Need help to decide order in which to read and some tips

[Sparteh]

Could someone help me to arrange following VN list in order of difficulty in Japanese from easy to the most difficult:

• Grisaia no Meikyu
• Grisaia no Rakuen
• Aiyoku no Eustia
• Dies Irae
• Mahoutsukai no Yoru
• Root Double
• Soukou Akki Muramasa
• Shinigami no Testament
• Tsubarashiki Hibi
• Dracuriot

 

And give me some hints/tips which would make my life easier when I read? My Japanese level is still very low so I want to try to enjoy these VNs and use easier ones as preparation for more difficult ones

[Infernoplex]

Some of these have English translations, why do you want to read all of them in Japanese? Also, I think Dies Irae is the hardest here, from what I have heard about it.

[XReaper]

i´d say this should do (from fairly easy to rather nightmare-ish, depending on ones knowledge of jp-vocabulary/grammar/historical whatsnot/being used to infodumps, btw philosophy). the first 3 are more or less of the same overall difficulty, grisaia a little worse because of its military jargon & testament - mahoyo are another step above those. better not think about going for the last ones without having at least a little confidence in your skills, which doesnt necessarily mean difficulty-wise, as you can read and understand subahibi without truly comprehending what it´s all about - but who would even do that?

• aiyoku no eustia
• dracuriot
• root Double
• grisaia no meikyu/grisaia no rakuen
• shinigami no testament
• mahoutsukai no yoru
• subarashiki hibi
• dies irae
• soukou akki muramasa

 

[Clephas]

53 minutes ago, Sparteh said:

Could someone help me to arrange following VN list in order of difficulty in Japanese from easy to the most difficult:

• Grisaia no Meikyu
• Grisaia no Rakuen
• Aiyoku no Eustia
• Dies Irae
• Mahoutsukai no Yoru
• Root Double
• Soukou Akki Muramasa
• Shinigami no Testament
• Tsubarashiki Hibi
• Dracuriot

 

And give me some hints/tips which would make my life easier when I read? My Japanese level is still very low so I want to try to enjoy these VNs and use easier ones as preparation for more difficult ones

Dracu-riot

Grisaia series

Subahibi

Aiyoku no Eustia

Shinigami no Testament

Mahoutsukai no Yoru

Dies Irae

Muramasa (Muramasa and Dies Irae are about on the same level)

I haven't read Root Double, so I honestly don't know. 

Edit: Subahibi and Eustia are about on the same level, albeit in different areas (Subahibi has all that pseudo-science/meta BS and Eustia has low-level combat narration and reasonably high-level story narration).  Mahoutsukai no Yoru falls just short of the 'upper-tier' chuunige level, which are all of the highest-difficulty VNs I've read.  Shinigami no Testament has extensive detailed combat narration and some complex story narration.  Dracu-riot is mostly standard charage.  The Grisaia series isn't any harder than Dracu-riot, save that it sometimes hits science-fiction and military terminology that some people might not be familiar with.

[Narcosis]

I wanted to reply, but seeing how Reaper's and Clephas' opinions differ, I will actually abstain from making it even more confusing

[Clephas]

1 hour ago, Narcosis said:

I wanted to reply, but seeing how Reaper's and Clephas' opinions differ, I will actually abstain from making it even more confusing

Mmm... in my case, it might be different because I have no problem with scientific, pseudo-scientific terms or philosophical terms.  That's the only conceivable reason I could come up with for putting Subahibi so high on the list, since the rest of it is pretty standard 'casual Japanese' outside of a few instances where they are actively trying to confuse you.  I also can't conceive of a reason why Eustia would be the easiest, since Yuzu-soft's style is so easy to follow.  Grisaia really is 'standard difficulty' outside of its rare combat scenes, oblique spy and army references, and some of the internal monologues.  There are no really subtle twists to the narration (no poetic phrasing, no deliberate obfuscation, etc) and it doesn't use any unusual kanji or wording for the everyday scenes.  Nasu's style isn't as twisty as Nitroplus or Light, but it is fairly twisty at times, so I based my rating of Mahoyo on my reading of the Japanese version of Tsukihime.  It might be easier, it might be harder, but I seriously doubt it is actually an easy read (Mahoyo is on my 'rainy day' list). 

Edit: Oh and amateur psychobabble that anyone who lived through the nineties can comprehend  is also present in Subahibi...lol

[XReaper]

ayo i did put subahibi high on my list, exactly because of that pseudobabble/meta stuff, in case someone starts reading it without knowing what him/her expects, also without having read any works of philosophy/etc etc etc before. seen enough of ones that got confused like hell from reading through.
and the other 3, like stated above, they are on the same level, i just didnt want to number them all (copy-pasted the middle-points for aesthetical reasons :P)

[Dergonu]

Just going to weigh in and say that if your Japanese level is very low, then reading any of these will prove difficult. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, but just keep that in mind.

Grisaia no Meikyuu and Rakuen were two of my first untranslated VNs, and they were very difficult for me at the time. But, I really wanted to read them, (I didn't know the TLs were coming at the time, lol,) and so I pushed through.

 

I think that motivation and a serious wish to finish the game you are reading is very important when trying to get through untranslated VNs at a low level. A few general tips I'd give you is: don't try to compare the speed in which you read the untranslated VNs in to the speed you read translated ones in. Don't think about how long it is taking you to read, but instead just enjoy the ride. Even if you literally just end up reading 10 lines one day, it's still something.

Don't feel demotivated if you don't understand absolutely everything right away. Sometimes in the early stages, you will encounter certain lines you don't fully comprehend. Instead of wearing yourself out trying to understand that one line, try to think of what is happening as a whole, and use the context as well as the previous and following lines to understand it. Remember that not every single line in a VN is going to be crucial information. Even in the worst case scenario where you don't really understand the scene, you can always save there and come back later.

Best of luck.

[Jartse]

I don't know how you enjoy your VNs, but I would need to be able to read them without going to dictionary (JParser/etc) every few lines to enjoy them - it's just not going to happen in the first few VNs you read.

I won't try to rank them as Clephas and XReaper have already ranked them. My opinion is with XReaper not touch Subahibi till later.

My recommendation is to pick out the common top 5 from those 2 lists above and go for the most interesting VN from the blurb to you - I was in a similar situation starting out to read untranslated VNs after going through months of Tae Kim Grammar/RTK etc, I just bite the bullet and went with Meikyuu/Rakuen (same reasons as Dergonu above). Sure Meikyuu took me 3 months to get through slowly but I never looked back after that.

Now I'm reading whatever VNs I wanted, translated or not (Dies Irae was quite hard to stomach though, slowly going through Muramasa at the moment)

[Sparteh]

Thank you all for opinions. Well, my Japanese level is indeed low, but currently I am already reading my 3rd VN in Japanese. I think that after I finish the franchise I am currently reading (currently finishing Tokeijikake part 2, the last route is remaining and after that 3rd part) I will pick up Grisaia next.