Clephas

I didn't go into this VN expecting much.  Judging by the cover (considering I am a bibliophile, you would think I would know better, lol) and the Getchu page, I thought it was going to be a half-nukige along the same lines as the Ren'ai Jijou series (since Otaku was written by the same guy).  However, I was surprised at what I got... the first addition to my 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' list since Natsuiro Recipe in mid-2015.
As a reference point, I almost never add VNs to the Chicken Soup for the Soul list.  The requirements for it are just too strict (low stress, soothing, mildly cathartic, and overall something that leaves you feeling better about the world afterward).  So, I generally expect years to go by between each addition to that list.  I specifically select these VNs for their restful properties, so the ones on the list are the kind of VN you should consider going to when you feel the need to just take a total rest from the stress of your life.
Now, this VN is a kinetic novel, which means there is only one ending and one story.  In fact, there are no choices in this game.  This isn't a bad thing, from the perspective of a game I'm adding to the list above.  To be blunt, choices are a type of stress-factor at times, so it is nice to just be able to read the VN without thinking about choices or looking at a walkthrough.  
The story focuses on a young scientist named Kyouji (he's in his mid-twenties), who, at the beginning of the story, has just finished his second and third prototype androids.  The important thing about these androids is that they have emotions and the ability to learn and think for themselves (in other words, human emulation and autonomous AI decision making).  This story is about how the three androids and Kyouji grow together, and it is mostly a gentle story about the family they form together.
The oldest android, Nect, is an 'older-sister' type who serves as Kyouji's accountant, assistant, go-between, and secretary.  She is good at keeping him from breaking the household finances and keeping him on track to finish whatever work he has taken on at any given time, but she is also very caring and protective about Kyouji and her 'little sisters'.
Lux is the second android, designed to be a reliable partner and possess a desire to help others.  This quickly turns her into what Kyouji refers to as a ダメ人間製造機 (a woman who reduces men to helplessness through her eager 'help').  She loves nothing more than to do things for others, including her sisters and Kyouji, and she feels the most fulfilled when she is doing her level best to spoil someone rotten.
Sphere is the third android, designed specifically to be like a younger family member.  She hates being lonely and wants the affection of her family members, and she also has the most effective learning ability, eagerly absorbing information about human relations from movies, anime, manga, and books. 
Overall, most of the VN is gentle, heartwarming slice of life, with frequent bits mild comedy (mostly running jokes like Roppu's desire to be modified by Kyouji) and occasional h-scenes (yes, they are occasional).  I honestly haven't felt this relaxed coming out of a VN in a while, and I liked the ending fairly well.  I give this VN high ratings for essentially erasing my stress from the work of the last few days, lol. 

Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 

Yurikago is one of my favorite VNs.  That isn't because it so 'awesome' or a kamige.  Story-wise, it is actually a bit below the average for Akatsuki Works.  No, the reason I like this game so much is the characters and their interactions.
Kiritooshi Hiro, the protagonist (his surname means 'to cut all the way through' lol) is a young high school student who lives every day trapped in a web of his own apathy.  Tormented by his 'Knight Frame' (a magitech-type device that replaces his entire skeletal system) and a sense of his own guilt for having murdered his father in order to gain it (this is not a spoiler, it mentions this within the first fifty lines, lol), he feels isolated from the world around him, and he can only really consider those who are - like him - outside the norm to be people (this is a psychological disease created by the implantation of the Knight Frame into a psychologically immature subject).  He regularly attends a the Kurohagi Dojo, where he fights with Kangasa Ume, who has inherited an 'unbreakable body' (literally unbreakable... if she falls from the stratosphere, she is unharmed, but she is not invulnerable to disease or techniques that overwrite her original state).  He generally spends a great deal of time trying to defend himself (unsuccessfully) from the females of the story, who seem to vary from seeing him as a favorite chew toy to being eternally exasperated by him.  He has a bad habit of saying what he is thinking at any given moment in his rare interpersonal reactions, then wanting to bash his head into the nearest wall in embarrassment after reflecting on what he said.  When his few truly 'sensitive' spots are touched, he can instantly become a psychopathic, remorseless killer, but those points are relatively few and far between.
Kangasa Ume is the last survivor of the Kangasa Family, who all possessed an unbreakable body.   Her body imposes on her a unique and distasteful way of viewing the world, where her reactions to everything around her are determined on whether they are fragile or difficult to break.  She also despises that part of herself intensely, even to th point of being nearly suicidal at times.  With those few she allows herself to become close to, beating on them becomes a form of interpersonal communication (she regularly breaks Hiro's bones when embarrassed or irritated).   She is a student of the Kurohagi style, which focuses on the forceful creation of 'tenketsu' (breaking points) or the use of existing ones to destroy the bodies of their opponents.  She is fairly advanced in this, and as a kindergartner she once launched herself into the stratosphere when she tried to kill the planet that way.
Tae is the main heroine of the story and an angel.  Angels in this story are summoned into the body of a corpse from a higher realm and are bound to the one who loved the original owner of that body.  By instinct, they love their summoner/controller, and will do anything for his sake, up to and including self-harm or mass murder.  Since her kind were originally created as a slave race, she has an M streak a mile wide when it comes to Hiro, and she wants nothing more than for him to treat her like garbage and beat the shit out of her... and is unsatisfied that he doesn't do so. 
Aria is the last of the three heroines, a young angel who possesses wings made up of iron stakes and whose special ability allows her to overwrite the reality of anything she touches to have already been punctured by one of her stakes.  She is very honest and straightforward, a total innocent when it comes to everyday reactions and concepts, and (in her route) she is constantly asking questions, because she is also too intellectually lazy to think things out on her own.  She is also a drug addict, due to an existing command from her master that she use a certain drug to eliminate her emotions when they go beyond a certain peak level.
Kurohagi Zenjirou is Ume's adoptive father/grandfather and the master of the Kurohagi Dojo.  At one point, he was involved in the religious wars that resulted in the creation of the mystic technology behind the Kishi Kokkaku and angels like Tae, but he is now very much retired.  Despite his easygoing attitude, he regularly breaks his best students' bones and will even maim them if he thinks that is what is needed to train them.  He loves Ume deeply, but he believes in standing back and letting the younger generation find its own way.  He isn't really human anymore (psychologically or physically), and after two hundred years of life, even he admits he doesn't really understand people viscerally anymore. 
Tsugumu is an ancient angel (the  most powerful one) who performed the surgery to transfer Hiro's father's Knight Frame to him after Hiro killed him.  She loves anything interesting, and she sees her abandonment by her master as a very long-term sexual play.  She, like all the other women around Hiro, regularly beats the shit out of him for minor infractions (either through teasing or literal blows), but she seems to always be looking on the people around her from the outside.  She is very lazy and generally careless (she forgot to 'zip Hiro up' when she implanted the Knight Frame, which was a small part of the cause of his mental disorders, lol). 
Redear is the heroine of Tomoe's side-scenario, a psychopathic loli angel who skins people alive and removes their limbs and organs for fun.  She makes little sense when she talks, frequently referring to various fairy tales and old children's books, such as Allice in Wonderland.  It is impossible to tell what will make her happy at any given moment, but it is generally guaranteed to include killing someone or doing something similar.
Tomoe is a young man who acts entirely on impulse, living as he desires at any given moment.  When he sees bullying, he beats the shit out of the bullies, then he beats the shit out of the bullied one.  When someone mistakes him for a woman, he breaks their ribs and jaw, then leaves them for dead.... and when he meets Hiro, he always tries to cause a confrontation with him. 
Now, needless to say, the characters of this game are... unusual.  I loved their antics, and the game is pretty violent (think pulverized flesh, followed by repeated regeneration, followed by more pulverization).  The Grand Route is an excellent follow-up to the other routes, and I always leave this game feeling satisfied.
Edit:
For those who are interested in playing the game, there is a suggested (by me) playing order.  Generally speaking, you want to do Tae's route right before the Grand Route (because Tae's route is way too revealing).  This is immovable.  If you just want to see the true ending, do Tae's route and the Grand Route only, though you'll miss out on some awesome moments.  My suggested order is: Aria>Ume or Ritia/Tomoe>Tae>Grand Route.  Really, it would probably be best to do Ritia/Tomoe right before Tae's route, but if you want a bit of freedom of choice, that is a good place to put it.  I suggest Aria's route because it is the only route where most of the other characters are almost irrelevant and Aria is actually something other than a speechless killing machine.  It is also fairly revealing about how extreme the nature of the angels is, lol.
My favorite heroine in this game is Ume.  For all that she is the true heroine, Tae (or at least, the Tae in Tae's route) is mostly a do-M pervert who will do anything to get Hiro to smash her face in or treat her like dirt.  While she is pretty adorable in her route, Ume's internal conflict is a lot more interesting. 
The main reason that I say play Tae's route, even if you play none of the other heroine routes, is because Tae's route reveals several key elements about Hiro that are absolutely necessary for you to know in order to enjoy the Grand Route (really, it would be better if you knew stuff about Aria too, but meh).
The characters in this game, whether villain or protagonist side (note: everyone in this game is crazy on one level or another... hell, the most sane person there is Tae, and that is just... sad) are generally great... but moege lovers will probably run away from most of them screaming (Redear/Ritia is every lolicon's nightmare).  Ume is an extreme self-hating sadist, Tae is about as M as anyone can get (so much so that she can get off just on being ignored), and Aria is a drug addict... lol
Story-wise, the game is actually pretty good, but you should know that the writer chose to make Hiro an unreliable narrator and goes out of his way never to just come out and say things directly.  I love the setting in this game, and it was obviously designed to contain more than one story.  Unfortunately, Akatsuki Works Black produced three great games in a very short time and then got absorbed by Akabeisoft3, so we'll probably never see any more games in this particular universe... or in the Izuna Zanshinken universe (which, considering that the secret ending is open-ended, is sad).

Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 

Yurikago is one of my favorite VNs.  That isn't because it so 'awesome' or a kamige.  Story-wise, it is actually a bit below the average for Akatsuki Works.  No, the reason I like this game so much is the characters and their interactions.
Kiritooshi Hiro, the protagonist (his surname means 'to cut all the way through' lol) is a young high school student who lives every day trapped in a web of his own apathy.  Tormented by his 'Knight Frame' (a magitech-type device that replaces his entire skeletal system) and a sense of his own guilt for having murdered his father in order to gain it (this is not a spoiler, it mentions this within the first fifty lines, lol), he feels isolated from the world around him, and he can only really consider those who are - like him - outside the norm to be people (this is a psychological disease created by the implantation of the Knight Frame into a psychologically immature subject).  He regularly attends a the Kurohagi Dojo, where he fights with Kangasa Ume, who has inherited an 'unbreakable body' (literally unbreakable... if she falls from the stratosphere, she is unharmed, but she is not invulnerable to disease or techniques that overwrite her original state).  He generally spends a great deal of time trying to defend himself (unsuccessfully) from the females of the story, who seem to vary from seeing him as a favorite chew toy to being eternally exasperated by him.  He has a bad habit of saying what he is thinking at any given moment in his rare interpersonal reactions, then wanting to bash his head into the nearest wall in embarrassment after reflecting on what he said.  When his few truly 'sensitive' spots are touched, he can instantly become a psychopathic, remorseless killer, but those points are relatively few and far between.
Kangasa Ume is the last survivor of the Kangasa Family, who all possessed an unbreakable body.   Her body imposes on her a unique and distasteful way of viewing the world, where her reactions to everything around her are determined on whether they are fragile or difficult to break.  She also despises that part of herself intensely, even to th point of being nearly suicidal at times.  With those few she allows herself to become close to, beating on them becomes a form of interpersonal communication (she regularly breaks Hiro's bones when embarrassed or irritated).   She is a student of the Kurohagi style, which focuses on the forceful creation of 'tenketsu' (breaking points) or the use of existing ones to destroy the bodies of their opponents.  She is fairly advanced in this, and as a kindergartner she once launched herself into the stratosphere when she tried to kill the planet that way.
Tae is the main heroine of the story and an angel.  Angels in this story are summoned into the body of a corpse from a higher realm and are bound to the one who loved the original owner of that body.  By instinct, they love their summoner/controller, and will do anything for his sake, up to and including self-harm or mass murder.  Since her kind were originally created as a slave race, she has an M streak a mile wide when it comes to Hiro, and she wants nothing more than for him to treat her like garbage and beat the shit out of her... and is unsatisfied that he doesn't do so. 
Aria is the last of the three heroines, a young angel who possesses wings made up of iron stakes and whose special ability allows her to overwrite the reality of anything she touches to have already been punctured by one of her stakes.  She is very honest and straightforward, a total innocent when it comes to everyday reactions and concepts, and (in her route) she is constantly asking questions, because she is also too intellectually lazy to think things out on her own.  She is also a drug addict, due to an existing command from her master that she use a certain drug to eliminate her emotions when they go beyond a certain peak level.
Kurohagi Zenjirou is Ume's adoptive father/grandfather and the master of the Kurohagi Dojo.  At one point, he was involved in the religious wars that resulted in the creation of the mystic technology behind the Kishi Kokkaku and angels like Tae, but he is now very much retired.  Despite his easygoing attitude, he regularly breaks his best students' bones and will even maim them if he thinks that is what is needed to train them.  He loves Ume deeply, but he believes in standing back and letting the younger generation find its own way.  He isn't really human anymore (psychologically or physically), and after two hundred years of life, even he admits he doesn't really understand people viscerally anymore. 
Tsugumu is an ancient angel (the  most powerful one) who performed the surgery to transfer Hiro's father's Knight Frame to him after Hiro killed him.  She loves anything interesting, and she sees her abandonment by her master as a very long-term sexual play.  She, like all the other women around Hiro, regularly beats the shit out of him for minor infractions (either through teasing or literal blows), but she seems to always be looking on the people around her from the outside.  She is very lazy and generally careless (she forgot to 'zip Hiro up' when she implanted the Knight Frame, which was a small part of the cause of his mental disorders, lol). 
Redear is the heroine of Tomoe's side-scenario, a psychopathic loli angel who skins people alive and removes their limbs and organs for fun.  She makes little sense when she talks, frequently referring to various fairy tales and old children's books, such as Allice in Wonderland.  It is impossible to tell what will make her happy at any given moment, but it is generally guaranteed to include killing someone or doing something similar.
Tomoe is a young man who acts entirely on impulse, living as he desires at any given moment.  When he sees bullying, he beats the shit out of the bullies, then he beats the shit out of the bullied one.  When someone mistakes him for a woman, he breaks their ribs and jaw, then leaves them for dead.... and when he meets Hiro, he always tries to cause a confrontation with him. 
Now, needless to say, the characters of this game are... unusual.  I loved their antics, and the game is pretty violent (think pulverized flesh, followed by repeated regeneration, followed by more pulverization).  The Grand Route is an excellent follow-up to the other routes, and I always leave this game feeling satisfied.
Edit:
For those who are interested in playing the game, there is a suggested (by me) playing order.  Generally speaking, you want to do Tae's route right before the Grand Route (because Tae's route is way too revealing).  This is immovable.  If you just want to see the true ending, do Tae's route and the Grand Route only, though you'll miss out on some awesome moments.  My suggested order is: Aria>Ume or Ritia/Tomoe>Tae>Grand Route.  Really, it would probably be best to do Ritia/Tomoe right before Tae's route, but if you want a bit of freedom of choice, that is a good place to put it.  I suggest Aria's route because it is the only route where most of the other characters are almost irrelevant and Aria is actually something other than a speechless killing machine.  It is also fairly revealing about how extreme the nature of the angels is, lol.
My favorite heroine in this game is Ume.  For all that she is the true heroine, Tae (or at least, the Tae in Tae's route) is mostly a do-M pervert who will do anything to get Hiro to smash her face in or treat her like dirt.  While she is pretty adorable in her route, Ume's internal conflict is a lot more interesting. 
The main reason that I say play Tae's route, even if you play none of the other heroine routes, is because Tae's route reveals several key elements about Hiro that are absolutely necessary for you to know in order to enjoy the Grand Route (really, it would be better if you knew stuff about Aria too, but meh).
The characters in this game, whether villain or protagonist side (note: everyone in this game is crazy on one level or another... hell, the most sane person there is Tae, and that is just... sad) are generally great... but moege lovers will probably run away from most of them screaming (Redear/Ritia is every lolicon's nightmare).  Ume is an extreme self-hating sadist, Tae is about as M as anyone can get (so much so that she can get off just on being ignored), and Aria is a drug addict... lol
Story-wise, the game is actually pretty good, but you should know that the writer chose to make Hiro an unreliable narrator and goes out of his way never to just come out and say things directly.  I love the setting in this game, and it was obviously designed to contain more than one story.  Unfortunately, Akatsuki Works Black produced three great games in a very short time and then got absorbed by Akabeisoft3, so we'll probably never see any more games in this particular universe... or in the Izuna Zanshinken universe (which, considering that the secret ending is open-ended, is sad).

Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 

Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 

Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 

Understand, chuunige mostly appeal to a very core fanbase.  The style, the fact that they don't translate well, and the fact that most of the action/story is so 'out there' makes the games unapproachable.  The sheer amount of text means that localization costs are through the roof, which makes things worse, of course. 
I'm being realistic, ignoring my inner fanboy who screams everybody should love chuunige because charage suck in comparison.  However, that is the flat-out truth. 
So, I decided to make a list of chuunige I believe would sell in the west/appeal more to the western brain... and not just the core fanbase.  I have these ordered by the most likely to the least.
1.  Bullet Butlers- I say Bullet Butlers is the most accessible precisely because it uses a lot of elements that Western audiences can easily grasp without having to be 'deep' into otaku media.  Zombies, elves, dragons, and orcs.  Firearms as the most common weapon type, superviolence, and a film noir atmosphere to a great deal of the game.  If I were to name one chuunige that has the potential to be a hit (by VN standards), if properly advertised, it is this one.
2.  Draculius- If I were to name a sort-of chuunige that is accessible to people that don't particularly like chuunige, this would be it.  If you liked the best parts of Libra and hated the rest, you'll probably like this game.  It has aged somewhat, but the characters are unique, the story is excellent, and the humor is recognizable on both sides of the ocean. 
3.  Hello, Lady- Yes, I went there.  If you can enjoy Narita Shinri, you will like this game, regardless of your genre preference.  Narita Shinri is a protagonist who will earn as many haters as he does lovers, and there won't be that much room in between.  However, his story is very much one that is visceral and easily comprehensible for any human who has lost someone they loved.
4.  Shinigami no Testament- 3rdEye's chuunige are accessible.  I could put any chuunige by that company in this spot other than Bloody Rondo and say that it has the same potential for success.  Even Bloody Rondo does have some appeal outside its genre (in fact, it probably has more, lol).  3rdEye is a company that I can use to brainwash newbies without overwhelming them, which is why I was happy when Sorcery Jokers got localized, lol.
5.  Gekkou no Carnevale- I can guarantee someone is going to ask why I didn't mention any other Nitroplus game besides this one.  However, the themes in this game are very Western, for the most part... and werewolves and murder are always guaranteed to catch the interest of a certain (surprisingly large) crowd over here.  Put in living dolls and mafia connections as well, and you have a recipe for success. 
I actually thought of naming some others, but when I seriously thought about it, the hurdles for a Westerner and non-chuunige addict for playing those were just too high.   Anything Bakumatsu is going to be translated poorly, so Last Cavalier is out.  Evolimit has potential, but I thought BB is more likely to catch hold of westerners who aren't already part of the scene.  Anything like Dies Irae is almost guaranteed to flop if it isn't 100% crowd-funded (as in, all costs paid for by the crowd-funding), so Bradyon Veda and the Silverio series are out.  Vermilion has similar problems.  Muramasa suffers from swordsmanship infodumping that will probably cause the average reader's brain to go numb early on.  Tokyo Necro has zombies, but the chances of people actually getting past the prologue are relatively low, despite the coolness of the story and setting.  Izuna Zanshinken has enormous potential in the US, because of the style and the themes it tackles, but its episodic 'feeling' is a huge negative for some of us... 

Before I go back to my work, which is going to take the rest of the day to finish, I thought I'd leave yall with a commentary on one of my favorite jrpgs, Growlanser 3.
Growlanser 3, released in the US as part of a collection with Growlanser 2, was the final localization done by Working Designs, the company that pioneered independent localization of jrpgs in the US (up until then, most had been localized by Japanese companies or the console first-party company).  It is the prequel to 1 and 2 (a battle about midway through 3 results in the world you see in 1 and 2 and remains as a legend to the people there), and often competes with IV for being considered the best game in the series.
In Growlanser 3, the sun is dying, famine is rampant, rain falls eternally at some places and hardly at all in others.  Plague has destroyed entire nations, and those that remain are fighting ferociously for the few places where the land is still fertile.  Assassination, genocide, and cold realpolitik have hardened the hearts of leaders, and the people that remain are growing increasingly desperate, further fueling the flames of war.
Into this comes Slayn, a young man with no memories and a talent for Darkness magic, accompanied by a Dark Fairy (fairies in the Growlanser universe are usually sentient concentrations of elemental spirits in a tiny female form), enters the scene about this time.  As she tries to discover the truth about himself, he gets caught up in the war and ends up seeking the causes behind the slow death of his world.
Growlanser's signature battle system is a combination of RTS and ATB systems, where your characters each have a speed that determines how fast their turn comes up.  Motion across the battlefield is in real time (based on that character's stats), and in order to engage an enemy, you have to bring them within range.
Magic in this game starts out as simple elemental spells, which increase in power as you chant them longer (based on the character's ability, you will be limited in how high the level you can reach with that character at any given time) and are one of only a few ways in which you can ignore range issues.  The reason this is important is that, in order to get the true ending (where certain characters survive where they would normally die), you must get a 'mission complete' on every single story battle.  Since doing so often requires preventing the massacre of running civilians or preventing the escape of a particular enemy, range becomes a serious issue from the beginning, so strategically utilizing magic and having some idea of how long it will take your characters to reach an enemy and move after they attack is important. 
Choices in this game have a huge potential variance, depending on how you've shaped Slayn's personality (through early on choices and a certain event which lets you shape his base personality and capabilities).  If he is cold and rational, you will find yourself unable to make enraged conversational choices, and if he is hot-blooded, you will find it impossible to make Slayn take the high road in some situations. 
Story-wise, this game manages to touch human emotion in a way I think newcomers to jrpgs will be surprised at.  Growlanser 3's world is dying, and most of the world is already dead.  As a result, you find yourself walking through the aftermath of plagues, witnessing massacres, and overall confronting both the best and worst of human nature when put into an extreme situation.  For a jrpg, this kind of display of human weakness is fairly unusual, since most tend to strike an optimistic note in that sense, but this is actually typical on some levels for the series.  In Growlanser 2, it is quite possible to side with the villains (given that you've fulfilled the proper conditions), and Growlanser IV's world isn't exactly kind to its people, even aside from the bigger issues. 
The visuals in this game were done by Urushihara Satoshi, who also handled such anime as Bubblegum Crisis, Queen's Blade, and Plastic Little.  As such, they are aesthetically pleasing, even now that the basic style has changed radically (this guy has a great aesthetic sense... though he is a bit overly ero-ero, from what I remember of Legend of Lemnear). 
Overall, if you want to start looking back into the past of jrpgs, this is a good game to start with (though at this point, you'll probably be forced to use an emulator).

