Alxariam

Hmm, I don't remember any such changes after finishing all 6 routes, just Rin's dialogue changes after completing Rin 1. You DEFINITELY have to play through the entire Rin route, though. If you just start at the end, you won't see a scene at the beginning of the route which is necessary to flag Rin 2.

Do you remember seeing a "Well done!" message after completing the 6th route? If that didn't show up, that means you either missed a route or something caused it not to flag properly. Try playing through the routes again on Skip Mode while using a walkthrough for the choices. It shouldn't take long at all with that.

Did you get the good ending in all 6 routes? Merely playing through them isn't enough.

Oh man, I know what you mean. I like to talk with a friend through Ventrilo while playing a VN sometimes. I've used CTRL as the push-to-talk key for years, and it's a tough habit to break. Oh, and welcome!

Thanks a ton! For now, I guess it would be best for me to learn the Hiragana alphabet? There are some really helpful-looking worksheets on the Tae Kim website, but I won't have access to a printer for another week (at least), so I'm just absorbing as much info as I can before I can get started on those.

I'm finally beginning the long process of learning to read (and maybe speak/listen/write afterwards) Japanese. As a programmer, I'm treating this process a little bit like learning a new programming language. First, I find as many guides and helpful resources as I can find, and then I spend around a week (though I expect to spend longer on an ACTUAL language like this) just learning the the basics, which would be basic grammar rules in this case. For now, I'm starting with Tae Kim's guide to Learning Japanese, since it came highly recommended when I went searching. There were also a lot of resources I found for learning later down the road. Eventually, I'm planning to use VNs to learn, but I don't think starting on VNs would be an efficient way of doing this. Anyways, my question is... are there any tips you can offer a noob trying to learn? Things you wish that someone had told you when you first started?

I don't know if it's exactly what you're asking, but when I think "princess-type heroine", the first VN that comes to mind is Koihime Musou. I'd say you're better off finding info yourself than listening to me try (and fail) to describe it.

Thank you! Fine, fine... I pretty much bawled. I was teary for Masato's farewell, sobbing for Kendo's, then continued like that long after Kyousuke's. I also pretty much never cried before Little Busters, so I figured it was special... then I played Clannad. Thanks! I don't think I even heard the term "visual novel" until I was already playing Little Busters. I somehow lucked into my VN discoveries until then. As for my favorite... I'd have to go with Majikoi. I haven't finished it yet (the wait is killing me), but I just can't find a single complaint with any of the already translated routes. Second would probably be a tie between the Muv-Luv saga and Cross Channel. I've got a thing for unorthodox protagonists. Game programming was actually my second choice. I spent a year in a really good music conservatory to try and get a performance degree, but I ended up realizing it was more of a hobby to me. Now I'm learning all these different languages for my classes, and I'm just absolutely terrible at it. I'm really enjoying it though, and I'm getting better the more I do it. I agree. After I looked through old posts and found a post where Aaeru says "For the normal fans and fan translators out there, we needed a place to talk about visual novel translations without fearing being looked down on (we are all learners). You can translate. And we celebrate fan translation. And no you don't have to start as a superhuman. You can get help here. And no people here won't look down on you. ", I knew I'd found the right place.

I've more or less hit that already. I'm nowhere close to the pace I used to be. Rather than burning through one VN at an absurd pace, I bounce back and forth between 4 or 5 at a time depending on my mood. While I'm interested in this, I feel like I don't HAVE any skills to contribute at the moment. I'm a programmer, but my skillset is pretty minuscule. I also don't have any much knowledge in the translation category.

Hoshizora no Memoria. Probably the longest common route I've ever seen in a VN like this. Just finished up my first route (Komomo) and was quite satisfied at how it all turned out. They make it a little too obvious that you're being misled, though. Now to decide decide between Aoi or Asuho for my next route...

Hey! My name is Alxariam... but I guess you already knew that. I'm currently in my 2nd semester of college working on my Game Programming degree. I'm not too good at this "introduction" business, so bear with me while I jump from topic to topic. I've been reading visual novels since early October. I, like many others, started with Katawa Shoujo. Katawa Shoujo was great, but I think it just piqued my interest more than anything once I had finished it. After I dug around Google for another one to read (which was really hard to do when I didn't even know what a "visual novel" was), I started to play Saya no Uta. It was really mind-blowing to me that something like Saya no Uta even existed, considering how brutal it's content was. I loved every second of it (except the H-scenes), but it ended just as I was getting hooked. Like a junky looking for my next fix, I immediately resumed my search and chose Little Busters! as my next one. I think that was probably the point of no return for me. Little Busters! blew me away in all the best ways. I came, I saw, I even cried "a little" there at the end. After that, it's just been one long, uninterrupted chain of visual novel after visual novel. I'm also interested in learning Japanese at my own pace by attempting to translate visual novels, but I'm not even started on that yet. I don't expect it to go smoothly at all, but I think I'll manage after some blood, sweat, and tears. After going this far, I figured it was time to get involved in the community in some way... and that's when I found Fuwanovel and decided to make an introduction post! I'm looking forward to getting to know you guys. See you around!