Getchu Bishoujo Game Awards 2018 are out

[ChaosRaven]

So Getchu's Bishoujo Game Awards 2018 are out and the glorious winner is: Summer Pockets! Congratulations to Key. 

It follows a list of the twenty best VN's of the contest:

1.) Summer Pockets by Key

(Also winner of Scenario, Music and Movie awards)

2.) Rance 10 by Alice Soft

(Also winner of System award)

3.) Riddle Joker by Yuzusoft

(Also winner of graphics and character awards with Arihara Nanami)

4.) Nukige Mitai na Shima ni Sunderu Watashi wa Dou Surya Ii Desu ka? by Qruppo

5.) Amazing Grace - What color is your attribute? by Cabbage Soft

6.) Fuukan no Grasesta by Eushully

7.) Love x Holic ~Miwaku no Otome to Hakudaku Kankei~ by Atelier Kaguya Bare & Bunny

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(Also winner of Ero award)

8.) Mirai Radio to Jinkou-bato by Laplacian

9.) Motto! Haramase! Honoo no Oppai Isekai Ero Mahou Gakuen! by Milk Factory

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10.) Sora ni Kizanda Parallelogram by Uguisu Kagura

11.) Trinoline: Genesis by Minori

12.) Deatte 5-fun wa Ore no Mono! Jikan Teishi to Atropos by Hulotte

13.) Onee-chan no Yuuwaku by Hibiki Works

14.) Raspberry Cube by Madosoft

15.) Kari Gurashi Ren'ai by Asa Project

16.) 9 -Nine- Sorairo Sorauta Soranooto by Palette

17.) Deep One by Nameless

18.) Kotonoha Maichiru Natsu no Koe by Silky's Plus Dolce

19.) Kuroinu 2 ~In'yoku ni Somaru Haitoku no Miyako, Futatabi~ by Liquid

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20.) Erewhon by Clock Up

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I'm honestly speechless - I've never seen 6 nukiges in the top 20 before. 

Summer Pockets' copy & paste of Island will also hardly win an innovation price with the two most overused tropes in eroge history - school life and time travel.
And most of the other stuff also looks pretty generic. Even a few simple fan discs made it in.

IMHO, only Mirai Radio to Jinkou-bato and Deep One look somewhat interesting. Not even the Eushully title looks particular appealing this time.

While Yuzusoft's Riddle Joker couldn't win the award this time, they're still the top seller according to Getchu's sales ranking 2018.

Overall, 2018 seems to have been a rather weak year for visual novels. 

Edited February 15, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[VirginSmasher]

Extremely surprised to see Deep One on this list especially after the fiasco the episodic shit caused. Other than that, pretty much what I expected from this list. Glad to see a Lucle game getting into the top 10 and still bewildered at how people still enjoy Yuzusoft's mediocrity. 

Also, >NukiTashi being called a nukige omegalul

[ChaosRaven]

13 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Also, >NukiTashi being called a nukige omegalul

It's actually hard to think anything else after reading the synopsis: 

Quote

Seiran Island is a paradise where perverted sex is permitted by law. The transfer student Junnosuke is a proud virgin that steadfastly values chastity. He believes that there should be no sex without love, counter to the rules imposed on the island residents. However, those who do not have sex are subject to immediate arrest, fellatio and intercourse! Will he and his friends be able to escape the clutches of the student council and disciplinary committee, known as the ‘SS’? Their battle to keep their virginity begins!

And I honestly don't think I'd even want to read a 'story VN' with such a plot.

Edited February 15, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[Mr Poltroon]

1 minute ago, ChaosRaven said:

It's actually hard to think anything else after reading the synopsis: 

 

Indeed, the premise is set up to make it look like a nukige. It isn't one so far as I understand, but I am sure there are those who can better explain it, as I've certainly not played it before.
Also, puns. Plenty of puns and jokes, I've been told.

[ChaosRaven]

5 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Indeed, the premise is set up to make it look like a nukige. It isn't one so far as I understand, but I am sure there are those who can better explain it, as I've certainly not played it before.
Also, puns. Plenty of puns and jokes, I've been told.

I guess it's a parody about nukiges then. Though, considering I'm absolutely no fan of comedy VN's and even less of naughty ones, I'd probably even prefer to read a real nukige instead. 

Edited February 15, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[Clephas]

Nukitashi gave me headaches even after I finished it.  It was sort of funny at first, but I had to force myself to finish it...

I'm kind of surprised that Haru to Yuki didn't make it on there.  I'm even more surprised that Love Holic and Kari Gurashi did.