Before I go back to my work, which is going to take the rest of the day to finish, I thought I'd leave yall with a commentary on one of my favorite jrpgs, Growlanser 3.
Growlanser 3, released in the US as part of a collection with Growlanser 2, was the final localization done by Working Designs, the company that pioneered independent localization of jrpgs in the US (up until then, most had been localized by Japanese companies or the console first-party company).  It is the prequel to 1 and 2 (a battle about midway through 3 results in the world you see in 1 and 2 and remains as a legend to the people there), and often competes with IV for being considered the best game in the series.
In Growlanser 3, the sun is dying, famine is rampant, rain falls eternally at some places and hardly at all in others.  Plague has destroyed entire nations, and those that remain are fighting ferociously for the few places where the land is still fertile.  Assassination, genocide, and cold realpolitik have hardened the hearts of leaders, and the people that remain are growing increasingly desperate, further fueling the flames of war.
Into this comes Slayn, a young man with no memories and a talent for Darkness magic, accompanied by a Dark Fairy (fairies in the Growlanser universe are usually sentient concentrations of elemental spirits in a tiny female form), enters the scene about this time.  As she tries to discover the truth about himself, he gets caught up in the war and ends up seeking the causes behind the slow death of his world.
Growlanser's signature battle system is a combination of RTS and ATB systems, where your characters each have a speed that determines how fast their turn comes up.  Motion across the battlefield is in real time (based on that character's stats), and in order to engage an enemy, you have to bring them within range.
Magic in this game starts out as simple elemental spells, which increase in power as you chant them longer (based on the character's ability, you will be limited in how high the level you can reach with that character at any given time) and are one of only a few ways in which you can ignore range issues.  The reason this is important is that, in order to get the true ending (where certain characters survive where they would normally die), you must get a 'mission complete' on every single story battle.  Since doing so often requires preventing the massacre of running civilians or preventing the escape of a particular enemy, range becomes a serious issue from the beginning, so strategically utilizing magic and having some idea of how long it will take your characters to reach an enemy and move after they attack is important. 
Choices in this game have a huge potential variance, depending on how you've shaped Slayn's personality (through early on choices and a certain event which lets you shape his base personality and capabilities).  If he is cold and rational, you will find yourself unable to make enraged conversational choices, and if he is hot-blooded, you will find it impossible to make Slayn take the high road in some situations. 
Story-wise, this game manages to touch human emotion in a way I think newcomers to jrpgs will be surprised at.  Growlanser 3's world is dying, and most of the world is already dead.  As a result, you find yourself walking through the aftermath of plagues, witnessing massacres, and overall confronting both the best and worst of human nature when put into an extreme situation.  For a jrpg, this kind of display of human weakness is fairly unusual, since most tend to strike an optimistic note in that sense, but this is actually typical on some levels for the series.  In Growlanser 2, it is quite possible to side with the villains (given that you've fulfilled the proper conditions), and Growlanser IV's world isn't exactly kind to its people, even aside from the bigger issues. 
The visuals in this game were done by Urushihara Satoshi, who also handled such anime as Bubblegum Crisis, Queen's Blade, and Plastic Little.  As such, they are aesthetically pleasing, even now that the basic style has changed radically (this guy has a great aesthetic sense... though he is a bit overly ero-ero, from what I remember of Legend of Lemnear). 
Overall, if you want to start looking back into the past of jrpgs, this is a good game to start with (though at this point, you'll probably be forced to use an emulator).

Unjou no Fairy Tale is the second game by Cosmic Cute in the series/setting that began with Sora no Tsukurikata.  It is based around eighteen to twenty years after the original game in the city of Kaguya, a lawless city with many different races floating in the sky far above.  It is ruled by the invincible Mayor (with thirty-seven terms under her belt) Azumaza, frequently troubled the antics of the great (and in the eyes of ground dwellers, insane) alchemist Nemo, and plagued with more criminal organizations than anyone can count.
In that place, there is a neutral ground, the cafe Amelia, run by the protagonist Tsukasa, with the wannabe Great Witch Natsu as a waitress, frequented by the diva Dahlia, and visited regularly by the elven swordmistress and antique/art seller Makoto.  One day, a girl in a beautiful dress comes running down the street chased by thugs and is rescued by Makoto and Natsu... only to find out that she is not only a princess but that she is Tsukasa's younger sister.
Thus begins the story of the city of Kaguya and the Pay Back thieving gang.
Now, before I go any further, it needs to be said that, like Sora no Tsukurikata, this game uses the 'ladder-style' story structure, meaning that heroine paths other than the true one split off at the end of arcs featuring primarily the heroine in question.  This story structure does not do the heroines other than the true one justice.  In most cases (such as G-senjou or Eustia), it becomes an excuse for neglecting the heroines or making internally inconsistent heroine routes.  For that reason, I consider the very existence of this story structure in any VN to be a reason to automatically subtract 1.5 points off the maximum rating I give it on vndb.  In other words... the story just has to be awesome for me to consider overturning my dislike of this structure.
The common route of this game does an excellent job of introducing the characters and giving you a good idea of the internal dynamics of the city of Kaguya.  Kaguya... is the kind of city no sane person would want to live in.  The protagonist routinely sleeps through gunshots and explosions (they are so used to it that it doesn't even disturb their slumber), and the Mayor (who is over 2500 years old) seems to take great pleasure in both keeping the chaos from settling and keeping it from overflowing beyond all forms of control.  I spent most of the common route smiling or laughing, similar to Soratsuku, which is a definite good thing.
Now, I'll introduce the heroines...
The first heroine is Dahlia... and she is already my favorite.  She is a singer at a high-class nightclub, a fox-girl with the ability to control others with her singing.  In the thieving group she serves as the driver and occasionally uses her voice to control pursuers or guards.  She is the second oldest of the heroines, in her mid-twenties, and she has an inordinate fondness for heavy drink and teasing those she likes. 
The second heroine is Makoto, known as the greatest swordswoman in Kaguya, as well as being Tsukasa's first friend in the city.  She is the oldest of the heroines, being an elf (there are hints that she is at least fifty years old early on), and she works most of the time as a dealer in antiques and art.  She has a reserved personality, and she is often misunderstood, due to her tendency to talk to her sword (yes, she talks to her sword).  However, she is also cute... in that she does things like making lists of things she wants to do with her friends and rehearsing potential conversational scenarios well in advance of even the most normal, everyday events. 
The third heroine is the protagonist's younger sister, Yuki.  Yuki is...  a strong-willed, pure-hearted princess who came to Kaguya to find her long-lost oniisama... only to find that he had become a thief and manager of a cafe in one of the most crime-ridden cities in existence.  While she is generally forgiving by nature, once you manage to anger her... she is easily the scariest of the four heroines.
Natsu is a wannabe witch
I honestly hate the fact that she is the main heroine, because that is two games in a row that go to unreasonably naive, kind-hearted witches who frequently mess up on a grand scale.  This is a mistake frequently made with ladder-style structure games, but it is usually the case that the weakest heroine in the group ends up as the main/true heroine for games using this structure.  She, like Hal/Haru in the previous game, is a sugar-addict with a rather unpredictable magical ability.  There isn't a drop of malice in her personality, but...
Dahlia path
Dahlia, as I said above, is my favorite heroine in this game, so I was more than a little angry to see that yet another great mimikko heroine was being condemned to 'lowest-ranked heroine Hell'.  However, as I played the path, I stopped caring about that BS.  Dahlia and Tsukasa's romance creates one of those rare situations where I actually have to take a step back and wipe the tears away... solely because of the romance.  Since I'm not a fan of romance for its own sake, that pretty much says it all about that.  This path has some excellent feels and is about as long as the mimikko from Soratsuku's path.  I spent a great deal of the last part of the path just laughing hysterically at the antics of the characters as they strove for Dahlia and Tsukasa's sakes, and I wept at the climax.  Definitely worth reading, though this definitely has my mimikko-love bias interfering with my judgment.  The ending after story is very heart-warming, and it takes you to a point three years after the end, which was nice.
Makoto path
One thing that absolutely needs to be said about Makoto's and Dahlia's paths, but is a major SPOILER:
I'm going to be blunt... this path is simply weaker than Dahlia's.  Part of this is because Makoto's personality is so reserved and the romance is so charage-ish.  Another part is that there really isn't that much in the way of deep feels or good action/comedy in this path, outside of the usual with Yuki losing her temper.  While I like the ending, I have to say that I felt a bit cheated, because they didn't go into detail on the past that lies between Tsukasa and Makoto, despite them being one another's oldest friends.
Yuki Path
The Yuki path feels a lot like a true path.   The simple reason is that, despite its seemingly innocent (and hilarious) beginnings, in the end it pretty much reveals everything there is to know about Kaguya and Azumaza's past, as well as the reasons why Tsukasa ended up in Kaguya.  Honestly, as I finish this path, I think that it is possible that it was the true path, rather than Natsu's, and that is my hope as I go into Natsu's path (I'm writing down my opinions on the paths as I finish them).  The ending is really touching, and I had to cry at some of the revelations that get put in here...  Incidentally, by the time her path comes around, Yuki has been thoroughly poisoned by Kaguya's anarchist atmosphere, and this has some rather hilarious results in the fourth arc that leads to the final path split.
Natsu path
Aaah... I don't mean to be cruel... but they got seriously lazy in Natsu's path.  I mean, it feels very much like an echo/rehash of something I've seen a dozen times before (you'll see what I mean if you play it, but I won't spoil it).  Understand, Hal is my least favorite heroine from Soratsuku and Natsu is my least favorite heroine from this game (The order goes Dahlia>Yuki>Makoto>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Natsu).  Like her mother, she is a clumsy doofus with a ridiculous amount of poorly-utilized magical talent.  Every single element of her path past the end of the last common route arc (Arc 5) is ridiculously predictable and holds no surprises, down to the last detail.  I haven't been this irritated at a 'true' path in years.  If I were to just judge this game on the three previous paths, I would give it an 8.5 on vndb, but, due to this path, I have to give it an 8.  Sadly, this is one of those cases where the main heroine and the final path are a hindrance, rather than closing out the story on a good note.
Edit: This is just a minor addendum of some thoughts I had in retrospect or forgot to include in the main text. 
I honestly like characters like Yuki, who, while functionally innocent of the details of normal life, nonetheless possess an iron will.  I also love it how everyone is afraid of her despite the fact that she is the weakest character combat-wise.  In addition, the way hardened criminals are obviously terrified of her makes it even better.
Dahlia is very similar - in background, personality, and (to some degree) relationship to the protagonist - to Yurika Vistvolg from Soratsuku.  As such, even if I hadn't guessed that she was not the main by the walkthrough, I would have figured it out anyway.  This writer has a definite preference for characters with an element of 'innocence' as  main heroines (note that a total of two of the heroines in both the games he has written are not innocents on some level), despite the dystopian settings he creates. 
If we were to eliminate my personal tastes completely from the equation, Makoto is probably the weakest heroine, in terms of character development.  For some reason, almost all the elements of her character that could have been used to make her route more dramatic (her sentient sword, her longer lifespan, etc) never once became an issue in the game.  This is a huge red mark in my personal book regarding this writer, as I absolutely loathe failures to utilize fundamental aspects of a character's design.
It has to be said that this game relied a lot more heavily on the immortal characters for humor than Soratsuku.  Asumaza, Nemo, and Simone are so far 'out there' as characters that their actions can be considered an unavoidable natural disaster, so they make wonderful pillars for the game's situational comedy (similar to the vampire lord in Soratsuku and her love of junk food and torturing people who use guns).  However, it also needs to be said that Simone, at the very least, should have been a heroine.  That type tends to have a great dere if handled properly.  It is pure negligence on the writer's part that she isn't a heroine (though she has an h-scene in the append disc). 

