginning.  Part of this is because of her generally affectionate nature, part of it is because of her position in life (Princess with insanely loyal followers), and part of it is because she is just that great of a character in general.  Her path actually has two different endings, depending on whether you've seen Ria's ending or not.  The second ending is basically an additional epilogue based several years after the end of the story, and it is obvious to see why you needed to see it only after seeing Ria's ending.
Elle... is the classic straight-laced heroine that goes insanely deredere once she falls in love.  I honestly enjoyed her path immensely, even as I felt they were stretching credulity a bit with some of the twists and turns (based on Elle's personality, I honestly couldn't see her making some of the choices she did, even with Sylvia's encouragement).  Nonetheless, if you want to see a seemingly hard-edged woman go all soft and mushy, this is a great path.
Rena... is the classic 'close friends suddenly become lovers' path.  The beginning of their romantic relationship is hilarious and the lead up into the ending is excellent, with a perfect epilogue, given the path they chose in life.  I will say that this is the only path where the protagonist stands up to his recent past in its entirety, so in that sense, it is perhaps the most complete of the paths up to this point. 
Ria's path... is the game's main path.  Ria herself is not much of a delinquent... for all that she is foul-mouthed and a smoker, she is at the same time kind-hearted and very much at ease with the protagonist after a few initial bumps.  However, for her path... this is the path that threatens to define this game as a nakige... with good reason.  If you paid attention to the extensive foreshadowing in the other heroine paths, you will probably be able to figure out what the core crisis of this path is, but this is also the path where Ouro shows himself at his best, right to the very end. 
Now, I need to go into Ouro, which I normally would have done first.  Ouro is mostly your average guy... save for the fact that he is insanely thoughtful and good in a crisis.  However, what is stronger about him is that he generally knows when he is at his limit and finds someone to lean on at the right times, without going all dependent and whiny.  That said, I really, really, really wish they hadn't made him of average-level intelligence and lazy when it comes to studying.  That particular trope is one I wish they'd chop up then wash down the drain in pieces, forever.
Overall, this is an enjoyable game... the foreshadowing for Ria's path is a bit excessive, Akane's path was unnecessary, and this game needed an Ayaka path...  However, this was still a fun game to play.  I left this game behind with a feeling of satisfaction, and, if I still keep going back to wanting an Ayaka path (yes, I do), I'm sure Saga Planets will eventually oblige, lol.
Edit: I should also mention that the reason Akane's path is not enjoyable is primarily because it doesn't 'fit'.  It doesn't fulfill a need the others don't, and Akane herself pales compared to the other heroines.  Worse, she is the only girl with a sprite who doesn't fit into that close 'circle' they have going, so there is almost no development of her character outside her own path. 
In addition to Ayaka, this game could have also used a Mina path, if only because Mina (Sylvia's little sister) is so obviously on the edge of falling for the protagonist anyway in several of the paths... in the sense that a woman who loves 'reforming' men falls in love with one of her projects, lol. 

First, I'll say that this game is pretty much based on the concept of using the concept of templates and archetypes in the story.  The protagonist bumps into a girl with toast in her mouth, gets woken up by an osananajimi, catches a maid falling from the sky, is frequently scolded by a fake-prude iinchou, and he even has an ojousama fall in love with him at first sight.
Now, the attempt to turn all the classic template happenings of a moege/charage into a joke sort of falls flat in this game.  The common route is pure dirt in that sense (the lack of any original content plus a failure to fully play up to the game's theme ruins things).  I will straight out tell you that the common route is boring.  I've encountered similar happenings in literally hundreds of games in the past, and I never really felt a bond with most of the characters in the common route.  As a result, I only went off on one heroine route (and don't plan to bother with the others).
This route was Miori's... and Miori's route is the only reason I didn't just drop this game and give it a 4 on vndb (points for visuals and audio, negatives for storytelling, average characters).  To be blunt, Miori is of a template I didn't realize I had missed in recent days... the eccentric fushigi-chan.  In recent years, this kind of character has mostly fallen to the wayside (probably because Key got such joy out of overusing it), so having this particular template make a comeback was a definite positive for me (as opposed to the older osananajimi oneesan, the osananajimi imouto, and the secret pervert iinchou, which have been constants in charage since forever). 
If there is one thing Circus does well, it is moe.  Miori's moe point is the traditional gap between her nearly emotionless everyday and her dere.  This is shown briefly when she deals with a cat in the common route (incidentally the point at which I decided to pick her), but only really comes into play in her heroine route.  Her route is traditional down to the last detail (deep love after confession>frequent ichaicha>gets found out by father>confront father>betrothal) for her second character type (not going to reveal this, though it is fairly obvious after you see her and Matsuri in the same scene).  However, since I was just sitting back and enjoying fushigi-chan deredere action, I was perfectly happy to ignore the archetypical ending.
