Decay

The two worst VNs I've played are probably Ikikoi and harukoi otome. I try to avoid ones that look overtly awful, but I'm generally willing to give anything a try if it seems like it has a chance of amusing me. Boy, was I ever wrong about those two. Ikikoi was the most insipid harem nonsense I've ever encountered. I've seen some bad harem animes in my time but Ikikoi tops most all of them in terribleness. The humor misses way off the mark, the situations are so incredibly rote that I find it impossible to get any enjoyment out of it, the heroines are all as deep as a puddle of water with terrible personalities, and the list goes on. I'm baffled on why it received a fan translation (who would dedicate that much of their free time for it with no compensation??), but am not surprised at how it was basically dumped unfinished because really, who gives a shit? Harukoi Otome isn't a harem comedy, thank goodness, but it's still terrible. The humor it does has made me chuckle a couple of times but is by and large really anti-funny. The sidekick character is obnoxious, the heroines are really boring, the art is bad, but these aren't the worst parts. The worst part is the melodrama. Like a lot of moege, they toss in some light drama here and there, and it's terrrrible. It gets even worse when it tries to be sentimental at the same time, because it becomes so corny. It's incredibly facepalm-inducing and cringe-worthy at the same time. I'm sad I wasted my time on this. Honorable mention goes to Muv-Luv Extra. If it existed by itself, it would probably top both of those. MLE is one of the few VNs where I skipped entire scenes because they were just so unbearable. I don't think I laughed a single time throughout the entire experience. And of course the romance was laughable. If it wasn't required reading for the rest of the series, I don't think it would have lasted one hour on my hard drive. I doubt these are the worst VNs ever made, but if there's anything worse than these, then hopefully I can exhibit the discretion necessary to avoid them outright.

Too much of a pain? Click a file, and press ctrl+a to select all of them. Or select the first one, press shift+end. Well, as one of the world's laziest persons, I feel for you.

If I really care about quality, like if it's a visually intense action show such as Fate/Stay Night, I just use torrents on *. It's not a hassle since you can set up rss feeds that will automatically start downloading the episode almost as soon as it's posted. But most of the time I can't even be bothered to do that and just watch stuff on kissanime. They do reencode the videos so there is some quality loss but they've gotten a lot better at that over the last year. Most of the back catalog of stuff uploaded last year looks a good bit worse but if the visuals aren't important then I don't care. I'm from the generation who started on anime by watching super-low-res shitty encodes 14 years ago. A slight amount of blurriness when I go to watch a random nichijou episode or whatever doesn't matter.

I hope you figure this out and are capable of doing a better job than that guy's machine translation.

Do you have python 2.7 installed?

Umineko is a true mystery work, and is like a love letter to the genre. It's not really a standard detective fiction work since it doesn't follow a detective around who is finding clues and unraveling the mystery, but is more of a thriller mystery taking place on an isolated island. But it goes much, much deeper than that. It holds a lot of inspiration from And Then There Were None and other Agatha Christie works, contains a lot of meta-commentary on the genre, and manages to be a really fun read with some adrenalin pumping moments. It's also extremely long, be warned (by some measurements, all eight episodes combine to be the longest VN ever written, if you consider it as one work). Is completely non-interactive, it follows in the tradition of older mystery novels, where the story itself is designed as a "game" or puzzle, and not all of the answers will even be given by the end. The art is really bad by default, but there are unofficial fan made patches that replace it with better art ripped from the untranslated PS3 version. I can't say that Higurashi is a true mystery story, and you shouldn't read it if that's what you're really looking for.There are some mystery elements, sure, but it doesn't take long for that to stop. It's made by the Umineko author and there are plenty of Higurashi references in Umineko, but it's not really a prequel or required reading. Kara no Shoujo is an interesting hard-boiled detective mystery VN. The protagonist is a grizzled private detective who gets hired by girl's high school to look into the disappearance of some students, and leads into a series of very gruesome murders, complete with explicit art showing it all, of course. Is somewhat infamous for some incredibly violent bad ends. Is pretty open ended with the ability to go to a large amount of places at any given time to progress the investigation and has other minor interactive elements like evidence presentation, but all of these choices means that it's actually pretty hard to find a correct path without a guide. Maybe that's the point, but it's a little too unforgiving in my opinion. Let us not forget the Phoenix Wright series. A soft-boiled mystery series where the protagonist is a defense lawyer. Contains interactive detective segments where you visit various locations, search for clues, talk to people, and interactive courtroom segments where you question witnesses, present evidence, etc. It's for DS, IOS, Wii, and 3DS. Very much emulatable. Only loosely considered a VN by some yet is very highly acclaimed.

Two people does not equal almost everyone. I don't want to get lumped in as a Katawa Shoujo liker.

Who or what is "Checkmate"?