Unjou no Fairy Tale is the second game by Cosmic Cute in the series/setting that began with Sora no Tsukurikata.  It is based around eighteen to twenty years after the original game in the city of Kaguya, a lawless city with many different races floating in the sky far above.  It is ruled by the invincible Mayor (with thirty-seven terms under her belt) Azumaza, frequently troubled the antics of the great (and in the eyes of ground dwellers, insane) alchemist Nemo, and plagued with more criminal organizations than anyone can count.
In that place, there is a neutral ground, the cafe Amelia, run by the protagonist Tsukasa, with the wannabe Great Witch Natsu as a waitress, frequented by the diva Dahlia, and visited regularly by the elven swordmistress and antique/art seller Makoto.  One day, a girl in a beautiful dress comes running down the street chased by thugs and is rescued by Makoto and Natsu... only to find out that she is not only a princess but that she is Tsukasa's younger sister.
Thus begins the story of the city of Kaguya and the Pay Back thieving gang.
Now, before I go any further, it needs to be said that, like Sora no Tsukurikata, this game uses the 'ladder-style' story structure, meaning that heroine paths other than the true one split off at the end of arcs featuring primarily the heroine in question.  This story structure does not do the heroines other than the true one justice.  In most cases (such as G-senjou or Eustia), it becomes an excuse for neglecting the heroines or making internally inconsistent heroine routes.  For that reason, I consider the very existence of this story structure in any VN to be a reason to automatically subtract 1.5 points off the maximum rating I give it on vndb.  In other words... the story just has to be awesome for me to consider overturning my dislike of this structure.
The common route of this game does an excellent job of introducing the characters and giving you a good idea of the internal dynamics of the city of Kaguya.  Kaguya... is the kind of city no sane person would want to live in.  The protagonist routinely sleeps through gunshots and explosions (they are so used to it that it doesn't even disturb their slumber), and the Mayor (who is over 2500 years old) seems to take great pleasure in both keeping the chaos from settling and keeping it from overflowing beyond all forms of control.  I spent most of the common route smiling or laughing, similar to Soratsuku, which is a definite good thing.
Now, I'll introduce the heroines...
The first heroine is Dahlia... and she is already my favorite.  She is a singer at a high-class nightclub, a fox-girl with the ability to control others with her singing.  In the thieving group she serves as the driver and occasionally uses her voice to control pursuers or guards.  She is the second oldest of the heroines, in her mid-twenties, and she has an inordinate fondness for heavy drink and teasing those she likes. 
The second heroine is Makoto, known as the greatest swordswoman in Kaguya, as well as being Tsukasa's first friend in the city.  She is the oldest of the heroines, being an elf (there are hints that she is at least fifty years old early on), and she works most of the time as a dealer in antiques and art.  She has a reserved personality, and she is often misunderstood, due to her tendency to talk to her sword (yes, she talks to her sword).  However, she is also cute... in that she does things like making lists of things she wants to do with her friends and rehearsing potential conversational scenarios well in advance of even the most normal, everyday events. 
The third heroine is the protagonist's younger sister, Yuki.  Yuki is...  a strong-willed, pure-hearted princess who came to Kaguya to find her long-lost oniisama... only to find that he had become a thief and manager of a cafe in one of the most crime-ridden cities in existence.  While she is generally forgiving by nature, once you manage to anger her... she is easily the scariest of the four heroines.
Natsu is a wannabe witch
I honestly hate the fact that she is the main heroine, because that is two games in a row that go to unreasonably naive, kind-hearted witches who frequently mess up on a grand scale.  This is a mistake frequently made with ladder-style structure games, but it is usually the case that the weakest heroine in the group ends up as the main/true heroine for games using this structure.  She, like Hal/Haru in the previous game, is a sugar-addict with a rather unpredictable magical ability.  There isn't a drop of malice in her personality, but...
Dahlia path
Dahlia, as I said above, is my favorite heroine in this game, so I was more than a little angry to see that yet another great mimikko heroine was being condemned to 'lowest-ranked heroine Hell'.  However, as I played the path, I stopped caring about that BS.  Dahlia and Tsukasa's romance creates one of those rare situations where I actually have to take a step back and wipe the tears away... solely because of the romance.  Since I'm not a fan of romance for its own sake, that pretty much says it all about that.  This path has some excellent feels and is about as long as the mimikko from Soratsuku's path.  I spent a great deal of the last part of the path just laughing hysterically at the antics of the characters as they strove for Dahlia and Tsukasa's sakes, and I wept at the climax.  Definitely worth reading, though this definitely has my mimikko-love bias interfering with my judgment.  The ending after story is very heart-warming, and it takes you to a point three years after the end, which was nice.
Makoto path
One thing that absolutely needs to be said about Makoto's and Dahlia's paths, but is a major SPOILER:
I'm going to be blunt... this path is simply weaker than Dahlia's.  Part of this is because Makoto's personality is so reserved and the romance is so charage-ish.  Another part is that there really isn't that much in the way of deep feels or good action/comedy in this path, outside of the usual with Yuki losing her temper.  While I like the ending, I have to say that I felt a bit cheated, because they didn't go into detail on the past that lies between Tsukasa and Makoto, despite them being one another's oldest friends.
Yuki Path
The Yuki path feels a lot like a true path.   The simple reason is that, despite its seemingly innocent (and hilarious) beginnings, in the end it pretty much reveals everything there is to know about Kaguya and Azumaza's past, as well as the reasons why Tsukasa ended up in Kaguya.  Honestly, as I finish this path, I think that it is possible that it was the true path, rather than Natsu's, and that is my hope as I go into Natsu's path (I'm writing down my opinions on the paths as I finish them).  The ending is really touching, and I had to cry at some of the revelations that get put in here...  Incidentally, by the time her path comes around, Yuki has been thoroughly poisoned by Kaguya's anarchist atmosphere, and this has some rather hilarious results in the fourth arc that leads to the final path split.
Natsu path
Aaah... I don't mean to be cruel... but they got seriously lazy in Natsu's path.  I mean, it feels very much like an echo/rehash of something I've seen a dozen times before (you'll see what I mean if you play it, but I won't spoil it).  Understand, Hal is my least favorite heroine from Soratsuku and Natsu is my least favorite heroine from this game (The order goes Dahlia>Yuki>Makoto>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Natsu).  Like her mother, she is a clumsy doofus with a ridiculous amount of poorly-utilized magical talent.  Every single element of her path past the end of the last common route arc (Arc 5) is ridiculously predictable and holds no surprises, down to the last detail.  I haven't been this irritated at a 'true' path in years.  If I were to just judge this game on the three previous paths, I would give it an 8.5 on vndb, but, due to this path, I have to give it an 8.  Sadly, this is one of those cases where the main heroine and the final path are a hindrance, rather than closing out the story on a good note.
Edit: This is just a minor addendum of some thoughts I had in retrospect or forgot to include in the main text. 
I honestly like characters like Yuki, who, while functionally innocent of the details of normal life, nonetheless possess an iron will.  I also love it how everyone is afraid of her despite the fact that she is the weakest character combat-wise.  In addition, the way hardened criminals are obviously terrified of her makes it even better.
Dahlia is very similar - in background, personality, and (to some degree) relationship to the protagonist - to Yurika Vistvolg from Soratsuku.  As such, even if I hadn't guessed that she was not the main by the walkthrough, I would have figured it out anyway.  This writer has a definite preference for characters with an element of 'innocence' as  main heroines (note that a total of two of the heroines in both the games he has written are not innocents on some level), despite the dystopian settings he creates. 
If we were to eliminate my personal tastes completely from the equation, Makoto is probably the weakest heroine, in terms of character development.  For some reason, almost all the elements of her character that could have been used to make her route more dramatic (her sentient sword, her longer lifespan, etc) never once became an issue in the game.  This is a huge red mark in my personal book regarding this writer, as I absolutely loathe failures to utilize fundamental aspects of a character's design.
It has to be said that this game relied a lot more heavily on the immortal characters for humor than Soratsuku.  Asumaza, Nemo, and Simone are so far 'out there' as characters that their actions can be considered an unavoidable natural disaster, so they make wonderful pillars for the game's situational comedy (similar to the vampire lord in Soratsuku and her love of junk food and torturing people who use guns).  However, it also needs to be said that Simone, at the very least, should have been a heroine.  That type tends to have a great dere if handled properly.  It is pure negligence on the writer's part that she isn't a heroine (though she has an h-scene in the append disc). 

Umm... I'm going to be honest with you.  I'm not terribly fond of Astronauts' irregular ventures off into the lands of dark fantasy gameplay hybrids, and as a result, I chose not to play this one when it came out.  My experiences with the original Demonion, which, while the story was decent, was incredibly tedious when it came to the gameplay, made me not want to have anything to do with this game.
I won't say that this game surprised me... the story is straightforward Astronauts-style (lots of sex, immorality, and violence) combined with the classic dungeon-crawler setup.  I'll be straight with you... I think the resurrection of dungeon-crawlers is what killed the classic jrpg, so I automatically subtract points from any game that looks like or acts like a dungeon-crawler.  I even felt the same way about Persona 3 and Persona 4, which tells you just how much I dislike the genre.
Why?  Because I've never seen the point in a story centering around diving into the same dungeon over and over.  Adventuring doesn't seem like fun to me (I got over that phase in middle school), and the stories tend to be ridiculously easy to predict, even for Japanese games. 
Regalias focuses on the city of Ishgalia, which was built over a labyrinth made from the ruins of a floating magic city that fell to the ground a few centuries back.  The former mercenary, Orias, enters the city with the hope of finding the secrets to his past deep within the labyrinth.
Now, let's set aside the craziness of monsters infinitely welling up from the depths of a ruined magical city.  If I were to complain about that particular tired trope, we'd be here all day.  I'll even set aside my need to question how the city wouldn't have been completely explored after decades of people going into its depths.
What I won't do is gloss over the way I began to feel by the end... which was tired of finding my way through a bland set of dungeons.  I honestly recommend that this game be played in stages, as the dungeon is exhausting and the story sections are not quite frequent enough to break the experience off into manageable bits.  Essentially, you form a party of five characters (from an eventual roster of nine), and the battles are classic-style turn-based, which most enemies and your characters having one action per turn (the exception being certain 'special' enemies and bosses).  On normal, the beginning of the game was the single hardest part of the entire thing.  For some reason, the special enemies early on can frequently one-shot you even if you are overleveled for the part of the dungeon you are in, which is ridiculous.  Since the only resurrection option early on is to return to town, this is frustrating and irritating, since it isn't always possible to avoid the enemy.
On the other hand, in the late game, you'll most likely be faced with a distinct lack of challenges... or at least, I was.  I had to go back to town every once in a while when I ran out of mp, but I rarely died or even had a character killed after the fourth chapter (there are ten, including the final one).  Part of that is that Orias and Shizuku are overpowered when using the double-sword passive skill (believe me, this is great for both normal enemies and bosses).  The other part of it was that I had the range of skills I needed to wipe out enemy parties in a single turn.
One thing I seriously hated about this game was the way it essentially forces to stick with your original party... because the other four girls are significantly less capable than the first four to join the party.  Dora is almost as capable as Edna as a mage, but Nemu is half-assed (they obviously couldn't decide whether to make her a true attack mage or a healer... and it shows).  The less said about Meriel and Zenobia, the better (think, 'magician who couldn't kill a fly' and 'swordswoman with a ridiculous number of support magic that verges on being useless late-game). 
The characters in this game are actually pretty good... though you spend an inordinate amount of time with them naked (five or more non-rape h-scenes for all the female characters except Fortuna and Zenobia).  They all have realistic motivations for their actions and background to explain their personalities... which isn't surprising from the company that produced Erect! which is notable for being my favorite borderline nukige in existence. 
Story-wise... it is fairly predictable.  Honestly, the presentation isn't bad... in fact, it is good.  However, I found the lateness of certain revelations to be irritating (since they weren't really revelations by the time they came out and said them outright), and I found the antagonists less than inspiring...
The end of the main story was actually pretty decent, and a good happy ending overall.  There are also plenty of post-game events for the 'finish everything' freaks, including hints at what the characters might do afterward.  However, I was disappointed there wasn't a final epilogue...
 

