Zalor

For downloading eroge right OP: What I've noticed in the around 8 years that I have been active on various forums is that forums themselves are a pretty bad place to make friends with people. That is, if you only interact with those people on forums. Forums are a great place to talk about a common hobby, and to get help and trade advice for things related to the hobby. And hell, it can also be a good place to meet some people initially. But ultimately, people on forums who seem to be the closest with each other are people who also interact with each other on Skype, Discord, or some other IRC client. Something that I have never been able to get into myself. What I like about forums is that they are somewhat formal. The types of conversations that happen on IRC, are honestly pretty dumb and stupid most of the time. Or rather, IRC seems like a waste of time to me since the time spend on that I could be either socially active irl instead, or be doing one of my own hobbies.

I can never forget the backgrounds in Symphonic Rain. I think that VN had some of my absolute favorite backgrounds:

I couldn't recommend this one enough. I love denpa, and it was this VN that got me to fall in love with that genre. According to the TLwiki page, the translation is at 42%. So, probably in a year or two the translation will be done. And maybe they will release a partial patch sometime in between too. As for already translated titles, Saya no Uta is great. And I've only heard good things about Phenomeno. So I'm vouching for the people who recommended those.

Death isn't something that scares me much personally. Perhaps I have this perspective now because of my young age (I just turned 20 two months ago). Or maybe it is because the closest person to me that died was my paternal grandfather. And that doesn't compare to losing a parent. Furthermore, he suffered from Alzheimer's his last few years, and so in his case I felt death was a kind of blessing. So perhaps when I experience what you experienced, my view may change. But the reason that I don't fear death, is because there are 2 possible outcomes as I see it. 1) You permanently lose your consciousness, which wouldn't feel like anything. It's like when you sleep a dreamless night, you don't feel the time change at all. So if that is what happens after you die, you won't notice anything. 2) The other option, is that our spirit/consciousness/atoms, etc, manifest into something different. In which case, our life will continue in a different form. Actually, in a VN I just finished (Suba Hibi), there was an interesting conversation between 2 characters where they were talking about the universal feeling of fearing death. And one of the characters brings up, that fearing the unknown and new is natural. That in a similar way that humans fear death, babies perhaps fear life. The incessant crying of a new born baby, could very well be understood as a fear and terror of life. Something they have no concept of or experience with. Indeed, the very beginning of life is probably in many ways just as terrifying as the end of life, its just that we can't remember what the beginning of life is. The question of immortality and continuing life longer than natural, is something I would pass up on. I could continue speaking, but incidentally the same VN I mentioned previously has another interesting scene regarding immortality. And it just so happens that this very scene is uploaded on Youtube from the partial translation patch. So here is the video:

I'll be honest with you, after I backed this VN I got distracted with life and kind of ignored all the Emails. Honestly I can wait for the physical copies to ship, but what happens if you were a backer and didn't fill out this survey? Did I miss the boat to get a steam code?

I really hope Subahibi is out by this December. Especially since there has been virtually no updates about it. I hyped so many of my friends for subahibi that if the translation is not out by the end of the year they will probably stone me to death.

Sounds fun, thanks for reaching out to us! Just submitted my nominations.

So actually, this thread really got me thinking about this a lot in relation to Suba Hibi. And I just posted a fairly extensive analytical post on Suba Hibi where one of the key things I address is exactly this. Basically, the VN is structured in such a way, where you are highly encouraged to read it at least 2 times. Furthermore, I avoided any spoilers. Here it is.

