Decay

Ehhh.... not nearly as prominent as VNs would have you think. It almost never happens in Japan anymore, but is one of those classic plot devices writers can't let go of.

With Clannad, they WERE going to work with Sekai Project but the community showed a very large negative backlash because the translation they are working with is quite frankly awful. So now Sekai Project simply politely backstepped away from Doki and are now redoing the Clannad translation from scratch. There's no guarentee on what will happen with Little Busters. SP would have to license it first of all.

That's what I intend to do. The main problem though is the lack of skip function. So I guess I just have to do a whooole lot of clicking past repeat text when I go to do other routes. I guess the good news is that looking at the chart, the branch points are relatively early. Also sometimes I double click a line and welp, guess I'll never read that.

Random question about YU-NO. Is there really no back log, or a way to skip? I guess it really is a '97 game... I can deal with every other dated aspect of its design, but I like all the interface conveniences of modern VNs.

AFAIK, in the US there has yet to be a case on record of someone being successfully prosecuted for possessing lolicon hentai. I don't think anyone has gotten in trouble for importing it, either. Canada? That's another story.

So I started playing Yu-No. Some very early knee-jerk impressions based only on the prologue: I hate the protagonist, and I hate the dialog. I don't know, I just can't bring myself to enjoy the conversations these people have, and the way the dialog is written kind of gets on my nerves. It flows at such a weird pace, and I find it difficult to actually care and I find myself just kind of skimming past it. Overall, a pretty bad first impression. But maybe this is all because it's introducing all of the characters and it will get better once more things start happening. I'll soldier on because this game is so well loved.

Not to mention how incredibly boring her lengthy flashback sequence was. Her issues felt so trivial compared to everyone else and yet somehow she ended up with the most severe personality. edit: Well, I take that back, Sachi's personality was more severe.

Reading a fair amount is pretty critical to building up at least a baseline level of writing skill. You should ideally be an omnivore in my opinion, taking in any genre in any medium from any origin.

Well, I don't, but I guess you kind of have to. NGE at least will have a lot to talk about, though, even if you don't like it. You should approach from the basis of forming a critique. Maybe even take notes, paying attention to all of the flaws and things you dislike about it, and when your group meets to discuss it, play the part of the critic. If you approach it as more of a task rather than mindless entertainment, you could possibly get through it easier.

Well, I didn't live through the game market crash but it probably wasn't that bad on the consumer's end. In fact, I'd say it was a very positive thing for consumers. The american video game industry was completely and totally fucked for at least a decade, sure, but the quality of games on average went up drastically when Nintendo took over. Being born five years earlier than you, I appreciate being able to play and remember a lot of classic NES games. Mario 2, 3, Mega Man 2, Metal Gear, etc.

It's a pretty straightforward meaning. If those files are already there, replace them with the patch files. If not, then just move them over.

Did you or did you not install the game? Because it sounds like you downloaded some .rar files that contain the game and that's it. If you have actually installed the game, then copy the patch.xp3 and yukyu_patch.xp3 files into the game's install directory. If you haven't installed the game... install it? edit: Here is the patch, it is just one small .rar file: http://www.mediafire.com/download/465fl0fk53da53z/Sharin+Fd+patch+v2.rar Copy the two .xp3 files contained within into the install directory. That is all you have to do. I do not know what those other .rar files you mention are. Also, you should have posted this in the voluntary tech support forum.

Of course not, Haru was very popular and the general consensus is that her route was the best part of G-Senjou no Maou.

Well yes, but knowing why it's like that doesn't make it any less bad.

Terra route was real bad, yo.

To Heart 2 garnered a decent amount of respect in Japan but when I played the partial translation it seemed kind of average. I don't know how much of that was due to the rather bad translation, though. Maybe if you read it in Japanese it will be better for you. I can't really seem to recall any specific complaints about it, maybe you'll like it. It wasn't particularly bad, at any rate. edit: Looking back, my two biggest complaints were 1) For most of the routes, it feels like they're too short, they typically end soon after confession. There's a confession scene, an h-scene, and maybe a short lovey-dovey scene, roll credits. There is some drama leading up to the confession each time but it's usually very minor. And 2) hardly anyone knows each other and once you enter into a route, everyone else seems to fade away. This seems to be what you want, but I personally didn't like that aspect too much. So one issue is actually exactly what you want, and the other just means it's pretty light on the drama, which is also what you want. Aside from those two issues, it was better than I expected going in, I think you could have a good time with it.

Harukoi Otome is extremely bad. I'm pretty sure MangaGamer localized it with the sole intent to punish us. For what, I do not know. It is easily among the worst VNs ever translated, the true definition of kusoge. Give it a shot!

While Majikoi isn't very thematically similar to PE, it is pretty good light hearted fun. Of the three translated Overdrive VNs, Edelweiss is the most lighthearted and ridiculous, and also takes place in a former all-girls school, but it's also kind of bad. Kira Kira is just good fun (for most of it), Deardrops also isn't bad. For mystery, Umineko is rather good, traditional style murder mystery. I liked Kara no Shoujo too if you want something much darker and more like a detective thriller. There are some character moments in KnS that are better if you read Cartagra first but it's not required if you only care about understanding the story. The Phoenix Wright games are also decent mystery adventure games, that also happen to be pretty lighthearted!