Zalor

What I am about to say is probably not going to be a popular perspective, but from from personal experience I can say this is quite a self-destructive view. I bought into the whole 2D is better than 3D thing throughout 8th and 9th grade. A combination of teenage angst and low self esteem led me to Tohno-chan. Not sure if you know of this site or not, but it is an acronym for: True Otaku Hikikomori Neet Organization channel Spending time on Tohno-chan made me even more reclusive, anti-social and ultimately miserable. It was a perfect example of "misery loves company". Most of the people on that site are fairly depressed and anti-social. I sort of adopted their attitudes and it made it really difficult to make friends, and thus even more difficult to enjoy school. Thankfully for me I met a few other people who were as into Otaku sub-culture as I was. I ended up befriending them and steadily became a more social person. I'm now in my final year of High School and I am on decent terms with all the various social groups. I still primarily hang out with my otaku friends, but they aren't my only friends. I enjoy my life far more than I did during my anti-social years in 8th and 9th grade when I was borderline depressed. As for the 2D women > 3D women argument; I once agreed but now hold the other perspective. During my anti-social days I firmly held this belief, and actively tried to find ugliness in real women. I thought that 2D women were superior because they were made to be. However, I've come to realize that it is the imperfections of real women that flavors their beauty and personality like a spice. Also, whether you like it or not, 2D women can never fill the void of human loneliness. Again, I doubt this will change your perspectives. But I felt like sharing this because when I subscribed to the same views you currently share, I only became more miserable because of them. It was through becoming social and accepting of people that I became happy. Visual Novels and anime are great, but I think it is important and healthy to enjoy them as art forms and not as escapism/substitutes for life.

Won't be participating but I always feel obligated to promote Kanon whenever it's appropriate. Also, Kanon is perfect for the winter.

You and me had a great time in the back of End of the world's car if you catch my drift (reference). This guy's alias is End of the world in an anime: In the anime (Revolutionary Girl Utena) his car is a symbol of adulthood and sex.

I think this is a great idea. I think this could also lead to more organized discussions in the Visual Novel Talk sub-forum. However instead of making this a club, why don't we make a visual novel of the month that will be featured on the site. And then dedicate a thread to which ever VN we are reading each month.

The last VN I read that truly wowed me was Symphonic Rain. While it has quite a slow start, I was truly impressed with the quality of writing when I arrived to the later parts of the story. Symphonic Rain is one of the few VNs I've read that truly knew how to prepare for a plot twist. It is really hard to make a plot twist not seem like an ass-pull, but Symphonic Rain succeeded in doing it correctly.

Dischan's Dysfunctional Systems is a great OELVN. Its a bit short, but Dischan is currently working on another part of the story. Here is a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ho1vyo8lKk The artist for part 1 (the only part currently released) is Doomfest. Doomfest is is in my opinion the best artist in the OELVN market.

How about Oh, and Kanon is realist fantasy. It takes place in a world just like ours except that miracles exist. I don't see how Mai's route bothered you but the other two that I mentioned in spoilers didn't, as they were more supernatural. What I liked about Mai's route is that it left some big open ended questions. Anyway, just read my paper. I think my paper shows how everything in Mai and Sayuri's routes are thematically coherent. Also, if

Yes, Kanon is a great staring point. Kanon was a revolutionary VN that really helped establish story based Visual Novels. Before Kanon visual novels were mostly just hentai games. There were a few that tried to tell a story before Kanon, but it was really Kanon's success that stopped Visual novels from being exclusively porn games. It disappoints me how most people aren't very enthusiastic about Kanon on these forums as it is not only historically important but honestly quite good. A lot of creativity went into most of the character routes. On top of Kanon having some really imaginative stories, it is really well written. I even wrote a whole a whole literary analysis in which I deconstructed a complicated friendship between two characters. (Link to my analysis is in my signature). In conclusion you should definitely read Kanon.

Do you have any advice for people who aren't into math/science. I can't code or anything, so what job could I possible do from home?

Swan Song took me a week, and that was the best week of my life. I haven't found a VN that topped Swan Song for me since. Also, Dysfunctional Systems episode 1 is a really good OELVN. But Dysfunctional Systems took me less than a day to complete.

Nah it's cool. There are personal reasons that resulted in my current view point. A combination of my upbringing mixed with things I've read that influenced my thinking, which resulted in my view that nobody can be absolutely evil. I realize that I'm in the minority of this view though.

