sanahtlig

...people have things to look forward to? Must be nice.

Hmm, but how would this apply to lolicon VNs? I think this sort of rule fails to account for the porn factor, or more generally the escapist factor (of wanting to transport oneself to a world different from our own, and perhaps see it from a perspective different from our own).

JAST released Starless yesterday. I'm sure Zakamutt has an announcement and in-depth impression in the works. Tay could be writing it at work as we speak.

When in doubt, I rely on the following general strategy where a glut of reviews exists. I call it "Evaluation by Critical Thinking". It assumes that any given person is biased, and thus comments that contradict the overall evaluation are more trustworthy or notable. 1) Identify positive aspects of the game highlighted in negative reviews. 2) Identify negative aspects of the game highlighted in positive reviews. 3) Synthesize negative + positive aspects highlighted above to arrive at a fairly objective assessment of the game in question. While it requires a decent sample size of reviews, this strategy doesn't require any one of them to be particularly high quality, and as such it's well suited when all you have is a bunch of user reviews on a site like GameFAQs.

The official non-official patch has been released. Notably, it was released before the download version went live on JAST USA. Direct download [linking torrents no longer allowed Fuwa 2015]

By "minor wall-of-text", he means "17-page dissertation". And that was just the introduction. The details were confidential.

I'm hoping the Shiny Days decensor patch will also be released simultaneously with the game. I went ahead and preordered the LE since I trust JAST to make good on their word, but I won't actually play it til the patch is released. Ironically, JAST isn't the only English publisher to advertise on sites that illegally distribute their games. It makes you wonder why Fuwanovel, a site that never distributed official English releases to begin with, was never able to develop an affiliate relationship with any of the English publishers...

I see positive changes. Every post on the front page has the author listed (sadly several of the articles were ghostwritten by someone other than the author listed). This is important because Zakamutt probably doesn't want to be known as the lolicon who promotes censorship, NTR, and School Days. The VNTS posts are finally not dominating the front page and recommendations. It's a little easier to find content by type. I still think there should be a complete list of tags either somewhere on the front page, or a clearly labeled link that leads to such a page. The category headers (opinion, new releases, etc.) should be clickable, bringing up a full list of all posts in that category.

The issue I have is that my hands and wrists often bother me (I spent most of my waking hours at a PC). The drag-and-click motion is particularly hard on the hands. I wouldn't be able to play much if I had to do that all the time.

The key is the jealousy factor. The problem I have with most netorare VNs is that netorare is treated as sexual fetish material and the jealousy factor isn't properly leveraged. Good netorare can't be avoided with obvious choices, or there has to be consequences for avoiding it. In other words, it has to be experienced against one's will. School Days is an example of properly executed netorare, even though it was a minor theme.

Netorare is a very specific fetish where your significant other is stolen from you. The Western equivalent is cuckoldry; the Japanese term literally means "taken". Netori means to steal someone's else's lover.

I recommend School Days for the indecisive.

I find that I gravitate towards the heroine that gets more screen-time / development. Which is usually the main heroine. A recent exception that comes to mind is Parasyte. I really really liked Kana Kimishima and I was really disappointed when the relationship with her went nowhere.

It's not really a moral value issue. The problem is that that there's a very low tolerance among the Western audience for hetare protagonists that get their girl stolen from them, which is pretty much an NTR staple. The sort of NTR that would appeal to a Western audience would be the type where the blame would fall squarely on the female, I think. In other words, a "slut" type heroine that betrays the protagonist.

There's really no good NTR games in English. All I could recommend are Japanese titles. School Days is what got me interested in the genre, but NTR is only a minor theme there.

The entire concept of moe is sexist. It's pretty self-evident. VNs largely cater to male sexual fantasies. And ironically, the ones catering to female fantasies are just as bad about it. As long as gender stereotypes exist, sexism is inescapable. Yet a world without gender roles is probably a world desired by very few, as it would deconstruct the mating ritual we call "dating".

The Japanese in Cross Days wasn't too hard, since it's pretty much all dialogue. A potential issue is that you'll have to get used to speed reading, because it's an interactive movie just like School Days (you can pause every line, but that gets annoying). I thought it'd be tricky, but it wasn't really that bad. Unfortunately, the dialogue choices don't hook, so you're on your own with those. Timed choices that don't hook kind of suck. And rewinding so you can see the choice again can cause the game to crash...lol, you can see where this is going. I wrote a Cross Days review, so you might want to check that out.

“Why would I want to read about high schoolers [instead of adult characters]? And why are so many VNs told from that perspective?” Because it would be kind of odd to have a harem of high school girls as an older guy. ... It all boils down to the moe element. Romantic comedy is a very popular genre, and high school is the most natural setting for such titles.

For those curious about other entries in the series, I've posted a review of Japanese-language title Cross Days, an alternate retelling of School Days from the perspective of Yuuki Ashikaga. Cross Days: A trainwreck as enthralling as it is infuriating Also, JAST has updated the release date for Shiny Days. It's now slated for an August 25, 2015 release.