(Note: Right now I'm playing Dungeon of Regalias, on a long-standing request for me to make an assessment.  This doesn't have anything to do with my statements below.)
One of my pet peeves is companies that depend on their reputation to sell their games, regardless of quality.  Pulltop, Navel, and Circus are the most frequent offenders on this side...  Pulltop, in particular, has developed a habit of releasing second-rate games under existing IPs (the second and third Lovekami and their sex-focused FDs) that add nothing to the series.  Navel has a habit of excessive sequels (Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou and Shuffle) and trips off into side-story wonderland.  Circus has a habit of endless sequels (D.C.).
I call this 'resting on your laurels' because these companies are basically milking successful IPs to death in order to stay afloat, rather than generating really new content.  Oh, I will be the first to admit that Shuffle really, really did need the rewrites it got later on, and the afterstories and voice patch for the original Tsuki ni Yorisou were hugely beneficial.  However, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, despite the hopes of those of us who were interested to see how they would handle a second generation, turned out to be greatly substandard to the original, flopping massively in the heroine paths despite a promising beginning in the common route (which is probably why they've been releasing so many mini-fandiscs to 'rebuild trust'). 
As for Pulltop... The original Lovekami was actually a first-class VN that showed off the best of what a fantasy charage can be.  However, its successors were... immature and pathetic in comparison (obviously written as moe-bait rather than serious efforts to continue the series).  Koi no Resort was a rather blatant effort to make a spiritual successor to the kamige Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no that failed massively (primarily due to the lack of comparable sensitivity in the writing, depth of the characters, and independent strength of the heroine paths... in other words, everything).  Even Oozora and Miagete Goran visibly suffer from an excess of ambition and a lack of the ability and patience to achieve it (believe me, every time I go into a new main-company Pulltop game of late, I leave wanting to cry from disappointment).  This is pretty sad, considering that Pulltop started out as one of my favorite companies after blowing me away with Uruwashi no and Lovekami in rapid succession...
I don't think I should even have to describe what Circus does with Da Capo, lol (I could, but it would just start a salt fight).
However, it isn't just charage companies that are the culprits.  Even my beloved chuunige companies can fall victim to this kind of intellectual laziness.  Propeller, the second it lost its primary writers, forced out two massively flawed works in rapid succession (one of which - Pygmalion - , to my despair, actually got localized *spits in disgust*) that weren't even worth playing (though Pygmalion probably would have been good if they'd used a different writer and actually put forth the effort to make it into a real story).  Light, the producer of so many awesome chuunige, put out a work of penultimate laziness just a few months ago (Sora no Baroque).  Nitroplus, in a rather pathetic effort to sharpen its skills at psychedelic stories, went off the beaten track with Sumaga and Axanael.  Even Akatsuki Works, which has always been consistent, if nothing else, has of late been lowering its standards somewhat.
Understand, I am perfectly willing to accept that companies will not produce a kamige with every single project.  The idea that any company could manage that, given the limited budgets most VN companies have to work with, is fundamentally ridiculous.  I am quite willing to enjoy trips off into the wilds on occasion (such as Pulltop's surprisingly high-quality Natsuiro Recipe or Moonstone's Sakura no Mori Dreamers).  I am also willing to accept that sequels rarely match the originals.  However, I do think, if they can't match the original, they should at least build something of close to equal quality in a slightly different direction, instead.  To be specific, there was absolutely no reason to make every aspect of Tsuki ni Yorisou 2 to echo the original's beginning framework so closely (to be specific, the way he suddenly became less capable than before when the heroine paths started made me want to various unpleasant things to the writer). 
I am also willing to admit that a new set of writers means inevitable hiccups... I could have accepted that Propeller's works would need to be a bit different after Yuuichirou left the company.  I would have even been willing to shrug off Pygmalion as a fluke.  However, the way the company, rather than pulling in a single capable freelance veteran writer (of which there are plenty in the industry), dragged in a massive number of writers (all of which were mostly nukige writers) to make Jaeger.
Light... has no excuse.  Light's fanbase, whether they started with Dies Irae or have been following the company for much longer, is accustomed to high quality long games with extensive setting and character development and highly complex stories where every last element of the setting is squeezed for everything it is worth.  Sora no Baroque was a slap in the face, a game that departed greatly from the company's style, even aside from the raw quality issues.
Nitroplus did have an excuse... they were a company that was always seen as 'weird'.  Experimentation has always been their norm (which is probably why it takes them so long to recover after each release), so Sumaga, while being a massively boring abomination from the perspective of people who liked their earlier works, was understandable and forgivable.  However, Axanael... wasn't.  To be blunt, it takes a peculiar type of brain to actually enjoy those two games, even if you aren't a Nitroplus fan.
Akatsuki Works' gradual descent really has been so gradual as to have been barely noticed.  While their characters and situations have mostly maintained the quality we, the readers/players, are accustomed to, it has to be said that the gradual decreases in length and detail in the stories have been apparent for some time.  I honestly enjoyed Suisei Ginka and thought it was one of the most conceptually exceptional of the company's games in years.  However, it was also relatively short (less than fifteen hours for me is short for a chuunige) and generally over reliant on the 'Akatsuki Works Style' of VN  design to keep the reader's interest.  The 'style' is proven to work at keeping the reader's interest, but it is also so recognizable that anyone who has been reading this company's works since Ruitomo will recognize it instantly.
In other words, I just needed to spout salt about the companies I feel have gotten intellectually lazy due to past success, lol.

(Note: Right now I'm playing Dungeon of Regalias, on a long-standing request for me to make an assessment.  This doesn't have anything to do with my statements below.)
One of my pet peeves is companies that depend on their reputation to sell their games, regardless of quality.  Pulltop, Navel, and Circus are the most frequent offenders on this side...  Pulltop, in particular, has developed a habit of releasing second-rate games under existing IPs (the second and third Lovekami and their sex-focused FDs) that add nothing to the series.  Navel has a habit of excessive sequels (Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou and Shuffle) and trips off into side-story wonderland.  Circus has a habit of endless sequels (D.C.).
I call this 'resting on your laurels' because these companies are basically milking successful IPs to death in order to stay afloat, rather than generating really new content.  Oh, I will be the first to admit that Shuffle really, really did need the rewrites it got later on, and the afterstories and voice patch for the original Tsuki ni Yorisou were hugely beneficial.  However, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, despite the hopes of those of us who were interested to see how they would handle a second generation, turned out to be greatly substandard to the original, flopping massively in the heroine paths despite a promising beginning in the common route (which is probably why they've been releasing so many mini-fandiscs to 'rebuild trust'). 
As for Pulltop... The original Lovekami was actually a first-class VN that showed off the best of what a fantasy charage can be.  However, its successors were... immature and pathetic in comparison (obviously written as moe-bait rather than serious efforts to continue the series).  Koi no Resort was a rather blatant effort to make a spiritual successor to the kamige Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no that failed massively (primarily due to the lack of comparable sensitivity in the writing, depth of the characters, and independent strength of the heroine paths... in other words, everything).  Even Oozora and Miagete Goran visibly suffer from an excess of ambition and a lack of the ability and patience to achieve it (believe me, every time I go into a new main-company Pulltop game of late, I leave wanting to cry from disappointment).  This is pretty sad, considering that Pulltop started out as one of my favorite companies after blowing me away with Uruwashi no and Lovekami in rapid succession...
I don't think I should even have to describe what Circus does with Da Capo, lol (I could, but it would just start a salt fight).
However, it isn't just charage companies that are the culprits.  Even my beloved chuunige companies can fall victim to this kind of intellectual laziness.  Propeller, the second it lost its primary writers, forced out two massively flawed works in rapid succession (one of which - Pygmalion - , to my despair, actually got localized *spits in disgust*) that weren't even worth playing (though Pygmalion probably would have been good if they'd used a different writer and actually put forth the effort to make it into a real story).  Light, the producer of so many awesome chuunige, put out a work of penultimate laziness just a few months ago (Sora no Baroque).  Nitroplus, in a rather pathetic effort to sharpen its skills at psychedelic stories, went off the beaten track with Sumaga and Axanael.  Even Akatsuki Works, which has always been consistent, if nothing else, has of late been lowering its standards somewhat.
Understand, I am perfectly willing to accept that companies will not produce a kamige with every single project.  The idea that any company could manage that, given the limited budgets most VN companies have to work with, is fundamentally ridiculous.  I am quite willing to enjoy trips off into the wilds on occasion (such as Pulltop's surprisingly high-quality Natsuiro Recipe or Moonstone's Sakura no Mori Dreamers).  I am also willing to accept that sequels rarely match the originals.  However, I do think, if they can't match the original, they should at least build something of close to equal quality in a slightly different direction, instead.  To be specific, there was absolutely no reason to make every aspect of Tsuki ni Yorisou 2 to echo the original's beginning framework so closely (to be specific, the way he suddenly became less capable than before when the heroine paths started made me want to various unpleasant things to the writer). 
I am also willing to admit that a new set of writers means inevitable hiccups... I could have accepted that Propeller's works would need to be a bit different after Yuuichirou left the company.  I would have even been willing to shrug off Pygmalion as a fluke.  However, the way the company, rather than pulling in a single capable freelance veteran writer (of which there are plenty in the industry), dragged in a massive number of writers (all of which were mostly nukige writers) to make Jaeger.
Light... has no excuse.  Light's fanbase, whether they started with Dies Irae or have been following the company for much longer, is accustomed to high quality long games with extensive setting and character development and highly complex stories where every last element of the setting is squeezed for everything it is worth.  Sora no Baroque was a slap in the face, a game that departed greatly from the company's style, even aside from the raw quality issues.
Nitroplus did have an excuse... they were a company that was always seen as 'weird'.  Experimentation has always been their norm (which is probably why it takes them so long to recover after each release), so Sumaga, while being a massively boring abomination from the perspective of people who liked their earlier works, was understandable and forgivable.  However, Axanael... wasn't.  To be blunt, it takes a peculiar type of brain to actually enjoy those two games, even if you aren't a Nitroplus fan.
Akatsuki Works' gradual descent really has been so gradual as to have been barely noticed.  While their characters and situations have mostly maintained the quality we, the readers/players, are accustomed to, it has to be said that the gradual decreases in length and detail in the stories have been apparent for some time.  I honestly enjoyed Suisei Ginka and thought it was one of the most conceptually exceptional of the company's games in years.  However, it was also relatively short (less than fifteen hours for me is short for a chuunige) and generally over reliant on the 'Akatsuki Works Style' of VN  design to keep the reader's interest.  The 'style' is proven to work at keeping the reader's interest, but it is also so recognizable that anyone who has been reading this company's works since Ruitomo will recognize it instantly.
In other words, I just needed to spout salt about the companies I feel have gotten intellectually lazy due to past success, lol.