[ChaosRaven]

15 minutes ago, Clephas said:

I'm kind of surprised that Haru to Yuki didn't make it on there.  I'm even more surprised that Love Holic and Kari Gurashi did.

I also expected Koihime - it might not have been perfect, but it was certainly better than a lot of its competitors. 

And Love Holic winning the Ero ward is a joke, I even tried that since it's an Atelier Kaguya title and it was the first Choco Chip title I dropped in the middle because it was so bad.

Edited February 15, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[onorub]

No Butterfly Seeker? It got good EGS ratings, so i expected the japanese audience to put it highly there.

Also, Rance 10 and Summer Pockets alone make this year far better than 2017.

Edited February 15, 2019 by onorub

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Summer Pockets' copy & paste of Island will also hardly win an innovation price with the two most overused tropes in eroge history - school life and time travel.

the fuck you smoking???

Edited February 15, 2019 by Kiriririri

[ChaosRaven]

31 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

the fuck you smoking???

You might consider school life moege with some time loop innovative - I do not.

I'm okay with time travel if it's done on a more scientific base like in Stein's Gate, but that's usually not the case.

My Key fanboy times are long over - though my interest could get rejuvenated if they tried something like Rewrite again. But Summer Pockets certainly doesn't look like that.

Edited February 15, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[Yuuko]

8 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

You might consider school life moege with some time loop innovative - I do not.

You might want to look up Summer Pockets genres before you say stuff like that

[Mr Poltroon]

20 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

You might consider school life moege with some time loop innovative - I do not.

I'm okay with time travel if it's done on a more scientific base like in Stein's Gate, but that's usually not the case.

My Key fanboy times are long over - though my interest could get rejuvenated if they tried something like Rewrite again. But Summer Pockets certainly doesn't look like that.

As far as I'm aware, Summer Pockets is in no way like Island. I believe that is why Kiririri is surprised.
Once again, however, I have not played it. I've only seen opinions on it.

[Stormwolf]

And i want to read it. Damn, time key get off their lazy asses and get it translated post haste.

[ChaosRaven]

25 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

As far as I'm aware, Summer Pockets is in no way like Island. I believe that is why Kiririri is surprised.
Once again, however, I have not played it. I've only seen opinions on it.

I might be reading to much in the 'Island' and 'Time Travel' themes both VN's seem to have. Maybe I was a bit unfair here. In the last few years almost every school life VN I read was a boring snore fest, and now I feel so burned out from them that I tend to react a bit allergic to them. 

I guess it would help to read an actual 'good' nakige again. But the ones I'm actually interested in like Hatsusaku, Tsuriotsu or White Album 2 are all still untranslated.

Edited February 15, 2019 by ChaosRaven

[Yuuko]

12 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

I might be reading to much in the 'Island' and 'Time Travel' themes both VN's seem to have. Maybe I was a bit unfair here. In the last few years almost every school life VN I read was a boring snore fest, and now I feel so burned out from them that I tend to react a bit allergic to them. 

But it is not even school life

[Norleas]

Worst top 3 that I've seen in Getchu awards. Rance in the second place says much about 2018.

[Mr Poltroon]

1 hour ago, Norleas said:

Worst top 3 that I've seen in Getchu awards. Rance in the second place says much about 2018.

Indeed. For Rance to only get 2nd place can only mean that Summer Pockets must be truly spectacular.

[littleshogun]

Time to do the resurrection work on Getchu Awards 2018 here, and I should say that the release is indeed declining, in which unfortunately it keep ongoing until 2022 here. But if this is any consolation, at least we didn't have re-release in that I found both of Hoshiori Perfect Edition and Venus Blood Hollow available in 2021 list (Not that I say both are bad VNs in any mean).