Overall, my advice to anyone looking at this game is... if there is a heroine type in there that you like, go ahead and just play that heroine's route.  The common route is pure crap, but the heroine routes will likely push a lot of positive buttons for those in love with their particular type of heroine, as they did with me.  I did make an attempt at starting the other heroine paths... but I just got bored at the endless stream of predictable occurrences.   For a veteran of charage/moege, this game can be a painful slog or a joy, depending on where you are in it.
Edit: It needs to be said, but the main reason I give this game a failing grade on the common route is because they went for a spoof theme but didn't make the common route wacky enough.  When it came down to it, except for the protagonist's complaints, it was just a weaker version of a normal moege common route.

First, I'll say that this game is pretty much based on the concept of using the concept of templates and archetypes in the story.  The protagonist bumps into a girl with toast in her mouth, gets woken up by an osananajimi, catches a maid falling from the sky, is frequently scolded by a fake-prude iinchou, and he even has an ojousama fall in love with him at first sight.
Now, the attempt to turn all the classic template happenings of a moege/charage into a joke sort of falls flat in this game.  The common route is pure dirt in that sense (the lack of any original content plus a failure to fully play up to the game's theme ruins things).  I will straight out tell you that the common route is boring.  I've encountered similar happenings in literally hundreds of games in the past, and I never really felt a bond with most of the characters in the common route.  As a result, I only went off on one heroine route (and don't plan to bother with the others).
This route was Miori's... and Miori's route is the only reason I didn't just drop this game and give it a 4 on vndb (points for visuals and audio, negatives for storytelling, average characters).  To be blunt, Miori is of a template I didn't realize I had missed in recent days... the eccentric fushigi-chan.  In recent years, this kind of character has mostly fallen to the wayside (probably because Key got such joy out of overusing it), so having this particular template make a comeback was a definite positive for me (as opposed to the older osananajimi oneesan, the osananajimi imouto, and the secret pervert iinchou, which have been constants in charage since forever). 
If there is one thing Circus does well, it is moe.  Miori's moe point is the traditional gap between her nearly emotionless everyday and her dere.  This is shown briefly when she deals with a cat in the common route (incidentally the point at which I decided to pick her), but only really comes into play in her heroine route.  Her route is traditional down to the last detail (deep love after confession>frequent ichaicha>gets found out by father>confront father>betrothal) for her second character type (not going to reveal this, though it is fairly obvious after you see her and Matsuri in the same scene).  However, since I was just sitting back and enjoying fushigi-chan deredere action, I was perfectly happy to ignore the archetypical ending.
Overall, my advice to anyone looking at this game is... if there is a heroine type in there that you like, go ahead and just play that heroine's route.  The common route is pure crap, but the heroine routes will likely push a lot of positive buttons for those in love with their particular type of heroine, as they did with me.  I did make an attempt at starting the other heroine paths... but I just got bored at the endless stream of predictable occurrences.   For a veteran of charage/moege, this game can be a painful slog or a joy, depending on where you are in it.
Edit: It needs to be said, but the main reason I give this game a failing grade on the common route is because they went for a spoof theme but didn't make the common route wacky enough.  When it came down to it, except for the protagonist's complaints, it was just a weaker version of a normal moege common route.

Yes, I did this game first.  This is one of those games that is a bit hard to define.  It is part moege, part nukige and part charage... and part surrealist story.  It is about cats being reborn as humans being reborn as cats being reborn as humans (it gets ridiculously complex, to the point where there is no point in keeping track). 
There also isn't a whole lot to say about this game... it is mostly at-home SOL, h-scenes, and reminiscence of past lives.  As a VN, it is a bit hard to read because it jumps around in time so much, and I'll probably forget this VN before long.  However, I gave it an extra point for making me cry several times, lol. 

Yes, I did this game first.  This is one of those games that is a bit hard to define.  It is part moege, part nukige and part charage... and part surrealist story.  It is about cats being reborn as humans being reborn as cats being reborn as humans (it gets ridiculously complex, to the point where there is no point in keeping track). 
There also isn't a whole lot to say about this game... it is mostly at-home SOL, h-scenes, and reminiscence of past lives.  As a VN, it is a bit hard to read because it jumps around in time so much, and I'll probably forget this VN before long.  However, I gave it an extra point for making me cry several times, lol. 