*This post contains no spoilers! Before starting this post, I suppose that I should give a brief introduction and summary for Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai (Our Wonderful Everyday ~Discontinuous Existence). However, Asceai in his review of the VN probably gave the best and most condensed summary for this fairly complicated story. So I will borrow his words: “Subarashiki Hibi is a story told in six chapters. The chapters are of varying lengths and structure, but for the most part, they cover the month of July 2012 from a number of different perspectives. The story begins in chapter #1, 'Down the Rabbit-Hole" on July 12, 2012. The protagonist; Minakami Yuki; lives a peaceful everyday life with Tsukasa and Kagami; her childhood friends; when one day she meets a mysterious girl, Takashima Zakuro (a girl in another class in Yuki's school, who seems to have met Yuki before but Yuki does not remember this). The next day, she learns that Takashima Zakuro has killed herself. Rumors in school are abuzz about predictions of the end of the world in 2012 - one of which is a Web site called the "Web Bot Project", a network of crawlers designed to harness the 'collective unconsciousness' to make predictions. A boy in Yuki's class named Mamiya Takuji stands up and makes an apocalyptic prediction, stating that the world will end on the 20th, and that Zakuro's death was the first sign. He speaks of an event he dubs "the Last Sky", where the world will be destroyed and reborn. The clock is ticking and more people die as the prophesied date draws closer and closer while Yuki attempts to get to the bottom of the identity of Mamiya Takuji, the Web Bot Project and the Last Sky.” Although this is a highly accurate plot summary of Suba Hibi that avoids spoilers, what a prospective reader of Suba Hibi should also know, is that the story is divided into two parts. The two parts are fundamentally interlinked, but are also kept separate. And it is this aspect of the visual novel that really defines it as a masterpiece. There is the part of the work that is a story, and then there is the part that is a philosophical work. Both parts are handled excellently well, and mix together in a fascinating and integral way. Simply, these chapters: Down the Rabbit Hole 2, It's My Own Invention, Looking-Glass Insects, Jabberwocky, Which Dreamed it, Jabberwocky 2, and the first two epilogues are a complete story. The VN very well could have been just these parts, and it would have been a damn good work of art. And yet, the visual novel is not just these parts. Down the Rabbit Hole 1, End Sky 2, and all the scenes with Ayana throughout all the chapters are included as well. And by virtue of just being there, it forces the reader to question why? These parts add nothing to the actual narrative of the story, and yet it is these parts that mark the very start and the very end of the story. With a mysterious girl named Ayana showing up periodically throughout the story to remind us not to get too caught up in the events of the story. That while the narrative part of the story is fascinating, and very easy to get lost in. There is a whole deeper layer to everything going on that we will only get a clue of at the very end. Down the Rabbit-Hole 1, which I will refer to as Chapter 0, gets a lot of flak for being considered a weak start to an otherwise excellent story. And although Down the Rabbit-Hole 1 does have a fair bit of fluff, it is an absolutely integral part of the story. As an introduction, Chapter 0 has the role of establishing what kind of mind set the reader should approach this story with. And it is for this reason that Chapter 0 is so important. Suba Hibi is a philosophical work above all else. Upon finishing this story, you get the feeling that Sca-ji (the primary creator) wanted to write a philosophical thesis of his own, but then decided to create a whole visual novel instead. And I'm so glad he chose that route. By using fiction to express these concepts, and forcing the reader to see the story not as a story but as a world of its own, it gets us to see the relevance of said philosophies. The whole story is essentially there to create a conversation about various philosophical topics, with solipsism being one of the big ones. This is what Chapter 0 exists for, to get the reader to understand that the events we will see unfold as the actual story progresses is not meant to be just mere entertainment (and oh boy is it a thrill ride), but to keep in mind that there is even deeper subtext to everything going on. Takashima Zakuro, the girl whose suicide is the triggering point, or perhaps even the direct cause of all the events that follow, plays an entirely different role in Chapter 0. With the exclusion of this chapter, she is a normal character and even the primary protagonist of the Looking Glass-Insect chapter. But in Chapter 0, she has the role of being a character that knows what is going on. A role that she shares only with Otonashi Ayana (except that Ayana retains that role throughout the entire duration of the story, not just in Chapter 0 as is Zakuro's case). When reading Chapter 0, we are told and even see some interesting and cryptic things, but have no way of piecing those things together. Thereby giving you enough information to be curious about the under workings of everything that is going on, but with no means of figuring that out yourself without continuing into the proverbial “Rabbit Hole”. It is for that reason that Suba Hibi is first and foremost a philosophical work, because above all else our purpose is to try to figure out what is going on. And once the story really gets rolling in Down the Rabbit-Hole 2, we experience the main events from a myriad of unreliable perspectives. Meaning that trying to figure out what is going on is less like a puzzle as would be in a typical mystery, but more about determining what makes the most sense from the scrambled information we get. In fact, without giving any major spoilers, it is made quite clear at the very end of the story that interpreting the story is the only solution we have, meaning that everything isn't laid out clearly by the end. Which once again, adds significance to Chapter 0. Upon finishing Suba Hibi (meaning reading End Sky 2), you will want to reread Chapter 0 since now we as readers will no longer be in Minakami Yuki's shoes as we were the first time. Throughout the whole first reading of the story, Chapter 0 was nothing but a source of questions. Upon the second time, it is our source for answers. We have the necessary knowledge to be sharing the table with Takashima Zakuro and Ayana, since this time around, like them we will also know what is going on. When Zakuro and Ayana spoke to Yuki in our first reading, it felt like the two characters with any sort knowledge of what was really going on were keeping us in the dark. They would give subtle clues, but those clues were useless at that time. In the second reading of chapter 0, as readers we are equals in knowledge to Ayana and Zakuro and can finally make use of those clues. And the VN understands this. In fact, Ayana first introduces herself in Chapter 0 by saying “It's been a while”, addressing herself not to Yuki, but to the audience. The true meaning of this remark is very apparent to a second time reader, and instantly reminds you of the conversation you had with Ayana in End Sky 2.Although in a first reading, you probably will easily disregarded this, thinking that Ayana and Yuki briefly met before, and that Yuki simply doesn't remember. And it is here where the role that Ayana and Zakuro play differ in Chapter 0. (Here is an upload of that entire first encounter with Ayana in Down the Rabbit Hole 1, English subtitles are available) When Zakuro speaks, she is speaking to Yuki the character, not us the audience. Ayana however, really speaks directly to us, the audience (in all the chapters of this story), and that “it's been a while” (久しぶり) is essentially proof of that. As you progress in the story and work through the other chapters, Takashima's role is quite different from Chapter 0's, and she is much more ignorant compared to her chapter 0 self. Ayana however, no matter what chapter you read (and therefore which character's perspective you are seeing), is the exact same. In a story so filled with inconsistency, she is always the one consistent factor. Which goes back to my first point, just as Chapter 0 and End Sky2 are separate from the main story, so is Otonashi Ayana. Suba Hibi is not a simple story, and it is not meant to be only enjoyed for its emotional highs and lows; it's strange beginning makes that clear. Furthermore, during the process of reading, in case you ever forget that, Ayana is always there to remind you of that fact. Especially with the appearances she makes near the climax of the story in various chapters. But perhaps what I love most is the use of perspective. Returning to a previous point, in your first reading of Chapter 0 you will naturally orient your own perspective with Yuki's since all the information we receive in that chapter is from her. In fact, the whole story is told from the first person perspective of various unreliable narrators. And in every chapter we will identify our understanding of things from that character's point of view. But by the second reading of the story, because we have a complete picture of everything, there is a dichotomy between the reader, and the protagonist's narration. An artificial feeling that we are in a third perspective emerges. Because at this point we can balance what the protagonist perceives, with an objective understanding. Which causes us to identify with out own (third person) perspective of the story, rather than submitting to the protagonist's point of view. The more the reader develops their own personal perspective of things, the more they can relate to Ayana. The one character whose role is simply to be an objective observer. In a first reading, conversations with Ayana seem like she is teasing the reader for how little they actually know of what is going on. But this is because in a first reading, we identify with whichever protagonist's perspective we are seeing. Ayana is teasing us the reader by teasing the character she is talking to. The more we identify with the character's point of view, the more annoying and weird Ayana seems. But the more we identify with our own perspective (meaning by having read everything already), the more Ayana feels like an equal talking to us. Since just like the reader, she is the only other objective perspective on everything. In fact, this brings us back to the fact that unlike a book, where a first person narrative is without dispute a first person narrative. This is a visual novel, with choices. Even with all the information presented to us is in first person, it is by nature of its medium a third person experience since we dictate the story at certain key points. And Ayana is there to remind us that we like her, are experiencing things from an objective point of view.

