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About this blog

Twitter (for news and announcements)

Steam Curator Page

External Blog

This blog is devoted to popularization (and discussion about) western-produced VNs. My main goal is to present notable non-Japanese visual novels that didn’t receive attention in the Fuwa community and, whenever possible, giving voice to people behind them. Doing this, I hope I’ll be able to give these projects and their creators the appreciation they deserve and oppose some negative stereotypes about non-JP VNs that circulate within our community.

I’m also going to talk about failed VN projects and review newly-released titles of various quality, using this opportunity to discuss the most common flaws and problems characteristic for the western VN development scene and realities of the OELVN market. 

Entries in this blog

The Tail Makes the Fox, Episode 1 (otome VN review)

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free review copy of this game by the developer. All opinions expressed here are solely my own. Be sure to check my interview with Jackie M., founder of Reine Works, the studio behind The Tail Makes the Fox What better way to link my otome-themed weeks and the upcoming yuri event, than with a game that has an equal share of male and female romance options, especially if its one made by a studio most known for their Yuri Game Jam contributions? The Seve
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

1

Wolf Tails (western VN review)

Visual novels with the possibility to choose the protagonist’s gender are fairly rare, and genre's focus on storytelling and romance makes such a gimmick especially hard to pull off properly. Creating games like Loren: The Amazon Princess, with an option to choose between two full-fledged leads, one male and one female, each with their own personality and a set of romance options, takes a lot of work and only fits certain kinds of stories. On the other hand, VNs in which gender choice only chang
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

1

Plk_Lesiak’s Shovelware Adventures: Yume Creations

Welcome to another episode of Shovelware Adventures! This time, we'll take a break from our favourite, the Sakura series, to take a look at a much more obscure corner of the OELVN scene. The venture into commercial visual novel development by the German fan translator working under the label Yume Creations effected in some of the strangest VNs available on Steam and beyond. Combining competent art and interesting ideas with trashy ecchi, pieces of absolutely disastrous, bizarre writing and strai
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

6

Analogue: A Hate Story (western VN review/retrospection)

Analogue: A Hate Story is not a title that necessarily has to be „discovered” or that wasn’t properly appreciated in the time when it came out – among all the VNs developed in the West, it might as well be the one most highly regarded and popular within “proper” visual novel fandom, at least before the recent appearance of Doki Doki Literature Club. Still, it’s a very important game for me personally and for the idea behind this blog, for two reasons. First, Analogue was the first visual novel I
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

6

No One But You (Western VN Review)

In our obscure EVN market, there are rarely games or events that could be described as major controversies – even the most unfortunate releases or Kickstarter disasters usually don’t involve enough people and money to gather the attention of the community for a longer period of time or spark a mass backlash. Along with Aeon Dream Studios’ k-pop fan game debacle (a really amazing story of incompetence and borderline-fraud, if you care to follow it), No One But You is possibly the most controversi
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

15

Even more free yuri OELVNs (Yuri Game Jam, NaNoRenO & more)

Some time ago I've offered you a short list of stand-out Yuri Game Jam VNs - titles that went beyond what you normally can expect from the free game jam entries, presenting compelling stories and surprising aesthetic values. While that list included some of the most-appreciated western yurige, such as well-known Ebi-Hime titles, among hundreds of YGJ and NaNoRenO entries produced over the years you can find many more worthwhile VNs with f/f romance themes that never received similar recognition.
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

7

A Little Lily Princess (western VN review)

Note: This game was already reviewed on Fuwa by Valmore, I encourage you to check out his review as well Those that follow this blog for a while might have noticed that I like to complain about the lack of identity that many Western-made VNs suffer from. As a medium utilized pretty much exclusively by the fans of original Japanese visual novels, EVNs far too often borrow extensively from those when it goes to setting and story elements, to the point of replicating various tiring anime cl
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

1

Thank you all for coming along for this ride! (Indefinite Hiatus)

Hey there all!   I will start with saying  that I really treasure my time spent writing this blog and interacting with various people involved in the EVN community. You guys were awesome company in this journey and despite the obscurity of this project, I feel like it benefited me personally in many ways and maybe even helped people appreciate the value within the non-JP visual novel scene. I'm really thankful to all the people that read my blog, the devs that offered me their time and
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