Yes, you were waiting for it, all you tentacle-loving freaks... this is the newest game in the Venus Blood series, as full of tentacles and sex-training as any of the others...  I come to you having finished the Law route and after being forced to go back a chapter in order to get to the Chaos route on my second playthrough (apparently you absolutely have to start the 'goddess insanity' chapter, by failing to complete one of the monster-hunting side-quests). 
The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who played Hypno, though there are differences introduced in the unit-creation screen, just as in all the others in the series (every game puts its own twist on this aspect).  It is the sequel to Frontier, occurring some three hundred years later, and it is based off of a partial 'fallen goddess but still on Law Route' path. 
The biggest difference in the gameplay from previous entries is the introduction of a 'research' system where you basically have to open each step in a tree to get access to other units.  You expend medallions to get particular units on each 'block' that you've opened up, and what medallions are available to you determine what units you can access and how much of each tree you can complete (it is impossible to get access to all medallion types and units in the first or even the second playthrough due to difficulty and route issues).  While this might not sound that different in fact, it was a great difference visually, making access to the various monster types more obvious than in previous entries.
The system of 'leveling up resources' is back from Hypno, allowing you to use research to level up your auto-healing, auto-experience gaining, and automatic resource allowance (at the end of each turn) independent from what places you've captured.  I advise anyone planning to do multiple playthroughs to get everything as high as possible (focus on healing over experience and all the other resources before gold, since gold is the most plentiful resource). 
Story-wise... it is standard Venus Blood.  You come, you conquer, and you decide whether to make the goddesses love you normally or just drive them crazy through sex training.  The actual basic plot is inferior to both Frontier and Hypno, though it it is more 'stable' in that it doesn't trip up in the last chapters like in the previous games.  Unfortunately, this game suffers somewhat from being a direct and obvious sequel, as the shadows and persons of characters from the previous game pop up everywhere, distracting you from the protagonist's story.
I need to say something about the Venus Blood games here... it really is a shame that this company doesn't go 'legit' and start making non-ero games.  The complexity of the skill system and the way you can make levels almost irrelevant through simply combining the right units in the same squad is incredibly rewarding.  This is actually only the second game in the series where I actually explored this aspect of the game in-depth, but I was seriously impressed with the degree to which you can customize your army, creating the ultimate force.  In fact, it wouldn't be far from the truth to say the outcome of all battles is entirely determined by the way you design your squads.
Sanah is something of a hard-ass when it comes for this game, always beginning on Hard mode... but I honestly don't recommend that for newcomers to the series.  For one thing, the basic endgame difficulty level is pretty high even on normal difficulty, and playing hard mode on the first playthrough has certain annoyances like running short of resources at key points. 
Anyway, for gameplay, this, like most of the Venus Blood games, is fairly enjoyable.  As a story?  Lots of potential here, some really interesting points, but in retrospect the story pales somewhat in comparison to previous entries in the series as a whole, despite exceeding most previous games when it comes to the endgame story. 

Mirai Nostalgia is the game that turned Purple Soft around.  After Ashita no Kimi to Au Tame ni, the company produced a number of middling and poor quality games, and it looked like Purple Software was going to fade into the background, like a lot of other companies that prospered during the 'Golden Age'.  Then, all of the sudden, they released this game...  and they regained the hearts of their followers, leading to a series of high quality releases, including Hapymaher, Amatsutsumi, and Aoi Tori.
Mirai Nostalgia follows an extensive cast of characters... a group of friends centering primarily around the protagonist Youichi and Uta (called Hime by the rest of the group).  Like most high quality VNs with a lot of SOL, the interactions with the friend characters and non-heroines are lively and vitally important to fleshing out the setting and characters as a group and as individuals. 
The Protagonist
Kudou Youichi- Youichi is a lazy young man who is utterly incompetent at all forms of housework.  He lives alone (at first) with the ancient bakeneko Kuro (who has apparently been alive for over a thousand years) and is a weak esper, possessing telekinesis and an unstable teleportation ability.  In obedience to his family traditions, he keeps his powers hidden from all but those few others around him that also possess powers.  Youichi is, by nature, a very calm, accepting individual who instinctively puts others first, often disregarding his own well-being if faced with the needs of others.  He is also generally on the lowest rung of the family ladder (even the cat is above him), and he spends a lot of his time accommodating the females in his life (Shizuku and his little sisters especially). 
The Heroines
Kasuga Iori- Iori is a traditional black-haired beauty and a miko... with an airgun and immensely powerful telekinetic abilities (think being able to erase someone from existence with pure kinetic force).  She is also constantly threatening Youichi's life, for reasons she declines to mention to him, and her temper is almost always sharp-edged.  She is definitely S by nature.  Despite this apparently violent nature, she also has a deep capacity for love and compassion, and she is quite capable of forgiving a lot from those she cares about (though Youichi apparently pushes her over the edge).