Going to bump this, since well, I was thinking about starting a similar topic. This VN completely defied all my expectations. It is one of those works of fiction that I can wholeheartedly still recommend despite some of its flaws. Or rather, I should say that despite its flaws, I still see it as near perfection. The way I see the VN, is that it is divided in two significant parts. There is the part of the VN that is a story, and then there is the part that is a philosophical work. More specifically, I think that these chapters: Down the Rabbit Hole 2, It's My Own Invention, Looking-Glass Insects, Jabberwocky, Which Dreamed it, Jabberwocky 2, and the first two epilogues to be a complete story. The VN very well could have been just these parts, and it would have been a damn good VN. A 9/10 for sure. And yet, what makes it a true masterpiece, is the inclusion of Down the Rabbit Hole 1 + End Sky 2 + plus all the scenes with Ayana spread throughout the other chapters. It's the inclusion of these parts, that forces the reader to be in conversation with the story. It forces us to not just be the casual observers of this tale, but to really think about what is going on. It's like Sca-ji wanted to throw his two cents on the concepts of solipsism and other philosophies, and decided to create a whole VN as his thesis. And by using fiction to express these concepts, and forcing the reader to see the story not as a story but as a world of its own, it gets us to see the relevance of said philosophies. In anycase, the more I am writing, the more I am realizing I should probably write up a blog post instead. So I will probably do that in the near future. Regardless, I can now see why so many exalt this VN as one of the best in the medium, and I am now one of those people exalting it.

