Decay

The patch just seems pretty buggy in general. Unfortunately, the translation also of extremely poor quality. I can't help you, sorry, but honestly I'd consider giving up on this one because the translation is so awful. It's not worth the effort getting it to work.

Well, it's for a totally different audience. Also while I'm not familiar with it, it seems the game used to be free and they now decided to suddenly start charging for it and took the free version down from its website. One would hope they added something of substance to justify this...

If you don't hate him from the very beginning, then you probably never will. From the very start he was sneaking peaks, flipping skirts, copping feels, etc, and that really aggravated the hell out of me. He gets more tolerable over time.

Most people really hate him, including me. But I dislike perverted protagonists in general.

I actually had this happen to me with Utawarerumono once. It seemed totally random and I don't know why it happened, and it just worked after a few minutes. Makes no sense. Maybe try restarting your computer or something?

It seems like backpedalling but Koestl is still trying to keep people optimistic on the prospects of an 18+ release. If there won't be an 18+ version then they should just keep quiet instead of trying to keep people hopeful. Or better yet, just say straight-out what the current status is. Even if they don't know yet what will be possible, just say that, people will understand.

That's true, something many people don't know is that you are not actually obligated to require steam on a game that releases through steam. Well, you need it to download the game, but there are some DRM-free games on the platform that are able to be run completely outside of Steam. Of course, almost all Japanese VN companies demand that their games come with DRM and it's a really big deal for them for whatever reason. That's why most JAST and MangaGamer releases come with really intrusive DRM, not because they wanted it like that but because their Japanese partners demanded it.

Seinarukana is still in beta testing phases. The translation seems complete but it's a rather large and complicated game with a lot of different stuff to test. Every once in a while you hear talk from someone involved like Aroduc or Doddler about the project. You shouldn't expect it this year, but maybe early next year if we're lucky? Here's the latest post from the translator where it's mentioned: http://tenka.seiha.org/2014/09/obligatory-marketing-post-plus-unrelated-math/#more-24957

They at least attempted to promote Steins;Gate, but Romanesque is admittedly much more niche.

Realtalk: there was a lot of absolute trash that popped up on the new releases list every week so having to click a button to see all of the trash isn't necessarily a bad thing. Steam has been getting closer and closer to the total hellhole that was XBox Live Indie Games every month and this is almost like a step backwards from that progress by having at least some form of control over what is immediately displayed on the front page. And at least the VN that was released at around the same time as this update was kept on the "popular new releases" list, so...

Hopefully it's a much shorter period. The pre-order page is saying that it will be released before the new year, and the translator says that there is practically nothing left to be done, which I assume means it's edited, tested, and all that.

As someone with hundreds of games on Steam, none of the new features actually matter to me either.

Well, this could be totally coincidental but Doddler said that sales for Cho Dengeki Stryker picked up yesterday after the previous day (launch day) was a disappointing slow start. Maybe the update helped them, but the game has only been out for just over two days now so it's impossible to tell. One thing I noticed is that Cho Dengeki Stryker was on the list of "popular new releases". I don't know how they determine what gets filtered out for that list, but it's probably a good thing for CDS as it gets a bit more time in the spotlight.

Minato Carnival, a Minato Soft brand. I'm pretty sure Takahiro controls Minato Soft so one would think he's free to write how he wants.

You've played a lot of the good english VNs but there are still a few left. Maybe try the Overdrive stuff (Kira Kira, Deardrops specifically), or the Liarsoft games Sekien no Inganock and Shikkoku no Sharnoth.

More likely it would be a spoiler to name the games with borrowed plot twists and who they borrow from.

Is there a list of all the different side routes? Are there any besides the ones listed in the OP? About how long are they?

Not gonna lie, I know almost nothing about Ou Jackson.

I'll suggest Umineko as well. Higurashi also has some mind bending moments but the translation is garbage so wait for the retranslation.

I'm honestly more interested in Minato Soft's upcoming Tanaka Romeo game. That's such an unusual pairing.

I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Kill la Kill is much like Sonic Adventure 2 in that they're both highly overrated and actually quite mediocre.

Make sure you're starting a new game from scratch instead of loading save files. I don't think any of the bonuses you get for finish routes actually get enabled unless you start a new game.

Maybe if we all offer proper sacrifices to our beloved gods at JAST we'll finally get that Muramasa translation we've been waiting for. Will goats be enough or should we start off with humans right away?

Well, I don't really read any of their nukige, I was just sort of aggregating the popular opinions. Boob Wars is generally looked down upon and viewed as being quite bad. When Euphoria is released this discussion will become irrelevant anyways, there's no way that doesn't take the top spot from how people seem to worship it.