I feel like today, I have completed a spiritual journey. Two months ago I put down several of the VNs I was currently reading and started Umineko, which lead into Higurashi (backwards, I know). I usually read several VNs at once due to my OCD, but I read these exclusively, for at least a few hours a day (usually more than that) every single day for the last two months. God damn are they long. But it's all over. I kinda don't know what I'm going to do with myself, now. I could write many, many words about my thoughts on them, how they compare and so on. But for now I'll keep it brief. I ended up enjoying Umineko much more, but Higurashi was still entertaining. Umineko just had more... style, or flair. I also think the writing was stronger. The characters and their personal backstories and dilemmas were more grounded in a way that made them more emotionally relatable. Where even if the character was in a much less dire personal situation, you could end up feeling for them more. Umineko/Higurashi spoilers: Oh, and we can't forget the music. Obviously +many points to Umineko for the incredible soundtrack. Higurashi Kai's soundtrack had some good tunes and had plenty of good piano music, but it just can't even come close to Umineko's. Anyways, now I have to figure out what to read next. I should probably pick up where I left off but I have several unfinished VNs I could go back to. The Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na partial, the other routes in Yumina, I was actually thinking of finishing Osadai, which I've left unfinished. There's also Harukoi Otome which I was wasting some time with but eh..... I'm not sure about that one. I also have yet to read the Kagome route in Comyu and the Suzu route in Ayakashibito. Where to start...

Yep. With essence+, I don't think anyone was left out.

Mayumi had a route in one of the rereleases, but Mangagamer never bothered to translate that.

Well, I'm unsure where else you'll be able to buy it but I believe there will be a purchasable download version as well. Also, it's just the first part of a multi-part series. The other parts will probably focus on relationships with some of the other catgirls, and maybe the little sister, who is also a character in the game (the only pure human one). The download version will be 2,000 yen ($17.82 as of today). You can also visit this site to preview a few H-CGs including an animated one: http://nekopara.com/page_vo/vo_01.html (nws obviously)

I hope so. The english line is somewhat awkward regardless. The screenshot is taken from their blog.

edit 2: The download version is available now! It was just announced today that Neko Para will release with Chinese and English translations built into the game. It's been known for some time that they were interested in doing an english release, but I don't think anyone expected this. It appears to be an in-house translation, which has a bad track record for eroge. See: Gin'iro. Here's hoping they can overcome the expected result. Neko Para itself is an 18+ moege that will be set in a maid cafe and features a large cast of catgirls, with two main heroines, Chocola and Vanilla. It will use Windmill's E-Mote system to create animated sprites. It's a lower budget doujin game being initially sold at Comiket, so don't expect too much, I think it may only be one route. It could still be pretty entertaining, though. The release is December 30th.

Their latest game is Dekinai Watashi ga, Kurikaesu which features a time traveling, working adult protagonist. You could also say the Akabei Soft spirit has passed on to Tigre Soft (Reminiscence, Akatsuki no Goei) and Akatsuki Works (Comyu, which was just recently translated, and many others), since both companies were founded by former Akabei Soft staff. They all make good games and so few of them are translated.

With Aroduc's unannounced Bunny Black project, seems like a good amount of SofthouseChara stuff is being worked on, good to see. Good luck with the project!

Akabei Soft are responsible for way more than two games. Most of the games, as well as the games they publish and the games from developers who split off from them share some similarities. The biggest one probably being protagonists with strong personalities and/or wills who drive the story forward. Unfortunately there aren't any active translation projects for any of the other games from that family of developers.

Many VNs feature this, it seems. It's usually just used as an excuse for the protagonist to start with a blank slate. In Konosora/If My Heart Had Wings the protagonist was a bicycle racer and suffered an accident that forced him to quit the sport and transfer to another school.

There is no point in preserving japanese terminology when there is an easy and direct english translation that loses no meaning. It would only serve to confuse readers. Anyways, since they're apparently children, I think "Little brother" makes the most sense. "Younger" is also used more often in a comparative context, for example when referring to the youngest brother as the younger brother.

Of these four, Aselia has the strongest story. It still has a lot of gameplay, but it's not as grindy as Kamidori. Its biggest problem is that while there's not too much gameplay in any single playthrough, repeat playthroughs for the other routes are incredibly tedious and repetitive. Sengoku Rance is very gameplay heavy and the story is mostly irrelevant and uninteresting. The game is all about gameplay and h-scenes, everything else is just a bonus. Minna Daisuki Kozukuri Banchou is pretty much a gameplay nukige. I haven't played Daibanchou, but pretty much all Alicesoft games focus primarily on gameplay and h-scenes so I can't imagine it being any different. For others, maybe try Utawarerumono, it's very story heavy and it's one of the few gameplay VNs where you might spend more time in the VN portions than the gameplay ones. Its SRPG gameplay is only so-so, to be honest, but it's not outright bad. Just boring at worst. The protagonist is interesting, and I liked several of the other characters The story is pretty decent overall, I recommend it. Nohman mentioned Dual Savior, and it's very much a mixed bag. It meets your requirement of being more focused on the story than gameplay. It's a 2D brawler type game where the battles are short and infrequent. The gameplay is really repetitive and not very good. I think the comedy in the common route is actually kinda funny, and I really love the protagonist's voice acting, which enhances the comedy a good amount. But a lot of the more serious story stuff is really dull and the heroine routes are pretty bad. Yumina the Ethereal is a game made by the same team as Aselia, and it has different pros and cons. The battles play similarly but are slightly more interactive/tactical in Yumina. They switched the main gameplay system from strategy to dungeon crawling, and I don't like the dungeon crawling as much as Aselia's strategy mode. The story is also weaker overall. Repeat playthroughs are less repetitive, since you can choose to opt out of a lot of the gameplay. There can be some issues if you don't level up enough, but if you do new game+ without upping the difficulty, you can skip all of the optional dungeon crawling and blaze through the story battles. The problem comes when you want to get the true route, which requires you to play on progressively harder difficulties and also spend a very significant amount of time in the dungeon crawling section.