I really took my time with this one (mostly because I got really busy with school and then distracted with other stuff), but today I have finally finished my experience with Subarashiki Hibi. I really had some mixed views at first, but I can whole heartily say that this is without a doubt one of my absolute favorite VNs now! Holy shit, Tsui no Sora 2 really blew my mind, but at the same time was the ending that I was really craving for. The other two endings provided me with nice emotional catharsis, but they still left so many questions unanswered. Notably the relevance of the first chapter. But now after having read Tsui no Sora 2, I just... I just... I just can't express my thoughts in words. It was a fantastic ending! Now I am rereading the first chapter, and it is all finally making sense now. From start to finish Otonashi Ayana has been my favorite character. Also, I love how at first I really sympathized with Mamiya and hated Tomosane. But as things unraveled, my feelings towards the two characters completely altered. I am really impressed by how the story got me to hate Tomosane's guts, and then later on got me to completely root for him.

@Kiriririri and @Decay I see. I understand that these things can take time, but something that frustrates me even more is the lack of communication with the fanbase. I will confess here, that I hardly look at VN related news. But I am pretty sure that aside from the big announcement a year and a half ago that Subahibi will be localized, there has been little updates about this since. If progress is slow, that still doesn't justify not communicating on updates and such. I would at least like to know the progress of the situation. And I don't think I am alone in that.

With VNs, I think its more like a book. If you like the story and characters a lot, you will eventually want to reread the story. In fact, this past Christmas I reread Swan Song after having first read it like 5 years ago, it was great to go back to it. Also, I just finished reading Subarashiki Hibi today, and holy shit, that VN was written to make you want to reread it after you finish the experience. At the very least it makes you want to reread the first chapter.