9

Blackberry Honey (yuri VN review)

Ebi-hime is one of the very few OELVN developers who managed to establish themselves as reliable and respected creators even among the JP-centric visual novel fans. Having released over 20 titles since 2013, both freeware and commercial, she is probably best-known for her yuri titles, such as Asphyxia and The Sad Story of Emmeline Burns, and memorable horror stories, such as Sweetest Monster and The Way We All Go. Most of her work stands out through uncommon, Western settings, a deep connection
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

2

Sweet Volley High (failed VN)

Outside of new releases, I usually try to avoid reviewing bad OELVNs in-detail, unless they’re especially interesting or notable despite their failures – after all, in any semi-amateur game development scene, the poorly-made, misguided or horribly iterative titles will be far more numerous than those actually worthy of your attention. Writing that much about the former, especially when my goal is to promote OELVNs as a niche worth exploring, is arguably a waste of time and possibly even counter-
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

6

Sakura MMO Trilogy (Yuri VN Review)

Winged Cloud, creators of the infamous Sakura series, are visibly past their prime, which shows not only in their diminishing Patreon support and smaller interest in their games in general, but also the lack of marketing effort and innovation. For two and a half year now their VNs are only becoming shorter, simpler and more iterative, making the already not-particularly-impressive projects from the peak of studio’s popularity, such as Sakura Nova or Sakura Fantasy, look like absolute heights of
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

8

My Little Pony fan VNs, part 1

While probably few people following my VN-related writing know that, for quite a long time I had a peculiar relationship with the brony fandom. Being brought into the community by my RL friend, a popular fan-artist working under the pseudonym Pony-Berserker, I’ve written a few dozens of My Little Pony comic scripts and, more importantly, based my master’s thesis on researching the fandom – more specifically, exploring the bizarre world of MLP fan erotica. While my current involvement with Bronie
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

7

Plk_Lesiak’s Shovelware Adventures: straight Sakura eroge, part 1

Before the era of Steam adult patches, Winged Cloud established their brand by creating ecchi VNs, full of partially-exposed anime boobs, panty shots and flirty female characters in highly inappropriate outfits, but nothing that could effectively earn them that appealing “sexual content” tag on VNDB. In late 2015, however, utilizing progressively more widespread techniques of circumventing Steam’s censorship, WC made their move towards becoming an actual eroge developer – and year after that, th
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

4

Sunrider Academy (dating sim review)

The Sunrider series is one of the most successful OELVN franchises – one which not only spawned two highly-appreciated VN/strategy game hybrid titles, but even made a rare attempt at expanding to the Japanese market (at least successful enough that the games’ developer, Love in Space, apparently works on making their upcoming title, JP-idol themed Shining Song Starnova, into another export product, with Japanese voice acting and other elements rarely seen in western-produced VNs). Both the freew
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

3

Sunrider: Mark of Arcadius (VN-hybrid game review)

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is one of the best-known and probably most appreciated western visual novels. Developed by Love in Space and published for free by Sekai Project in July 2014, it was downloaded on Steam by around 600 thousand players and spawned a successful franchise, with its commercial sequel, Liberation Day and dating sim spin-off, Sunrider Academy, both reaching impressive sale numbers and mostly positive feedback from the community.             What’s interesting, Mask of Ar
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

4

Crystalline (Western VN Review)

Disclaimer: I was provided with a review copy of this game by the developer. All opinion presented here are solely my own. PixelFade is a studio that from the very beginning showed an unusually ambitious approach to EVN development. Their first project, Ace Academy, offered some features rarely seen in Western VN of similar scale (~10h of content), such as good-quality, full voice acting and lots of impressive-looking, stylistically consistent artwork. It was also pretty atypical in
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

5

I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator (Free VN Review)

As it’s probably very clear by this point, I like visual novels. Like, a lot. I also happen to like KFC, which definitely places in my top 3 of fast food chains available here in Poland, occasionally coming very close to claiming that number 1 spot. The only thing stopping me from enjoying its antibiotic-filled, industrial chicken goodness every other day is the lack of convenient locales (in stark contrast to McDonald’s, as the closest one is in a very cosy corner just 10-minutes’ walk away fro
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