Hatori Uta- Youichi's osananajimi, the daughter of the CEO of a large electronics company, and the spiritual center of the group of friends that lies at the center of the story.  She definitely marches by her own drummer, living life as she wants to live it and ignoring inconvenient realities completely.  All of the group of friends can't help but love her, and she doesn't have a mean bone in her body.  She is a heavy gamer and loves nothing more than beating the shit out of Youichi in competitive gaming.
Kudou Nono- The older of Youichi's twin stepsisters, a genkikko who does the vault in track and field.  She loves to exercise, loves to eat, and loves her oniichan (not necessarily in that order, depending on her priorities at any given moment).  She always has a smile on her face and can make friends with just about anyone.
Kudou Hina- The younger of Youichi's twin stepsisters, a sharp-tongued beauty with glasses who rules the Kudou family with an iron fist.  A natural dictator, she openly states that her goal is to become the next student council president and enslave the student body to her will.  She adores her niisan, but she doesn't let that stop her from insulting him constantly and prodding him into doing what she wants him to do.  Where Nono is the type that wears her heart on her sleeve, Hina is the type that has quiet depths beneath the surface.
Anna- Anna is an esper who has traveled from the future to the past, in order to change the timeline she came from.  She states that the future Youichi denied her confession of love, and she also presents herself as the most powerful esper in existence.  She is generally a prankster, playful and easygoing, taking endless pleasure in teasing Youichi.  However, she is quite obviously hiding a lot of things from him...  She is also the true heroine.
The Other Characters
Hatori Ei- Uta's elder brother, a rootless wanderer who travels the world for years at a time.  His generally irresponsible nature makes him the butt of jokes for most of the group of friends, and he and Shizuku are rivals for the position of 'elder caretakers' in the group.
Hoshikawa Shizuku- The all-powerful student council president, Youichi's cousin, an immensely powerful clairvoyant, and the 'elder sister' of the group.  Most of the group's members have resigned themselves to being her slaves, and when the whim takes her, she drags them all into her schemes and plots.  She cares deeply about the other members of the group, but her position as an elder sister often puts her in the position of having to think of what is best for everyone.
Sanada Kanata- The waitress at a local cafe, one of Youichi's osananajimis, and an infamous dojikko.  She shines the most as the butt of jokes or when being dragged around by Shizuku or caught up in her schemes.  Everybody teases her, but they all love her, too. 
Kase Touya- An unfortunate young man who finds himself in the same position as Kanata most of the time (the butt of jokes and getting dragged into trouble by Shizuku).  While he is good-looking, because of his overly eager manner, most girls don't take him seriously, and he has yet to manage to get a girlfriend.  He and Youichi often commiserate about their treatment by the girls in the group.
Kuro- A thousand year old bakeneko (youkai cat) who has advised the Kudou family for generations and is one of the 'people' who raised Youichi.  Once an immensely powerful youkai, time has taken its toll, and now he only retains the ability to speak mentally to those who possess esper abilities.  Immensely dignified, wise, and gentle by nature, Youichi's trust in him as an advisor is absolute.  While Kuro will advise if asked or if he thinks it is truly needed, he doesn't believe in 'holding the student's hand' (figuratively speaking) and is perfectly willing to sit back and let Youichi make his own mistakes. 
Kasuga Haru- Iori's mother, an easygoing nurse and sometime coach to the track and field team, she is an immensely strong person (mentally and spiritually).  Her capacity for love is as deep and strong as her daughter's, and one can see the results in Iori's private interactions with her.  She does share Iori's S side though.
The story
Mirai Nostalgia's story begins with the protagonist's first contact with Anna, the supposed 'girl from the future' and the return of his twin imoutos, Nono and Hina after several years apart.  Soon after, he encounters Iori, and his peaceful life is suddenly overturned as a result.  This is a nakige, much like the other games Purple Soft has made since, but its style is more 'traditional' (closer to the format Key pioneered, albeit with a stronger central story).  My suggested play order for this game is Hina>Nono>Uta>Iori>Anna.  The reasons are pretty obvious if you play the game, but I'll go ahead and outline them here.  I basically put them in order from 'least relevant to the central story' to 'most relevant'.  Hina's path is by far the weakest of the five, which is probably inevitable in retrospect (Hina's character is hard to grasp as a heroine).  Nono is a bit stronger as a heroine, but the events leading up to the climax of the story felt forced in comparison to the events that led to her and Youichi becoming lovers.  Uta's path is a bit more fantastical in some ways, mostly because of an unexpected turn of events caused by Uta's dependent personality.  Iori's path... is emotionally powerful, not the least because it reveals the biggest reason why Anna returned to the past.  Anna's path... is a cryfest.  I cried through roughly a third of Anna's path both times I played this game, simply because it was just that good.