• It's good to see that Mangagamer translate Trinoline FD as well, and I can only comment that it's the FD that depict the after stories for three heroines with two new routes for side heroines. From what I see in the length, it's more or less quite short although at least minori still keep their standard for the graphic.
• In the past Sol Press licensed Nukitashi with our Ittaku did work very hard to finish the translation, although unfortunately Sol Press didn't have enough sales to paid the tax after they spent their money on the unnecessary promotion, so they've been banned to run the business, and obviously their plan to localize Nukitashi is bust. While the title ask us to except this to be a nukige, nowadays people obviously know that there's something more behind the title in that the MC will engage into the fight against the school that promote the free sex (It make sense in the context), because the MC still value his virginity and want to save it for his beloved. Ironically the hidden side of Nukitashi here may cause people to expect too much, especially with one of the victim is the late Conjueror.
• Speaking of Sol Press, they also licensed Mirai Radio, although unlike Nukitashi there's no work being done when the license is under them. Fast forward to now, there's a lot happen with Laplacian, including controversial Aojashin Steam version release, to finally have Mirai Radio license under Nekonyan. For the VN itself, while I can still say that it's good VN, with Aojashin release in English and the working on uncensor patch of it seems to going smoothly, unfortunately Mirai Radio become overshadowed. Still if anything else, at least there's no headache with the censorship here when it'll be released on the next year.
• Raspberry Cube is licensed by Sekai, although unfortunately they only released in Chinese only language. I should say it again that while I can see on why Sekai decided to do so from business perspective, I still don't like what they did here. That aside, it seems that it's quite underrated compared to Wagahigh or Hamidashi here, although at least Madosoft realized they can't just made all of the heroines have big breast, so they made one of them with small breast.
• Frontwing released Oppai Academy in English, which I just noticed that it's another isekai nukige. That aside, I can say that it's a big release from them in a way, and obviously the developer just ask us to enjoy all of the heroines with massive breast (That can make the heroines back hurt in the real life) here. If anything else, at least the costumes that the heroines wore are quite sexy lol. By the way, I should say that it would be better to not think about the premise too much.
• Nine Part 2 is the section when Kazuki Fumi starting to add more info to the Nine series, and as the result it got better reception compared to the Part 1. Then again though, part on why it has better reception might be because of the little sister character Sora. Sekai already translated all of Nine series, so at least you can read the whole series as of now.
• Unlike Amayui duology and Arterial, Grasesta here is worked on by Rhapsody translation team so at least you didn't need to worry whether it'll be MTL-ed or not. That said, perhaps it might be better if Depravity's group take over this seeing that there's no word from the translator in regard of this until now. Grasesta gameplay here is different from their previous one, in that instead of using TRPG this time they tried to do usual RPG gameplay.
• Daybreak translated Onee-chan no Yuuwaku, and it has Indonesian translation too. For the premise, as you can see it's about the perfect big sister that has one flaw, namely that she's a brocon who like to tease her younger brother (The MC). Since this is nukige, the MC will accept the teasing from his older sister and thus they'll have a lot of sex. At least the graphic is quite good, with the artist also design several characters in tone work's VNs (Midori and Touko).
• Riddle Joker is the 10th Yuzusoft VN, and it's been localized by Nekonyan as well. This VN should be a good preview for Dracu Riot to anyone else who decided to just wait for Nekonyan version of it, seeing that mod Clephas here did say that Riddle Joker greatly resemble Dracu Riot. Oh yes the heroines here are based on the symbol in playing card suit, and I like on how the opening director introduce the main heroines in the opening based on the dominance order starting from the highest to the lowest (Spade > Hearts > Diamond > Club).
• Rance X is the grand finale for all of Rance series that Alicesoft made over in almost 30 years, and while initially I question about the ending in hindsight perhaps it's the fitting ending for the franchise. In here our Rance decided to help all of the countries rulers (Who already the acquaintance with Rance in one way or another, mostly through sex) who gather to fight the fiends, and of course naturally the fiends gather to do the counterattack. The gameplay here is like gacha game, although instead we can get all the cards for free. Mangagamer already got the license of this, although thanks to the massive size of this the translation work on this is still not finished yet with the last time I see it's at 47% translated.
• Summer Pocket here is not following Island for the info, but instead it follow all of past KEY VNs in which understandably people would didn't like it, although if one want to think positively it mean it made the VN being nostalgic. I think anyone here already know about the premise, so I'll just directly say that it's all age VN in the first place. Also it has quite unique situation in that it has two version with both have English release, with Visual Arts themselves released the vanilla version in 2020 and Alka Translation (The fan group) did release the Reflection Blue version in June 2022. I would say that if you want the full experience of it, then I recommend you to try the Reflection Blue one, and for the info it should be obvious that both version didn't have sex scenes.

For the rest of the VN, Sora no Kizanda Parallelogram premise is obviously like Aokana, Amazing Grace has surprisingly nice story despite the cute graphic, Deep One has saddled with some controversy, and Deatte seems to be the most well received Hulotte VN so if possible I hope that either Nekonyan or Shiravune will localize this in the future. That's all for my very belated comment on Getchu Awards 2018, and times do wonder here even though it's not as much as previous years.

Edited January 4, 2023 by littleshogun