Makoto Itou is often vilified as the worst VN protagonist ever. These people clearly haven't played Cross Days. VNDB Getchu Cross Days is a retelling of the events of School Days from the perspective of Yuuki Ashikaga, a boy in the same year as Makoto Itou, the protagonist of School Days. Yuuki is childhood friends with Hikari Kuroda and a member of the library club, and his older sister Chie belongs to the basketball club. Good-natured but indecisive, he often puts the needs of others before his own because he can't muster the courage to say "no". His sister introduces him to Roka Kitsuregawa, whom he quickly develops a crush on. Roka likes him too but misunderstands his relationship with Hikari. Roka tells Yuuki she's going out with Makoto to make Yuuki jealous. Kotonoha, who frequents the library, tells Yuuki she's Makoto's girlfriend, yet Makoto's classmates say he's going out with Sekai. Swept up in romantic intrigue, Yuuki has to figure out how to convince Roka that he's serious about her while getting her to give up on Makoto. Much of the plot of Cross Days revolves around romantic misunderstandings, often reinforced and propagated by gossip. Yuuki and Roka are the main couple, while Makoto and Kotonoha are the secondary couple. The way these relationships play out forms the crux of the plot. The story begins with Makoto in a relationship with Sekai, following the route in School Days where Makoto pairs up with Sekai almost from the start. Sekai herself is a minor character. Unlike School Days's Makoto, the plot of Cross Days doesn't revolve around the protagonist Yuuki, and this is a core weakness. Yuuki is very much swept up in the events occurring around him, and he is unable to directly solve the problems he's confronted with. Instead, his influence is indirect--he influences other actors who have the power to change events, such as Makoto. Cross Days is as much about the various characters surrounding Yuuki as it is about Yuuki himself, and as a result the experience ends up feeling rather fragmented. Much of the game is spent viewing events from an "outside" perspective other than Yuuki's, really reinforcing the feeling that this isn't Yuuki's story. As a player, I felt alienated by the arbitrary perspective shifts that often had no direct relation to the events surrounding Yuuki. This leads to one of the game's main issues: the hopelessly convoluted scenario. The triggers for the various branches in the game's plot are cryptic and difficult to comprehend even in retrospect, much less when you're encountering them for the first time. As a player, you end up feeling very much like Yuuki--lost and fumbling about at random as situations spin out of control in often ludicrous fashion. This is in contrast to School Days, where there was usually a clear connection between Makoto's choices and downstream consequences. The choices in this game left me befuddled, and I ended up using a walkthrough after wandering aimlessly through the scenario a few times and haphazardly hitting the major routes. In some cases, the flow diagram in-game isn't even accurate (i.e., flowing one-way from left to right)--instead you can end up on a route that retraces to an earlier branch point. The scenario was patched to fix some of the divergence issues, but this actually makes the problem even worse because it breaks the earlier fan-made guides. I was unable to get most of the endings in the boys' love route because I couldn't figure out the proper sequence of choices even after trying several different guides. The game has many of the same problems as School Days. It crashes/hangs frequently, especially if you scene skip in a scene with a choice. The problem is more acute in Cross Days because there's no "skip to the next choice" feature as there was in School Days HQ. Like School Days, the scenario consists of many puzzle pieces intended to fit together in many different configurations--but not all the configurations tell a cohesive story. Certain paths detour around scenes that are necessary for explaining/instigating downstream events. Cross Days features a total of 22 endings (8 are in the BL route, which I haven't fully explored). The endings I saw were all distinct. There's some distinct routes that diverge midway, such as the ones focusing on BL and Ai Yamagata. The actual divergence has nothing to do with these themes however. Sadly many of the endings have no epilogue (especially the ones ending in H-scenes), so there's a nagging lack of closure. Reflecting the overall feel of Cross Days, many of the endings are "bad ends" for Yuuki and Roka. The game is hard to evaluate. Despite all the problems, Cross Days captivated me for several days straight. I literally did nothing in my free time except play this game. Roka makes a great main heroine, and her jealousy is positively adorable. Her push-pull relationship with Yuuki is a highlight of the game. I was disappointed however that there was no opportunity to pair up Yuuki with Kotonoha. The setting has incredible detail that emerges when you explore all the different routes, conveying the sense of a truly living world. You end up missing much of the backstory if you only play through to one or two endings. The animation is engaging, with visual cues used to convey information layered on top of the dialogue. There isn't much fluff dialogue that serves no purpose in the story. Cross Days is a rare interactive movie VN with a highly dynamic scenario that evolves based on your choices. If that's your cup of tea, there's hardly any alternatives to the School Days series. If you liked School Days, you should give Cross Days a try--but realize that the experience is different. Cross Days was clearly intended to be experienced after School Days, so don't make this your first sampling of the series. If you didn't like School Days, you probably won't like Cross Days, as it sports one of the weakest protagonists I've come across in a VN, and makes Makoto look like Rance by comparison. Score: 7/10 (including -1 penalty for crashes and freezes) Recommended for fans of series who have already played School Days and Shiny Days and are hungering for more. I played this title in Japanese. If you're interested in seeing Cross Days in English, support JAST USA's English releases of School Days HQ and Shiny Days and let JAST know you're interested in Cross Days on their new official forums.

In a feature article on my personal blog, I delve into the controversy surrounding JAST's censorship of Shiny Days. Starting with official statements by JAST and its staff members, I collect and critically evaluate available evidence and reach a seemingly paradoxical conclusion: that those who champion freedom of expression should support JAST's censorship of Shiny Days. Whether you're an ardent opponent of censorship or simply curious about the fuss, this is an article you don't want to miss. Why I endorse JAST's censorship of Shiny Days

Take a look at Shiny Days. Supposedly it's lighter with few if any bad endings, so keep that in mind. Cross Days is more along the lines of what you're looking for, but there's been no word of an English release. Otherwise, try this tag search: https://vndb.org/g1182?fil=tag_inc-1182.tagspoil-0.lang-en;m=0;o=d;s=rating

Clephas has mentioned he's interested in writing a VN but couldn't find a suitable artist, so I imagine he's quite serious.

I rather enjoyed the Shingetsutan Tsukihime anime. It's probably in my top 20 favorite anime.