(Note: Right now I'm playing Dungeon of Regalias, on a long-standing request for me to make an assessment.  This doesn't have anything to do with my statements below.)
One of my pet peeves is companies that depend on their reputation to sell their games, regardless of quality.  Pulltop, Navel, and Circus are the most frequent offenders on this side...  Pulltop, in particular, has developed a habit of releasing second-rate games under existing IPs (the second and third Lovekami and their sex-focused FDs) that add nothing to the series.  Navel has a habit of excessive sequels (Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou and Shuffle) and trips off into side-story wonderland.  Circus has a habit of endless sequels (D.C.).
I call this 'resting on your laurels' because these companies are basically milking successful IPs to death in order to stay afloat, rather than generating really new content.  Oh, I will be the first to admit that Shuffle really, really did need the rewrites it got later on, and the afterstories and voice patch for the original Tsuki ni Yorisou were hugely beneficial.  However, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, despite the hopes of those of us who were interested to see how they would handle a second generation, turned out to be greatly substandard to the original, flopping massively in the heroine paths despite a promising beginning in the common route (which is probably why they've been releasing so many mini-fandiscs to 'rebuild trust'). 
As for Pulltop... The original Lovekami was actually a first-class VN that showed off the best of what a fantasy charage can be.  However, its successors were... immature and pathetic in comparison (obviously written as moe-bait rather than serious efforts to continue the series).  Koi no Resort was a rather blatant effort to make a spiritual successor to the kamige Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no that failed massively (primarily due to the lack of comparable sensitivity in the writing, depth of the characters, and independent strength of the heroine paths... in other words, everything).  Even Oozora and Miagete Goran visibly suffer from an excess of ambition and a lack of the ability and patience to achieve it (believe me, every time I go into a new main-company Pulltop game of late, I leave wanting to cry from disappointment).  This is pretty sad, considering that Pulltop started out as one of my favorite companies after blowing me away with Uruwashi no and Lovekami in rapid succession...
I don't think I should even have to describe what Circus does with Da Capo, lol (I could, but it would just start a salt fight).
However, it isn't just charage companies that are the culprits.  Even my beloved chuunige companies can fall victim to this kind of intellectual laziness.  Propeller, the second it lost its primary writers, forced out two massively flawed works in rapid succession (one of which - Pygmalion - , to my despair, actually got localized *spits in disgust*) that weren't even worth playing (though Pygmalion probably would have been good if they'd used a different writer and actually put forth the effort to make it into a real story).  Light, the producer of so many awesome chuunige, put out a work of penultimate laziness just a few months ago (Sora no Baroque).  Nitroplus, in a rather pathetic effort to sharpen its skills at psychedelic stories, went off the beaten track with Sumaga and Axanael.  Even Akatsuki Works, which has always been consistent, if nothing else, has of late been lowering its standards somewhat.
Understand, I am perfectly willing to accept that companies will not produce a kamige with every single project.  The idea that any company could manage that, given the limited budgets most VN companies have to work with, is fundamentally ridiculous.  I am quite willing to enjoy trips off into the wilds on occasion (such as Pulltop's surprisingly high-quality Natsuiro Recipe or Moonstone's Sakura no Mori Dreamers).  I am also willing to accept that sequels rarely match the originals.  However, I do think, if they can't match the original, they should at least build something of close to equal quality in a slightly different direction, instead.  To be specific, there was absolutely no reason to make every aspect of Tsuki ni Yorisou 2 to echo the original's beginning framework so closely (to be specific, the way he suddenly became less capable than before when the heroine paths started made me want to various unpleasant things to the writer). 
I am also willing to admit that a new set of writers means inevitable hiccups... I could have accepted that Propeller's works would need to be a bit different after Yuuichirou left the company.  I would have even been willing to shrug off Pygmalion as a fluke.  However, the way the company, rather than pulling in a single capable freelance veteran writer (of which there are plenty in the industry), dragged in a massive number of writers (all of which were mostly nukige writers) to make Jaeger.
Light... has no excuse.  Light's fanbase, whether they started with Dies Irae or have been following the company for much longer, is accustomed to high quality long games with extensive setting and character development and highly complex stories where every last element of the setting is squeezed for everything it is worth.  Sora no Baroque was a slap in the face, a game that departed greatly from the company's style, even aside from the raw quality issues.
Nitroplus did have an excuse... they were a company that was always seen as 'weird'.  Experimentation has always been their norm (which is probably why it takes them so long to recover after each release), so Sumaga, while being a massively boring abomination from the perspective of people who liked their earlier works, was understandable and forgivable.  However, Axanael... wasn't.  To be blunt, it takes a peculiar type of brain to actually enjoy those two games, even if you aren't a Nitroplus fan.
Akatsuki Works' gradual descent really has been so gradual as to have been barely noticed.  While their characters and situations have mostly maintained the quality we, the readers/players, are accustomed to, it has to be said that the gradual decreases in length and detail in the stories have been apparent for some time.  I honestly enjoyed Suisei Ginka and thought it was one of the most conceptually exceptional of the company's games in years.  However, it was also relatively short (less than fifteen hours for me is short for a chuunige) and generally over reliant on the 'Akatsuki Works Style' of VN  design to keep the reader's interest.  The 'style' is proven to work at keeping the reader's interest, but it is also so recognizable that anyone who has been reading this company's works since Ruitomo will recognize it instantly.
In other words, I just needed to spout salt about the companies I feel have gotten intellectually lazy due to past success, lol.

(Note: Right now I'm playing Dungeon of Regalias, on a long-standing request for me to make an assessment.  This doesn't have anything to do with my statements below.)
One of my pet peeves is companies that depend on their reputation to sell their games, regardless of quality.  Pulltop, Navel, and Circus are the most frequent offenders on this side...  Pulltop, in particular, has developed a habit of releasing second-rate games under existing IPs (the second and third Lovekami and their sex-focused FDs) that add nothing to the series.  Navel has a habit of excessive sequels (Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou and Shuffle) and trips off into side-story wonderland.  Circus has a habit of endless sequels (D.C.).
I call this 'resting on your laurels' because these companies are basically milking successful IPs to death in order to stay afloat, rather than generating really new content.  Oh, I will be the first to admit that Shuffle really, really did need the rewrites it got later on, and the afterstories and voice patch for the original Tsuki ni Yorisou were hugely beneficial.  However, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, despite the hopes of those of us who were interested to see how they would handle a second generation, turned out to be greatly substandard to the original, flopping massively in the heroine paths despite a promising beginning in the common route (which is probably why they've been releasing so many mini-fandiscs to 'rebuild trust'). 
As for Pulltop... The original Lovekami was actually a first-class VN that showed off the best of what a fantasy charage can be.  However, its successors were... immature and pathetic in comparison (obviously written as moe-bait rather than serious efforts to continue the series).  Koi no Resort was a rather blatant effort to make a spiritual successor to the kamige Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no that failed massively (primarily due to the lack of comparable sensitivity in the writing, depth of the characters, and independent strength of the heroine paths... in other words, everything).  Even Oozora and Miagete Goran visibly suffer from an excess of ambition and a lack of the ability and patience to achieve it (believe me, every time I go into a new main-company Pulltop game of late, I leave wanting to cry from disappointment).  This is pretty sad, considering that Pulltop started out as one of my favorite companies after blowing me away with Uruwashi no and Lovekami in rapid succession...
I don't think I should even have to describe what Circus does with Da Capo, lol (I could, but it would just start a salt fight).
However, it isn't just charage companies that are the culprits.  Even my beloved chuunige companies can fall victim to this kind of intellectual laziness.  Propeller, the second it lost its primary writers, forced out two massively flawed works in rapid succession (one of which - Pygmalion - , to my despair, actually got localized *spits in disgust*) that weren't even worth playing (though Pygmalion probably would have been good if they'd used a different writer and actually put forth the effort to make it into a real story).  Light, the producer of so many awesome chuunige, put out a work of penultimate laziness just a few months ago (Sora no Baroque).  Nitroplus, in a rather pathetic effort to sharpen its skills at psychedelic stories, went off the beaten track with Sumaga and Axanael.  Even Akatsuki Works, which has always been consistent, if nothing else, has of late been lowering its standards somewhat.
Understand, I am perfectly willing to accept that companies will not produce a kamige with every single project.  The idea that any company could manage that, given the limited budgets most VN companies have to work with, is fundamentally ridiculous.  I am quite willing to enjoy trips off into the wilds on occasion (such as Pulltop's surprisingly high-quality Natsuiro Recipe or Moonstone's Sakura no Mori Dreamers).  I am also willing to accept that sequels rarely match the originals.  However, I do think, if they can't match the original, they should at least build something of close to equal quality in a slightly different direction, instead.  To be specific, there was absolutely no reason to make every aspect of Tsuki ni Yorisou 2 to echo the original's beginning framework so closely (to be specific, the way he suddenly became less capable than before when the heroine paths started made me want to various unpleasant things to the writer). 
I am also willing to admit that a new set of writers means inevitable hiccups... I could have accepted that Propeller's works would need to be a bit different after Yuuichirou left the company.  I would have even been willing to shrug off Pygmalion as a fluke.  However, the way the company, rather than pulling in a single capable freelance veteran writer (of which there are plenty in the industry), dragged in a massive number of writers (all of which were mostly nukige writers) to make Jaeger.
Light... has no excuse.  Light's fanbase, whether they started with Dies Irae or have been following the company for much longer, is accustomed to high quality long games with extensive setting and character development and highly complex stories where every last element of the setting is squeezed for everything it is worth.  Sora no Baroque was a slap in the face, a game that departed greatly from the company's style, even aside from the raw quality issues.
Nitroplus did have an excuse... they were a company that was always seen as 'weird'.  Experimentation has always been their norm (which is probably why it takes them so long to recover after each release), so Sumaga, while being a massively boring abomination from the perspective of people who liked their earlier works, was understandable and forgivable.  However, Axanael... wasn't.  To be blunt, it takes a peculiar type of brain to actually enjoy those two games, even if you aren't a Nitroplus fan.
Akatsuki Works' gradual descent really has been so gradual as to have been barely noticed.  While their characters and situations have mostly maintained the quality we, the readers/players, are accustomed to, it has to be said that the gradual decreases in length and detail in the stories have been apparent for some time.  I honestly enjoyed Suisei Ginka and thought it was one of the most conceptually exceptional of the company's games in years.  However, it was also relatively short (less than fifteen hours for me is short for a chuunige) and generally over reliant on the 'Akatsuki Works Style' of VN  design to keep the reader's interest.  The 'style' is proven to work at keeping the reader's interest, but it is also so recognizable that anyone who has been reading this company's works since Ruitomo will recognize it instantly.
In other words, I just needed to spout salt about the companies I feel have gotten intellectually lazy due to past success, lol.