The audio
This game's music is slightly above the standard quality for commercial VNs, so it is noteworthy in that sense.  However, this was also the VN where Purple Soft began to seriously typecast the company's favored voice actors (Kazane in particular), and so you can pretty much tell the personality of a Purple Soft character by the sound of their voice, in a generalized sense, lol.
Visually
The first time Purple Soft used Koku for their visuals was in this game, and for those who have played Hapymaher or Chrono Clock, the style will be familiar by now.
Overall
This game is a nice nakige with a strong mix of humorous slice of life and powerful emotional moments.  If you want a good nakige to sit down and read through that is less moe-dependent than a Key VN, this is an excellent choice.

Mirai Nostalgia is the game that turned Purple Soft around.  After Ashita no Kimi to Au Tame ni, the company produced a number of middling and poor quality games, and it looked like Purple Software was going to fade into the background, like a lot of other companies that prospered during the 'Golden Age'.  Then, all of the sudden, they released this game...  and they regained the hearts of their followers, leading to a series of high quality releases, including Hapymaher, Amatsutsumi, and Aoi Tori.
Mirai Nostalgia follows an extensive cast of characters... a group of friends centering primarily around the protagonist Youichi and Uta (called Hime by the rest of the group).  Like most high quality VNs with a lot of SOL, the interactions with the friend characters and non-heroines are lively and vitally important to fleshing out the setting and characters as a group and as individuals. 
The Protagonist
Kudou Youichi- Youichi is a lazy young man who is utterly incompetent at all forms of housework.  He lives alone (at first) with the ancient bakeneko Kuro (who has apparently been alive for over a thousand years) and is a weak esper, possessing telekinesis and an unstable teleportation ability.  In obedience to his family traditions, he keeps his powers hidden from all but those few others around him that also possess powers.  Youichi is, by nature, a very calm, accepting individual who instinctively puts others first, often disregarding his own well-being if faced with the needs of others.  He is also generally on the lowest rung of the family ladder (even the cat is above him), and he spends a lot of his time accommodating the females in his life (Shizuku and his little sisters especially). 
The Heroines
Kasuga Iori- Iori is a traditional black-haired beauty and a miko... with an airgun and immensely powerful telekinetic abilities (think being able to erase someone from existence with pure kinetic force).  She is also constantly threatening Youichi's life, for reasons she declines to mention to him, and her temper is almost always sharp-edged.  She is definitely S by nature.  Despite this apparently violent nature, she also has a deep capacity for love and compassion, and she is quite capable of forgiving a lot from those she cares about (though Youichi apparently pushes her over the edge).
Hatori Uta- Youichi's osananajimi, the daughter of the CEO of a large electronics company, and the spiritual center of the group of friends that lies at the center of the story.  She definitely marches by her own drummer, living life as she wants to live it and ignoring inconvenient realities completely.  All of the group of friends can't help but love her, and she doesn't have a mean bone in her body.  She is a heavy gamer and loves nothing more than beating the shit out of Youichi in competitive gaming.
Kudou Nono- The older of Youichi's twin stepsisters, a genkikko who does the vault in track and field.  She loves to exercise, loves to eat, and loves her oniichan (not necessarily in that order, depending on her priorities at any given moment).  She always has a smile on her face and can make friends with just about anyone.
Kudou Hina- The younger of Youichi's twin stepsisters, a sharp-tongued beauty with glasses who rules the Kudou family with an iron fist.  A natural dictator, she openly states that her goal is to become the next student council president and enslave the student body to her will.  She adores her niisan, but she doesn't let that stop her from insulting him constantly and prodding him into doing what she wants him to do.  Where Nono is the type that wears her heart on her sleeve, Hina is the type that has quiet depths beneath the surface.
Anna- Anna is an esper who has traveled from the future to the past, in order to change the timeline she came from.  She states that the future Youichi denied her confession of love, and she also presents herself as the most powerful esper in existence.  She is generally a prankster, playful and easygoing, taking endless pleasure in teasing Youichi.  However, she is quite obviously hiding a lot of things from him...  She is also the true heroine.
The Other Characters
Hatori Ei- Uta's elder brother, a rootless wanderer who travels the world for years at a time.  His generally irresponsible nature makes him the butt of jokes for most of the group of friends, and he and Shizuku are rivals for the position of 'elder caretakers' in the group.