Please lets not get into Godwin's law here. Fal is a far cry from Hitler and is incomparable to him. Using a highly exaggerated Hitler comparison is hardly appropriate and a cheap tactic. I will say this regarding the issue. Evil, ironically enough, is an evil word as it drains anything human from the person it is used to describe. All people are human, some are really heavy shades of gray, but no body is pure black on the morality spectrum. Now lets please drop Hitler as he is irrelevant.

Welcome to the forums, its great to hear another indie developer join us. I liked this comment because most good VNs that are currently translated came out 2000 onward. The only VN I think that is worth reading from the 90's is Kanon. But Kanon was released during the tale end of the 90's in 1999. ONE~ was release in 1998 and was decent, but unlike Kanon I wouldn't recommend reading it. (Kanon is really good and I even wrote a whole paper on it). In conclusion there aren't many great old ones if you consider everything 2000 on wards to be modern like I do.

As I wrote later in the post you responded to, "all's fair in love and war". Also my point is not that what Fal did was right in anyway, but that she is simply not evil or a villain. First and foremost I am always skeptical when I hear the word evil because it is a very biased word. Throughout history the winning sides and the losing sides depict each other as evil. But in the end neither are completely innocent. Its just a lot easier to call winners evil because they benefit. What makes Fal's character so great is that she is unscrupulous, but isn't painted in a one dimensional way where she is evil. In fact I would argue that only 1 dimensional characters can be evil due to how biased the concept of evil is. This ties in perfectly with why I hated Lise's route and pretend like it doesn't exist (sorry Lise fans). Grave and Lise are perhaps the worst characters in the VN. All the other characters are three dimensional. Grave is simply portrayed as a complete bastard, (ironically isn't Lise technically a bastard in the classic definition of the word). Grave is evil because he is one dimensional. Evil describes something that is purely bad, that has no redeemable aspect. Meaning evil characters are intrinsically one dimensional because they are only allowed to exhibit one characteristic. This is why Fal isn't evil. The very fact that her character has multiple dimensions means that it is impossible for her to be evil. Is she a bad person? Depending on your interpretation, sure she may be a bad person. But is she evil? No. As for Lise, she is boring and holds almost no relevance to the overall story. At lease Fal served as a romantic rival for Torta As far as I see it, Lise is just there to provide more insight into Grave since Grave is Even though Fal only plays a small role regarding the main story, she does play a role. As far as I remember Lise doesn't really exist outside of the her route, and the common route.

Agree with this aside form the Gigguk part. Gigguk is a clown disguised as a reviewer. His criticisms are minimal and his primary purpose is to rise a laugh. Arkada on the other hand is an actual reviewer and for all my irrelevant criticisms of him, I must say he does his job quite well. You also might want to check out PhantomZwei on Youtube, who by the way is a VN reviewer: His older reviews are exceedingly well written and simultaneously provide necessary information for people not familiar with the work, but also goes a level deeper in analyzing a bit. However, his analytical critiques of writing and characters never spoils anything either. Its hard to explain but he has a great technique. His Kanon review is my favorite of his.

My problem with Little Busters, (and every KEY VN since Clannad) is how f*cking long the VN is. Really, one of the reasons Kanon is still my favorite KEY VN is because it doesn't take forever to read.

I randomly decided to check up on Fuwa while taking a study break, and I'm glad to see that the Symphonic Rain thread is still active. Anyway, I still haven't read Phorni's route (and probably won't get to it until the semester ends), but I still don't see how Fal is a bad person. I feel like this is just going to be a repeat of the discussion we had over a month ago on page 3 of this thread, but being manipulative is human. I am currently reading Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice for school, and that book is about how it was culturally expected to marry for money. Committing yourself to a person for the rest of your life based on economic incentives may seem manipulative, but it wasn't in the 18th century, nor was it for most of history. Marrying for love is fairly new concept that has only really been going on for the past 200, maybe 300 years. My point is that while Fal did initially start a relationship with Chris out of self interest, what is wrong with that? What's more, I think she genuinely does love him by the end of the story. As for the argument that she is monster I'm sorry if I came across as a bit of an asshole in my defending Fal, but when somebody tells me I do take slight offense. I suppose one of the reason's I like Fal so much is because I myself am not much of a romantic. I can like somebody, but if I were to marry somebody I too would do so at least partially out of an economic or social incentive, not purely out of an emotion. If I were Chris I would pick Fal and that is why she is my personal favorite. That said, as a character Torta is the most interesting for analyzing. So personally I like Fal the most, but as a literary critic I like Torta the best. Edit: Somebody should vote for Ms. Cordell lol.

Swan Song is incredibly underrated. It astounds me how Swan Song doesn't get more attention on this site as it is one of the best VN's I have played. Definitely in the upper levels of my top 5 VNs list.