(Note: Right now I'm playing Dungeon of Regalias, on a long-standing request for me to make an assessment.  This doesn't have anything to do with my statements below.)
One of my pet peeves is companies that depend on their reputation to sell their games, regardless of quality.  Pulltop, Navel, and Circus are the most frequent offenders on this side...  Pulltop, in particular, has developed a habit of releasing second-rate games under existing IPs (the second and third Lovekami and their sex-focused FDs) that add nothing to the series.  Navel has a habit of excessive sequels (Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou and Shuffle) and trips off into side-story wonderland.  Circus has a habit of endless sequels (D.C.).
I call this 'resting on your laurels' because these companies are basically milking successful IPs to death in order to stay afloat, rather than generating really new content.  Oh, I will be the first to admit that Shuffle really, really did need the rewrites it got later on, and the afterstories and voice patch for the original Tsuki ni Yorisou were hugely beneficial.  However, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, despite the hopes of those of us who were interested to see how they would handle a second generation, turned out to be greatly substandard to the original, flopping massively in the heroine paths despite a promising beginning in the common route (which is probably why they've been releasing so many mini-fandiscs to 'rebuild trust'). 
As for Pulltop... The original Lovekami was actually a first-class VN that showed off the best of what a fantasy charage can be.  However, its successors were... immature and pathetic in comparison (obviously written as moe-bait rather than serious efforts to continue the series).  Koi no Resort was a rather blatant effort to make a spiritual successor to the kamige Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no that failed massively (primarily due to the lack of comparable sensitivity in the writing, depth of the characters, and independent strength of the heroine paths... in other words, everything).  Even Oozora and Miagete Goran visibly suffer from an excess of ambition and a lack of the ability and patience to achieve it (believe me, every time I go into a new main-company Pulltop game of late, I leave wanting to cry from disappointment).  This is pretty sad, considering that Pulltop started out as one of my favorite companies after blowing me away with Uruwashi no and Lovekami in rapid succession...
I don't think I should even have to describe what Circus does with Da Capo, lol (I could, but it would just start a salt fight).
However, it isn't just charage companies that are the culprits.  Even my beloved chuunige companies can fall victim to this kind of intellectual laziness.  Propeller, the second it lost its primary writers, forced out two massively flawed works in rapid succession (one of which - Pygmalion - , to my despair, actually got localized *spits in disgust*) that weren't even worth playing (though Pygmalion probably would have been good if they'd used a different writer and actually put forth the effort to make it into a real story).  Light, the producer of so many awesome chuunige, put out a work of penultimate laziness just a few months ago (Sora no Baroque).  Nitroplus, in a rather pathetic effort to sharpen its skills at psychedelic stories, went off the beaten track with Sumaga and Axanael.  Even Akatsuki Works, which has always been consistent, if nothing else, has of late been lowering its standards somewhat.
Understand, I am perfectly willing to accept that companies will not produce a kamige with every single project.  The idea that any company could manage that, given the limited budgets most VN companies have to work with, is fundamentally ridiculous.  I am quite willing to enjoy trips off into the wilds on occasion (such as Pulltop's surprisingly high-quality Natsuiro Recipe or Moonstone's Sakura no Mori Dreamers).  I am also willing to accept that sequels rarely match the originals.  However, I do think, if they can't match the original, they should at least build something of close to equal quality in a slightly different direction, instead.  To be specific, there was absolutely no reason to make every aspect of Tsuki ni Yorisou 2 to echo the original's beginning framework so closely (to be specific, the way he suddenly became less capable than before when the heroine paths started made me want to various unpleasant things to the writer). 
I am also willing to admit that a new set of writers means inevitable hiccups... I could have accepted that Propeller's works would need to be a bit different after Yuuichirou left the company.  I would have even been willing to shrug off Pygmalion as a fluke.  However, the way the company, rather than pulling in a single capable freelance veteran writer (of which there are plenty in the industry), dragged in a massive number of writers (all of which were mostly nukige writers) to make Jaeger.
Light... has no excuse.  Light's fanbase, whether they started with Dies Irae or have been following the company for much longer, is accustomed to high quality long games with extensive setting and character development and highly complex stories where every last element of the setting is squeezed for everything it is worth.  Sora no Baroque was a slap in the face, a game that departed greatly from the company's style, even aside from the raw quality issues.
Nitroplus did have an excuse... they were a company that was always seen as 'weird'.  Experimentation has always been their norm (which is probably why it takes them so long to recover after each release), so Sumaga, while being a massively boring abomination from the perspective of people who liked their earlier works, was understandable and forgivable.  However, Axanael... wasn't.  To be blunt, it takes a peculiar type of brain to actually enjoy those two games, even if you aren't a Nitroplus fan.
Akatsuki Works' gradual descent really has been so gradual as to have been barely noticed.  While their characters and situations have mostly maintained the quality we, the readers/players, are accustomed to, it has to be said that the gradual decreases in length and detail in the stories have been apparent for some time.  I honestly enjoyed Suisei Ginka and thought it was one of the most conceptually exceptional of the company's games in years.  However, it was also relatively short (less than fifteen hours for me is short for a chuunige) and generally over reliant on the 'Akatsuki Works Style' of VN  design to keep the reader's interest.  The 'style' is proven to work at keeping the reader's interest, but it is also so recognizable that anyone who has been reading this company's works since Ruitomo will recognize it instantly.
In other words, I just needed to spout salt about the companies I feel have gotten intellectually lazy due to past success, lol.

Dir Lifyna is the name of the world in which Eushully's Ikusa Megami games, Kamidori Alchemy Meister, and most of the rest of their games are based. 
I love Dir Lifyna.  I don't think I'm alone in this, since it was the unexpected popularity of the setting in the original Ikusa Megami that resulted in the ridiculous number of follow up games that culminated in Ikusa Megami Zero (which most fanboys consider the best game Eushully has ever made). 
The setting is deep, based in a world built in the aftermath of a pure fantasy world (with no humans) being linked then melded accidentally with a future Earth that was apparently far beyond even our current technological level (think matter-of-course genetic modification and cybernetics, as well as artificial lifeforms of more than human complexity).  At the end of the war that resulted from the initial contact, humanity's deities (artificial and otherwise) lost to the 'Living Gods', and humanity's history and most of its technology was systematically erased from the world.  Most of humanity's original gods either died or went into hiding, and the remaining humans mostly worship the Living Gods.  Other races that were 'hidden' before the initial contact (Nagas, for example) retained a faith and service to some of them, but that has just resulted in them being ever more marginalized in the world as it has become. 
Humanity, ironically, has become the most numerous intelligent race, providing most of the faith (which provides power to deities) to sustain the Living Gods, causing even those Living Gods' own creations to often be as marginalized as the servants of the Old Gods.   Demihumans often find themselves forced to coexist with humans or pushed out of the better lands, leading to conflicts in which the churches of various deities often take sides, even if the deities themselves don't (most deities that aren't a devoted patron of a certain race tend to prioritize the power gained from worship over all things, it seems like). 
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the various games set in this world is that they rarely provide a purely human-centric viewpoint on things.  Serika, the protagonist of the IM series, can't be considered to be human in any wise (either in perspective or body), Meishoku no Reiki's protagonist is practically a demon lord, Madou Koukaku's protagonist is the ruler of a mixed-race country, Kami no Rhapsody is all about people competing for the right to rule over a multi-race federation, and the Genrin series focuses on a half-demon protagonist who tries to conquer a mostly-human region for the sake of survival (at least at first). 
'Chosen Heroes' (usually half-immortal paladins called 'shinkakusha' granted a portion of a deity's essence) are often monsters wearing human skin, priests are mostly political animals or dogmatists, and the conflict between Darkness and Light rarely falls into a 'good vs evil' formula, regardless of perspective. 
That's when the games are trying to be serious from beginning to end, such as with Genrin, IM, or Madou Koukaku.  However, some of the more 'frivolous' games (such as Sankai Ou no Yubiwa, Kamidori, or Kamiyui) are often lighter affairs, though the essential nature of the setting usually bleeds through at odd moments, usually near the end. 
Unfortunately, Eushully has a bad habit of switching writers frequently, and this results in huge dips and rises in quality between releases, story-wise.  As a result, while the company manages to produce kamige like IMZ on occasion, it more often hits a more moderate note like with Verita or Kami no Rhapsody... or strays into outright kusoge territory like with Sankai Ou or Himegari. 
Gameplay wise, the company's works in this universe are a mixed bag... Ikusa Megami's battle system is essentially a variant on the ATB system, combined with a 'use it and it grows' approach to skill trees.  On the other hand, Genrin was essentially a crappier version of Fire Emblem, Madou Koukaku was conquest strategy, and Kami no Rhapsody was a fairly horrible take on standard Japanese-style srpgs (seriously, obsessing over gimmicks like touch screen adaptation with an ero VN gameplay hybrid is just idiotic).  It seems at times like Eushully wants to try every popular Japanese single player game genre at one point or another... 
Anyway, if you are still reading, thanks for paying attention to this random ramble. 
 

Dir Lifyna is the name of the world in which Eushully's Ikusa Megami games, Kamidori Alchemy Meister, and most of the rest of their games are based. 
I love Dir Lifyna.  I don't think I'm alone in this, since it was the unexpected popularity of the setting in the original Ikusa Megami that resulted in the ridiculous number of follow up games that culminated in Ikusa Megami Zero (which most fanboys consider the best game Eushully has ever made). 
The setting is deep, based in a world built in the aftermath of a pure fantasy world (with no humans) being linked then melded accidentally with a future Earth that was apparently far beyond even our current technological level (think matter-of-course genetic modification and cybernetics, as well as artificial lifeforms of more than human complexity).  At the end of the war that resulted from the initial contact, humanity's deities (artificial and otherwise) lost to the 'Living Gods', and humanity's history and most of its technology was systematically erased from the world.  Most of humanity's original gods either died or went into hiding, and the remaining humans mostly worship the Living Gods.  Other races that were 'hidden' before the initial contact (Nagas, for example) retained a faith and service to some of them, but that has just resulted in them being ever more marginalized in the world as it has become. 
Humanity, ironically, has become the most numerous intelligent race, providing most of the faith (which provides power to deities) to sustain the Living Gods, causing even those Living Gods' own creations to often be as marginalized as the servants of the Old Gods.   Demihumans often find themselves forced to coexist with humans or pushed out of the better lands, leading to conflicts in which the churches of various deities often take sides, even if the deities themselves don't (most deities that aren't a devoted patron of a certain race tend to prioritize the power gained from worship over all things, it seems like). 
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the various games set in this world is that they rarely provide a purely human-centric viewpoint on things.  Serika, the protagonist of the IM series, can't be considered to be human in any wise (either in perspective or body), Meishoku no Reiki's protagonist is practically a demon lord, Madou Koukaku's protagonist is the ruler of a mixed-race country, Kami no Rhapsody is all about people competing for the right to rule over a multi-race federation, and the Genrin series focuses on a half-demon protagonist who tries to conquer a mostly-human region for the sake of survival (at least at first). 
'Chosen Heroes' (usually half-immortal paladins called 'shinkakusha' granted a portion of a deity's essence) are often monsters wearing human skin, priests are mostly political animals or dogmatists, and the conflict between Darkness and Light rarely falls into a 'good vs evil' formula, regardless of perspective. 
That's when the games are trying to be serious from beginning to end, such as with Genrin, IM, or Madou Koukaku.  However, some of the more 'frivolous' games (such as Sankai Ou no Yubiwa, Kamidori, or Kamiyui) are often lighter affairs, though the essential nature of the setting usually bleeds through at odd moments, usually near the end. 
Unfortunately, Eushully has a bad habit of switching writers frequently, and this results in huge dips and rises in quality between releases, story-wise.  As a result, while the company manages to produce kamige like IMZ on occasion, it more often hits a more moderate note like with Verita or Kami no Rhapsody... or strays into outright kusoge territory like with Sankai Ou or Himegari. 
Gameplay wise, the company's works in this universe are a mixed bag... Ikusa Megami's battle system is essentially a variant on the ATB system, combined with a 'use it and it grows' approach to skill trees.  On the other hand, Genrin was essentially a crappier version of Fire Emblem, Madou Koukaku was conquest strategy, and Kami no Rhapsody was a fairly horrible take on standard Japanese-style srpgs (seriously, obsessing over gimmicks like touch screen adaptation with an ero VN gameplay hybrid is just idiotic).  It seems at times like Eushully wants to try every popular Japanese single player game genre at one point or another... 
Anyway, if you are still reading, thanks for paying attention to this random ramble. 
 