Hoshikawa Shizuku- The all-powerful student council president, Youichi's cousin, an immensely powerful clairvoyant, and the 'elder sister' of the group.  Most of the group's members have resigned themselves to being her slaves, and when the whim takes her, she drags them all into her schemes and plots.  She cares deeply about the other members of the group, but her position as an elder sister often puts her in the position of having to think of what is best for everyone.
Sanada Kanata- The waitress at a local cafe, one of Youichi's osananajimis, and an infamous dojikko.  She shines the most as the butt of jokes or when being dragged around by Shizuku or caught up in her schemes.  Everybody teases her, but they all love her, too. 
Kase Touya- An unfortunate young man who finds himself in the same position as Kanata most of the time (the butt of jokes and getting dragged into trouble by Shizuku).  While he is good-looking, because of his overly eager manner, most girls don't take him seriously, and he has yet to manage to get a girlfriend.  He and Youichi often commiserate about their treatment by the girls in the group.
Kuro- A thousand year old bakeneko (youkai cat) who has advised the Kudou family for generations and is one of the 'people' who raised Youichi.  Once an immensely powerful youkai, time has taken its toll, and now he only retains the ability to speak mentally to those who possess esper abilities.  Immensely dignified, wise, and gentle by nature, Youichi's trust in him as an advisor is absolute.  While Kuro will advise if asked or if he thinks it is truly needed, he doesn't believe in 'holding the student's hand' (figuratively speaking) and is perfectly willing to sit back and let Youichi make his own mistakes. 
Kasuga Haru- Iori's mother, an easygoing nurse and sometime coach to the track and field team, she is an immensely strong person (mentally and spiritually).  Her capacity for love is as deep and strong as her daughter's, and one can see the results in Iori's private interactions with her.  She does share Iori's S side though.
The story
Mirai Nostalgia's story begins with the protagonist's first contact with Anna, the supposed 'girl from the future' and the return of his twin imoutos, Nono and Hina after several years apart.  Soon after, he encounters Iori, and his peaceful life is suddenly overturned as a result.  This is a nakige, much like the other games Purple Soft has made since, but its style is more 'traditional' (closer to the format Key pioneered, albeit with a stronger central story).  My suggested play order for this game is Hina>Nono>Uta>Iori>Anna.  The reasons are pretty obvious if you play the game, but I'll go ahead and outline them here.  I basically put them in order from 'least relevant to the central story' to 'most relevant'.  Hina's path is by far the weakest of the five, which is probably inevitable in retrospect (Hina's character is hard to grasp as a heroine).  Nono is a bit stronger as a heroine, but the events leading up to the climax of the story felt forced in comparison to the events that led to her and Youichi becoming lovers.  Uta's path is a bit more fantastical in some ways, mostly because of an unexpected turn of events caused by Uta's dependent personality.  Iori's path... is emotionally powerful, not the least because it reveals the biggest reason why Anna returned to the past.  Anna's path... is a cryfest.  I cried through roughly a third of Anna's path both times I played this game, simply because it was just that good.
The audio
This game's music is slightly above the standard quality for commercial VNs, so it is noteworthy in that sense.  However, this was also the VN where Purple Soft began to seriously typecast the company's favored voice actors (Kazane in particular), and so you can pretty much tell the personality of a Purple Soft character by the sound of their voice, in a generalized sense, lol.
Visually
The first time Purple Soft used Koku for their visuals was in this game, and for those who have played Hapymaher or Chrono Clock, the style will be familiar by now.
Overall
This game is a nice nakige with a strong mix of humorous slice of life and powerful emotional moments.  If you want a good nakige to sit down and read through that is less moe-dependent than a Key VN, this is an excellent choice.

This VN is an odd duck on my long list of recommended VNs.  While its existence as a time loop story is a trope, the way the game's story handles it is pretty interesting. 
I went ahead and revealed this as a loop story because you find it out so early on that hiding it as a spoiler is meaningless.  The game's story begins with the protagonist meeting (and helping out) Nodoka, one of the four heroines, and her confessing her love to him on the next day when she transfers into the class.  While he is at first somewhat bothered by this, he eventually falls for her, loves her... and then suddenly wakes up on the second day of the month, the day after he first met her.
