Decay

I value the interactivity in non-gameplay VNs very lowly. I get no sense of accomplishment from picking the correct choices. It's also why I don't mind kinetic novels at all. I prefer VNs where the choices are clear so I don't have to read a walkthrough.

And now, for the least subtle tease ever: https://twitter.com/sekaiproject/status/520023407811756032 That's the OP to Meikyuu, BTW. Hmm, I wonder what that could possibly mean...

If you cannot read Japanese, do NOT try any of the FH translations. They're machine tl and are just not worth it.

As far as I know, no. VNDB lists Comyu, And, Ruitomo, and Hello Lady as being in the same universe, but none of the other Akatsuki Works games are included.

Tatsujin, you have excellent taste in romance manga. Bonnouji is great. Really amusing characters, and they make a charming and entertaining romance comedy without resorting to melodrama.

I really didn't like Mizuho. He was just too perfect at everything, and that perfection was never earned in the narrative of the story. He's perfect just because. It's really boring and bad writing. At one point he spontaneously becomes a master martial artist able to take down multiple experienced armed thugs in an instant and there is nothing that foreshadows this ability nor is it ever explained after. This goes for everything about him. It's just ridiculous. Despite this all, he's has this passive personality and has zero self confidence. They try to set up some sort of character growth where he becomes more confident throughout the story but I never really felt like that actually happened and instead his lack of confidence just becomes aggravating.

Eh, I've read plot summaries of what's in those fandiscs, and... nahh. They actually sound pretty bad. I absolutely detest the original Higurashi sprites so I'm sticking with the PS2 ones. They aren't great but they're better than the horrible originals. I'm not a fan of the MangaGamer sprites, either. They're made by an eroge artist and it shows, in a bad way.They're also too... moe? I don't know, they just seem like they'd fit a moege better than a horror mystery work like Higurashi. I think Umineko's PS3 sprites were great, though. Good art style, it suits the setting well, not fanservice-y, good CGs, and so on.

Well, I understand all that. I'm not about to immediately reread Umineko, though. It seems unfortunate that the fan support for Higurashi is much less than Umineko's. There are no complete voice patches, for instance. They never got around to porting it to ONScripter so they can do a more complete job of backporting the console content. And I still can't figure out if this translation edit patch is doing anything. *sigh*

All of a sudden I'm reading Higurashi now. I couldn't wait. After I finished Umineko I just needed more. A question that hopefully some of you can answer: does the translation fix linked here work with the torrent linked here? I noticed that the script files seem different. I can copy and paste the translation fix into the game folder but they don't replace anything. I haven't noticed any lines being changed, even some of the incorrectly written ones, but I'm not sure if it's because the fix isn't very comprehensive or if it just didn't work.

I kind of lost interest in it at around chapter 33 or so but I thought it was a really cute and funny romance story. I think I mostly lost interest because there was a very long gap in scanlation and I just never picked it back up.

You don't need any patience at all to like Grisaia since it's enjoyable from start to finish! I loved the common route. It's long as hell and doesn't actually go anywhere, but it has a lot of great characterization to get you attached to its characters, and is honestly funny as hell. It's also nothing like G Senjou no Maou. Rewrite is even less similar, though.

Basically Rimu and Yayoi's routes are something like half or a third of the length of Riho's. They're short little bonus routes, almost. They're not all that bad, they just don't have much substance to them. Kind of disappointing that half of the routes in a 4 route game are like that but it's made up for in the other two. Riho's is the official true route and is longer than Kanade's by a bit, and is the better one, IMO.

Da Capo 2 (which is much better than 1 and actually kinda good) can get pretty dramatic. I forgot about Osadai, though, that's another good light hearted comedy which never gets overly dramatic due to how ridiculous it is.

Well, I finished Umineko yesterday, and wow. What a hell of a journey. I feel like my routine is in shambles since I was reading that every day for a few hours a day for a month straight. I have this huge urge to read more Umineko but there's nothing left to read! Now I'm reduced to listening to the soundtrack repeatedly. I'm realllly tempted to pick up Higurashi again after dropping it a year ago after the first chapter.

"It fits except for 90% of the game where it doesn't" Drama is kind of the lifeblood of VNs. There are some that are more lighthearted, though. Maybe look at Deardrops, and Edelweiss (although I don't think that one is particularly good overall). Also try Majikoi. When there's action or intense moments, they're always ridiculous and over the top instead of dark and edgy.

Very, very few people seem to correctly guess the true nature of things by the end of the four Umineko "question" arcs. Also they did remake it with better art, on the PS3 (and was backported by fans to the PC version in a patch), which I liked quite a bit. Unlike the rather bad new higu sprites MG is commissioning, the HD console art for Umineko didn't try to create some obnoxious cute moe style, and it fit really well with the game's atmosphere. Ryuukushi has a pretty weird writing style at time. He's a better storyteller than writer. Well, I won't belabor the point too much, I guess that's that and I should stop derailing the thread. The biggest surprise to me in your list is probably the Otoboku sequel. Really? That first game was so incredibly mediocre. And I hated the art. What makes the second one good? I'm pretty interested in hearing your thoughts on it since it's one of the few non-chuuni games on there.

Everyone agrees that the Umineko anime was way worse than the higurashi one and is just miserably shit compared to the VN. But most people also like the Higurashi VN better than its adaptation (although the adaptation still has some fans). Well, whatever, maybe they're not your cup of tea. Also, the umineko anime only covered the first half of the story.

The Kiss for the Petals/SonoHana series is the world's most boring nukige series, but it's yuri so people go nuts over it.

Have you not played any of the 07th expansion stuff? I noticed a little while ago you didn't have any of their games on your vndb list. They're probably the most popular (here) VNs you haven't read. Should be good if you like mystery.

As far as I know there are no translated, no-rape monster girl VNs, but I'm not into that fetish so maybe I'm missing some. http://vndb.org/v9338 might be what you're looking for and is currently in translation.

No, it's just not crazy long. It's average in length.

Maybe you have a point. Although I suggest Rewrite, it's super long. G-Senjou no Maou was one of my first VNs and I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. It has a little bit of everything for everyone, which makes it a good introduction to the genre, and isn't overbearingly long.

I think Rewrite is a solid first VN to read. Kanon is just kind of meh. It's honestly not very good.

Sharin no Kuni has no "routes". Only different endings, and different h-scenes depending on which one you get romantically involved with. It is not worth playing multiple times. It is worth going through the entire game once, though.