Lost Echoes is the first VN by the new company Petitlinge and is written by one of the writers of Hatsugamai (https://vndb.org/v18790)  .  In this VN the protagonist, Yuuki Riku, is asked by the low-ranking kami, Ryuusen Umi (her name as a kami has been forgotten by both her and the descendants of her worshipers), to go to the past to save the soul of his childhood friend by preventing her previous life (Tachibana Ginchiyo, a rare female warrior leader in the Sengoku era who was the daughter of Tachibana Dousetsu, a famous retainer of the Ootomo Clan before its fall), from killing her friend Chihaya in battle. 
This game incorporates the choice system into the actual story, with Riku making decisions on what actions he will take or what he will say to affect the course of events in the past era.  The first three paths that are available from the start are Akio, Hinao, and Kohaku.  Yuika (the osananajimi who is Ginchiyo's reincarnation) opens up when you complete those three paths (it makes sense, because the variation from the other paths is massive, though the basic length and strength of the path is unchanged), and Umi's path opens up after Yuika's as the true path (the one where everyone finds happiness... it also ends pretty hilariously). 
Kohaku
I pursued Kohaku first on a whim and didn't regret it, though this path made my head hurt a bit (chicken and egg issues).  Kohaku is rather blatantly in love with Riku from the very start (she makes him wake her up every morning and deliberately ensures he sees her half-naked), and she is the head of the Archaeology Club, the daughter of a large toilet-making corporation, and a generally cheerful person.  She lives in the same building as their club meeting room, which she has rented in her own name using her own money.
Kohaku's path, once you get past the common route, (the end of the common route is almost identical for the first three heroines), starts out the most normally of the three paths initially available to you... but that normalcy doesn't last that long.  Since I had thought they would settle for a standard charage cop-out with the first three heroine paths, I didn't expect the high-quality drama that occurred.  It was a pleasant surprise, though.
Hinao
... I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Hinao becomes either the most hated or most beloved of this game's heroines in the minds of anyone who reads this VN.  She is a miko at the rather large temple that enshrines Umi as a 'hidden deity' (forgotten by the time the story begins), and she serves as the means by which Umi is able to materialize in the mortal realm, despite her relative weakness.  She has a natural talent as a miko... but she is about as airheaded and thoughtless as it is possible to be (not to mention she pees herself every time she meets a powerful deity and acts like Umi's dog half the time).
Her path starts out oddly.  Let's just say that you will be immediately confused by the Hinao you meet after the common route ends and leave it at that.  As a whole, this route is interesting to read, and I liked the way they brought the story to an end.
Akio
Akio is Riku's little sister, who runs the cafe part of their home-business (he runs the photography part).  She is very capable and pragmatic, forgiving of her big brother's faults, and she is perhaps the 'wisest' heroine in the game, except when it comes to her own path, lol. 
Her path is about what you'd expect for a path involving two siblings with no parents who have been working hard to survive... when you further add on the romantic feelings she inherited from Kaya-hime (her previous life) to Akio's own pre-existing ones.  There are lots of complications, and this is the only path with a bad ending.
Yuika
The stubborn, delusion-prone kendo girl osananajimi who is the center of the game's main conflict.  Due to the actions of her ancestor and previous life, Ginchiyo, she carries a stain on her soul that will eventually turn her into a tatarigami, a type of deity that causes disaster regardless of its own will or desires (in Yuika's case, they said she would wipe out Kyushu and all that lives there if left to her own devices).  She is kind-hearted by nature, always putting others before herself. 
Her path differs from the previous three massively... and it ends on a melancholic note. 
Umi
Umi's path is accessed from the title screen after the previous four paths are complete.  Umi herself is a loving, motherly (despite being a loli), and friendly kami who deeply desires to protect those souls that are closest to her.  Due to the fact that she is a hidden kami (at some shrines, it was common to enshrine a secondary, guardian deity besides the primary deity), she had few followers and was eventually forgotten over time.  She has lost most of her power and memories, but she has been given permission to narrowly alter the past through Riku to save Yuika's soul. 
Umi's path is highly emotional, building off one of the melancholic notes from the end of Yuika's path (though it is a completely separate path).  The striving of the characters to give back to a deity who gives her all to her 'precious children' is the high point of this path and makes it the most emotional by far.
Overall
This is an excellent game by a new company, and I hope to see more like this one.  It frequently made me smile and laugh, and I cried with the characters on a number of occasions.  I don't regret playing this one in any way, which is unusual with  new companies.

This one was a straight-out contest between Lost Echoes and Otoboku 3.
On the one hand, Lost Echoes has an excellent story and some seriously good heroines. 
On the other hand, Otoboku has first-class writing, first-class slice-of-life, and excellent epilogues.
In fact, it was that last element that decided the contest... the two were neck and neck, but the difference in epilogue quality, which is much more important than most people credit it for being, was huge.  Lost Echoes, for better or worse, ends very soon after the final climax for each path, and (in the VN's chronology) a month or less after the climax.  Otoboku 3, however, had detailed epilogues that dealt with the thereafter of the heroines and protagonist, which is a huge plus for remaining in my memory.
So, in the end, Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru: Trinkle Stars was VN of the Month, February 2018.
It should be mentioned that my utter inability to play sports VNs made Tsubasa no Shita a non-starter for me from the beginning (I like combat and blood sports, but other sports suck as game themes except for seishun BS).

Lost Echoes is the first VN by the new company Petitlinge and is written by one of the writers of Hatsugamai (https://vndb.org/v18790)  .  In this VN the protagonist, Yuuki Riku, is asked by the low-ranking kami, Ryuusen Umi (her name as a kami has been forgotten by both her and the descendants of her worshipers), to go to the past to save the soul of his childhood friend by preventing her previous life (Tachibana Ginchiyo, a rare female warrior leader in the Sengoku era who was the daughter of Tachibana Dousetsu, a famous retainer of the Ootomo Clan before its fall), from killing her friend Chihaya in battle. 
This game incorporates the choice system into the actual story, with Riku making decisions on what actions he will take or what he will say to affect the course of events in the past era.  The first three paths that are available from the start are Akio, Hinao, and Kohaku.  Yuika (the osananajimi who is Ginchiyo's reincarnation) opens up when you complete those three paths (it makes sense, because the variation from the other paths is massive, though the basic length and strength of the path is unchanged), and Umi's path opens up after Yuika's as the true path (the one where everyone finds happiness... it also ends pretty hilariously). 
Kohaku
I pursued Kohaku first on a whim and didn't regret it, though this path made my head hurt a bit (chicken and egg issues).  Kohaku is rather blatantly in love with Riku from the very start (she makes him wake her up every morning and deliberately ensures he sees her half-naked), and she is the head of the Archaeology Club, the daughter of a large toilet-making corporation, and a generally cheerful person.  She lives in the same building as their club meeting room, which she has rented in her own name using her own money.
Kohaku's path, once you get past the common route, (the end of the common route is almost identical for the first three heroines), starts out the most normally of the three paths initially available to you... but that normalcy doesn't last that long.  Since I had thought they would settle for a standard charage cop-out with the first three heroine paths, I didn't expect the high-quality drama that occurred.  It was a pleasant surprise, though.
Hinao
... I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Hinao becomes either the most hated or most beloved of this game's heroines in the minds of anyone who reads this VN.  She is a miko at the rather large temple that enshrines Umi as a 'hidden deity' (forgotten by the time the story begins), and she serves as the means by which Umi is able to materialize in the mortal realm, despite her relative weakness.  She has a natural talent as a miko... but she is about as airheaded and thoughtless as it is possible to be (not to mention she pees herself every time she meets a powerful deity and acts like Umi's dog half the time).
Her path starts out oddly.  Let's just say that you will be immediately confused by the Hinao you meet after the common route ends and leave it at that.  As a whole, this route is interesting to read, and I liked the way they brought the story to an end.
Akio
Akio is Riku's little sister, who runs the cafe part of their home-business (he runs the photography part).  She is very capable and pragmatic, forgiving of her big brother's faults, and she is perhaps the 'wisest' heroine in the game, except when it comes to her own path, lol. 
Her path is about what you'd expect for a path involving two siblings with no parents who have been working hard to survive... when you further add on the romantic feelings she inherited from Kaya-hime (her previous life) to Akio's own pre-existing ones.  There are lots of complications, and this is the only path with a bad ending.
Yuika
The stubborn, delusion-prone kendo girl osananajimi who is the center of the game's main conflict.  Due to the actions of her ancestor and previous life, Ginchiyo, she carries a stain on her soul that will eventually turn her into a tatarigami, a type of deity that causes disaster regardless of its own will or desires (in Yuika's case, they said she would wipe out Kyushu and all that lives there if left to her own devices).  She is kind-hearted by nature, always putting others before herself. 
Her path differs from the previous three massively... and it ends on a melancholic note. 
Umi
Umi's path is accessed from the title screen after the previous four paths are complete.  Umi herself is a loving, motherly (despite being a loli), and friendly kami who deeply desires to protect those souls that are closest to her.  Due to the fact that she is a hidden kami (at some shrines, it was common to enshrine a secondary, guardian deity besides the primary deity), she had few followers and was eventually forgotten over time.  She has lost most of her power and memories, but she has been given permission to narrowly alter the past through Riku to save Yuika's soul. 
Umi's path is highly emotional, building off one of the melancholic notes from the end of Yuika's path (though it is a completely separate path).  The striving of the characters to give back to a deity who gives her all to her 'precious children' is the high point of this path and makes it the most emotional by far.
Overall
This is an excellent game by a new company, and I hope to see more like this one.  It frequently made me smile and laugh, and I cried with the characters on a number of occasions.  I don't regret playing this one in any way, which is unusual with  new companies.

Now, this is one of those games where the Getchu description and the one on the site don't represent the reality. 
First, this game is a straight-out comedy.  The protagonist is a 'classic baka', a character who is easily distracted, daydreams about convenient scenarios with cute females, and generally makes trouble without meaning to.  Because of his perspective, the game is pretty high pace (and not really in a good way).
The heroines include:
Chuuni Hime- A real princess from another world who is the master of the renovated love hotel that is the central stage for the story.  She is apparently a genius and a great leader... but you would never be able to tell that from the pictures of her daily life.  She is a heavy gamer (doesn't leave her room for days at a time), and she has little interest in fulfilling her stated purpose for coming to Earth.  She has a real name, but nobody uses it.
Lagunaseca- Chuuni Hime's dark elven maid.  She is a workaholic.  Seriously, that is literally the entirety of her personality.  Her only reason for living is to give of herself to others, so she is literally incapable of considering a life outside of service.  She works several part-time jobs to feed the princess, and she only sleeps three hours a day.
Stella- Stella is a rather naive young knight from the same world as Chuuni Hime and in her direct service.  She was raised on stories of female knights being raped by tentacles and orcs, along with falls into pleasure and mind break, and as a result, she is extremely... weak.  She is terrible with a sword... so much so that she is liable to trip over it when she tries to draw it out.  Since she came to Earth, she has become a light novel author, and when her editor gets onto her, she locks herself in a defunct fridge. 
Suzuka- The only earthling amongst the heroines (ironically so) and the protagonist's childhood friend.  She has a terrible case of chuunibyou (think wearing a black cape in summer and transforming her room into an alchemist's workshop), and... that is about the entirety of her personality.  Unless you get on her route, she is almost a non-entity throughout the game. 
I'm going to be blunt... this game actually starts out fairly well, but as a whole, it is very... not worth the money I put down for it. 
The first reason is the writing.  For some reason, this writer fails utterly to do anything other than the comedy right.  Even momentarily serious or romantic scenes flop (at least partly because Masaki doesn't have the brains to carry those scenes off right) badly, and because of that, it becomes hard to even enjoy the humorous scenes. 
The second reason is the artwork.  I'm going to be blunt... this game's CG's and sprites are very... low budget.  It isn't noticeable for a non-art-bigot such as myself at first, but it became bloody obvious when it came to the h-scenes and the few scenes granted a CG.  If this game had been made in 2008, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything wrong, but for a game that is being sold at right about the average price for a VN on today's commercial market, that is a huge downer.
The third, and probably the most fatal reason, is the music and voice acting.  The soundtrack for this game is... terrible.  However, that could be forgiven if it weren't for the unusual fact that this game's makers managed to botch the voice-acting.  Most of the voices in this game are horrible, with the notable exceptions of Chuuni Hime and Suzuka.  I'm going to be blunt... considering how long ago they announced this game, it is ridiculous that this low level of quality in an area where the industry standard is about as level as it is possible for what is essentially an 'art' can even exist.  All of the VAs are established names, so it is silly to make excuses about the quality of the actors.  No, this had to be a massive direction and/or production failure. 
My conclusion is that, while the concept wasn't bad, the execution for this game was downright horrible.