Now, you will go through a lot of route loops before the game is over (you have to see all four heroine loops, plus a bunch of side loops, to get access to the endings), and a lot of these have seriously crazy outcomes.  The protagonist, being a young idiot, goes off and tests everything he can find (often to hilarious results), and his 'morality' tends to be rather fragile when it comes to having fun (in one loop he ends up gambling so hard he gets sold to an organ broker, lol).  To be honest, the journey through the non-heroine loops is probably the most attractive part of this VN.  The music is slightly below the average quality of the industry, as is the art (though that is comparison to the present day), but the game as a whole has a lot of laughs and good moments.
The protagonist, Minato, is essentially your average (slightly baka but not totally stupid) harem protagonist who is kind to everyone and as dense as the lead plating protecting a fission reactor's core.  Minato has solid reasons for being dense about the three heroines other than Nodoka (Nodoka being very open), based in his past relationships with the others (Inori being his abusive childhood friend, Korone being his little sister, and Yuuki being so friendly to everyone it is difficult for a harem protagonist to see it in her, lol).  That said, that is perhaps the most annoying part of his character, though it gets relieved over time.
Explaining the heroines to this game is counterproductive.  I'm not being mean, but if I were to start explaining the heroines, I would probably ruin the experience for you.  I really advise you not to read the character profiles (both because they are deliberately inaccurate and because forming your own impressions of the heroines is important to getting into this VN. 
There are five endings to this game.  One for each of the heroines and the true (harem, no H) ending.  The heroine endings are mostly kind of bittersweet, because there are solid reasons why things aren't going to end perfectly, but the true/harem ending is pretty hilarious.  Other than the true ending, I liked Korone's ending the best, both because I liked the outcome and because it was the happiest one other than the true one. 
Edit: Incidentally, Inori is probably the only case I've ever heard of where they handled the tsundere osananajimi realistically (rather than just using the sides as a contrast). 

This VN is an odd duck on my long list of recommended VNs.  While its existence as a time loop story is a trope, the way the game's story handles it is pretty interesting. 
I went ahead and revealed this as a loop story because you find it out so early on that hiding it as a spoiler is meaningless.  The game's story begins with the protagonist meeting (and helping out) Nodoka, one of the four heroines, and her confessing her love to him on the next day when she transfers into the class.  While he is at first somewhat bothered by this, he eventually falls for her, loves her... and then suddenly wakes up on the second day of the month, the day after he first met her.
Now, you will go through a lot of route loops before the game is over (you have to see all four heroine loops, plus a bunch of side loops, to get access to the endings), and a lot of these have seriously crazy outcomes.  The protagonist, being a young idiot, goes off and tests everything he can find (often to hilarious results), and his 'morality' tends to be rather fragile when it comes to having fun (in one loop he ends up gambling so hard he gets sold to an organ broker, lol).  To be honest, the journey through the non-heroine loops is probably the most attractive part of this VN.  The music is slightly below the average quality of the industry, as is the art (though that is comparison to the present day), but the game as a whole has a lot of laughs and good moments.
The protagonist, Minato, is essentially your average (slightly baka but not totally stupid) harem protagonist who is kind to everyone and as dense as the lead plating protecting a fission reactor's core.  Minato has solid reasons for being dense about the three heroines other than Nodoka (Nodoka being very open), based in his past relationships with the others (Inori being his abusive childhood friend, Korone being his little sister, and Yuuki being so friendly to everyone it is difficult for a harem protagonist to see it in her, lol).  That said, that is perhaps the most annoying part of his character, though it gets relieved over time.
Explaining the heroines to this game is counterproductive.  I'm not being mean, but if I were to start explaining the heroines, I would probably ruin the experience for you.  I really advise you not to read the character profiles (both because they are deliberately inaccurate and because forming your own impressions of the heroines is important to getting into this VN. 
There are five endings to this game.  One for each of the heroines and the true (harem, no H) ending.  The heroine endings are mostly kind of bittersweet, because there are solid reasons why things aren't going to end perfectly, but the true/harem ending is pretty hilarious.  Other than the true ending, I liked Korone's ending the best, both because I liked the outcome and because it was the happiest one other than the true one. 
Edit: Incidentally, Inori is probably the only case I've ever heard of where they handled the tsundere osananajimi realistically (rather than just using the sides as a contrast). 

This VN is an odd duck on my long list of recommended VNs.  While its existence as a time loop story is a trope, the way the game's story handles it is pretty interesting. 
I went ahead and revealed this as a loop story because you find it out so early on that hiding it as a spoiler is meaningless.  The game's story begins with the protagonist meeting (and helping out) Nodoka, one of the four heroines, and her confessing her love to him on the next day when she transfers into the class.  While he is at first somewhat bothered by this, he eventually falls for her, loves her... and then suddenly wakes up on the second day of the month, the day after he first met her.