Sorry for the Necro, but this is the best topic to post this in. So I just more or less finished this VN (I only have End Sky 2 left to read). And I love it, soooo much! I had some mixed views of it early on, but it really is one of those VNs that I think everyone should read. Hell, I've even been telling my irl friends about it (well, the ones that like anime and stuff that is). Because I know that the translation is basically done, the only thing we are waiting on are the localizers to release it. And here is something that really pisses me off and that I don't understand, why the hell have the localizers not released this yet!?! According to the TLWiki page, the translation is 100% done. So then why in God's name have the localizers been just sitting on this gold mine for over a year and a half with no news!?!? I just can't understand, if the hard part was already done when they took the project from the fan-translation team (they got the translation around 100% done), why is it taking so God damn long to release this to the public?

I mean, knowing and actively studying any Japanese will help with reading VNs. But if you are asking if N5 level of Japanese is enough to read VNs, not really. Well, if you are reading with a Text Hooker and have N5 Japanese you should be able to get by at a slow reading pace, though that will also depend on the VN you are reading. Having Japanese at around N3 should allow you to read VNs at a decent pace with a Text Hooker. And at N2 (really N1) you should be able to read VNs without any text hooking software. In other words, dear god don't stop studying after you get to N5, keep studying Japanese and read VNs on the side and you will improve in no time.

I see, haha. Well, if for whatever reason you find yourself in Tokyo and aren't with your friends, hit me up. Most of my friends aren't into VNs either.

I got a Windows 10 laptop this past Christmas and was a bit worried about compatibility issues as well. However, everything was actually fine. All the VN's I wanted to transfer worked fine, and the new ones I downloaded also worked. The only problem I had was with Tokeijikake no Ley Line, and even with that the problem was not with running the VN. Rather the problem was with the NODVD patch. They only have a NODVD patch for Win7, not Win10. But if you have the actual discs, then that VN will work just fine. Out of curiosity where will you be studying? Incidentally I also will be studying abroad in Japan for a year starting this September. I will be in Tokyo. If you will also be in Tokyo than it might be nice to hit up Akiba together to buy some VNs. I already went last summer and found a great store where you can get VNs for a great price. It would be nice to go shopping for VNs with somebody else who actually cares about them.

Yeah, although from what I heard it was really only the Robot-maid girl (Multi)'s route that was a true Nakige from my understanding. One of these days I should give it a read for historical reasons if for nothing else. I do fear that it probably hasn't aged well though.

Oh my god, Snow was one of the biggest disappointments ever for me, regarding VNs at least. I love snowy atmospheres, I love Kanon, I loved the Opening, I really thought I was going to like this one. But yeah, the writing was absolutely piss-poor. Coming from somebody who genuinely tried liking it, it really is a trash title.

I'm glad that you enjoyed my piece on Saya no Uta! Also, sorry for responding a bit late, Finals have been killing me. As for my Narcissu one, here is the link: https://fuwanovel.net/2015/01/narcissu-and-death/ The post is a bit old and it seems I need to update the pictures I used in the post.

Incidentally, I was looking through Kickstarter yesterday and noticed this title. It looks really interesting, and I think it is a Visual Novel that many Fuwan's may end up endorsing. Certainly I will. Thanks for working on an Original English Language visual novel that has genuine heart in it and isn't just a cash grab! It looks really good!

Thanks so much. Due to time difference I'm responding a little late, so sorry about that. But I appreciate the mention! And yeah, I've been here for a while, lol.

That sounds fantastic! Thanks for the clarifications.

This sounds fantastic! As somebody who does not know a whole lot about VN development, could you tell me how this differs from Renpy? My understanding is that Renpy is a pretty accessible platform to create VNs in with minimal programming knowledge. So I am curious what the big differences are between the two. Also, sorry that this question is coming from somebody that isn't that well informed.

Swan Song, Narcissu, and Yume Miru Kusuri are three of my favorites as well man! I would highly recommend Symphonic Rain.