Now, you will go through a lot of route loops before the game is over (you have to see all four heroine loops, plus a bunch of side loops, to get access to the endings), and a lot of these have seriously crazy outcomes.  The protagonist, being a young idiot, goes off and tests everything he can find (often to hilarious results), and his 'morality' tends to be rather fragile when it comes to having fun (in one loop he ends up gambling so hard he gets sold to an organ broker, lol).  To be honest, the journey through the non-heroine loops is probably the most attractive part of this VN.  The music is slightly below the average quality of the industry, as is the art (though that is comparison to the present day), but the game as a whole has a lot of laughs and good moments.
The protagonist, Minato, is essentially your average (slightly baka but not totally stupid) harem protagonist who is kind to everyone and as dense as the lead plating protecting a fission reactor's core.  Minato has solid reasons for being dense about the three heroines other than Nodoka (Nodoka being very open), based in his past relationships with the others (Inori being his abusive childhood friend, Korone being his little sister, and Yuuki being so friendly to everyone it is difficult for a harem protagonist to see it in her, lol).  That said, that is perhaps the most annoying part of his character, though it gets relieved over time.
Explaining the heroines to this game is counterproductive.  I'm not being mean, but if I were to start explaining the heroines, I would probably ruin the experience for you.  I really advise you not to read the character profiles (both because they are deliberately inaccurate and because forming your own impressions of the heroines is important to getting into this VN. 
There are five endings to this game.  One for each of the heroines and the true (harem, no H) ending.  The heroine endings are mostly kind of bittersweet, because there are solid reasons why things aren't going to end perfectly, but the true/harem ending is pretty hilarious.  Other than the true ending, I liked Korone's ending the best, both because I liked the outcome and because it was the happiest one other than the true one. 
Edit: Incidentally, Inori is probably the only case I've ever heard of where they handled the tsundere osananajimi realistically (rather than just using the sides as a contrast). 

For those who are interested, here is the first real comedy VN of the year... 
The protagonist, Takuma, having returned to his hometown to live alone in his family's old house, finds that it has collapsed in on itself, and, desperate for a place to stay, ends up staying at the homes of his four childhood friends (osananajimi).  This leads to various hilarious antics and situations, with most of the heroines being 'ponkotsu' types (meaning that they are the kind of girls no sane man would want as a girlfriend if he knew their real personality). 
First is Kyou, the 'older sister' of the group... to be blunt, she is the single laziest human being I've ever seen in a VN.  She and her mother are the type that seek marriage solely so that their husband can feed them, clean up after them, and support them financially.  If she tries to cook, explosions ensue; she won't even consider doing laundry; and her room looks like mine did in middle school (I never really did see the point of putting things away back then, lol).  Incidentally, don't expect any of this to change (the heroines are fundamentally ponkotsu types from beginning to end).
Second is Hiyori, the blonde idiot daughter of the owner of a cafe that specializes in Japanese sweets and teas.  She is air-headed, clingy, and she has a tendency to do stupid things just because she feels like it.  Worse, her mother, a widow, takes aim on Takuma almost from the moment of his arrival.
The third is Ayaka... Ayaka, when compared to her family, is a quite normal girl.  However, with an OCD mother who thinks men are filthy pathogens, a little sister who is yandere over Ayaka herself, a little brother who is addicted to masturbation, and an overprotective father... that really isn't saying much.  In reality, she has a strong interest in sexual matters, wants Takuma to be her oniichan, and is very much a schemer/manipulator by nature.
The fourth girl is Rito, the childhood friend that Takuma used to think was a guy.  This leads to an immediate argument, of course, but she quickly turns into a clingy, emotionally dependent girl who alternates between aggressively seeking Takuma's affections and snarling viciously at anyone who gets in the way.
With that particular cast of characters and a protagonist who tends to want to turn everything into a joke himself, you have a recipe for a first-class comedy game.
Of course, most of it is boke-tsukkomi (manzai) type humor, save for the fact that all the characters are running jokes in and of themselves.  There are no real serious points in this VN, and the only time the story actually feels romantic is during Rito's path... and that actually made it the least enjoyable of the four main paths. 
There are also three endings other than those of the four main heroines... a 3P ending with the yandere imouto, an extra ending with Nanako (the girl who steals Takuma's food all the time), and a 'normal ending' that probably would have ended up as a yaoi ending in some other games, lol.
Overall, I left this VN feeling laughed out.  I probably won't replay it, because I don't imagine it would be funny twice, but I honestly enjoyed it for what it was... an excuse to break out into real-life laughter to the point where my throat and head started to hurt worse than they already are (I have the flu right now, yaaay!).