3

Plk_Lesiak’s Shovelware Adventures: Silver Cow Studios’ Ecchi VNs (non-Time Tenshi edition)

While Time Tenshi, which I covered two weeks ago, is definitely the flagship franchise for Silver Cow Studios, the company never settled for only producing new iterations of their breast-expansion/time-travel formula, releasing two other ecchi VNs since their debut in 2015. Those games, while they didn’t abandon the giant boobs and over-the-top storytelling that could be considered Silver Cow’s staple, offered their own twists to the fanservice-filled and trashy, but hentai-free format. The firs
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

2

Plk_Lesiak’s Shovelware Adventures: fanservice Sakura games, part 1

Welcome back to the Shovelware Adventures, the series that most likely no one was missing, but it came back regardless! It's been a while since I last delved into the Sakura series, so with only a few of those games still not reviewed, and staying true to my grossly counter-chronological coverage of the Winged Cloud’s trashy catalogue, let’s finish it where everything started. When Sakura Spirit appeared on Steam in mid-2014, on what was still a fairly barren EVN landscape, it quickly became som
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

3

Sable Grimoire – Tix’s Route (VN DLC Review)

Sable’s Grimoire was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and enjoyable OELVN releases of 2018 – the expansive, story-driven VN with a very unusual approach to the theme of monster girls impressed me both with the sheer amount of content and the stories it told. Featuring various mature themes but essentially devoid of sexual fanservice (if you didn’t read my original review, check it out here – it also includes a lengthy interview with the game’s developer, Zetsubou), it was a rare kind
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

0

My Magical Demon Lover (Yaoi VN Review)

Yaoi VNs, and yaoi media in general, are something I know quite a bit about “in theory” – even beyond the discussions in the VN community, you can’t get far into fan studies academic literature without seeing substantial mentions of both Western slash fan-fiction and Japanese yaoi doujin in every other article. Still, in practice, BL VNs were something I was always hesitant to pick up, not really because of being “scared” of male gay romance, but simply because of it having lower appeal to me th
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

3

Doki Doki Literature Club Purist Mod (VN fan modification review)

Warning: Major spoilers for the original Doki Doki Literature Club ahead! The viral success of Doki Doki Literature Club in late 2017 sent shockwaves throughout the visual novel world, sparking some highly polarized reactions. While many hardcore VN fans dismissed the game as shallow and expressed irritation towards the over-the-top praise it received, Team Salvato’s project had a lot going for it and quickly gathered an enormous fanbase. Excellent use of visual and sound gimmicks and brill
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

3

Rebranding annoucement: Welcome to EVN Chronicles!

Hello there and welcome to the new iteration of my humble blog! Pride of the West was created, apart from fueling my personal megalomania, for a very specific goal: promoting and demystifying OELVNs within the Fuwa community, fighting the negative stereotypes and ridicule attached to them in minds of the many more JP-centric VN fans. For the last six months, I've spent countless hours exploring the EVN scene and channelling my impressions into the blog (with what I personally see as a very
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

7

Sepia Tears (free VN review)

Mystery/romance might not be a rare formula for VNs in general but seems especially popular among Western developers – this probably shouldn't be surprising, as it's very compatible with shorter, linear stories that indie devs usually aim for. Just like One Thousand Lies, which I've reviewed last month, Sepia Tears is a free visual novel available on Steam and mobile devices, which offers a fairly deep, complicated intrigue, relying on its mystery elements to keep the player emotionally and inte
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

4

Kaori After Story (Western VN Review)

A short while ago I’ve reviewed PixelFade’s Crystalline, expressing my disappointment at what was a visually brilliant, but rather hollow experience, in many ways inferior to that studio's first project, Ace Academy. While AA, a mecha-themed game set in near future’s Japan, mixed convincing drama, a cast of archetypical, but compelling heroines and great SoL sections, providing a fairly balanced and enjoyable game, Crystalline focused much more on comedy and despite the fantasy adventure framewo
Plk_Lesiak

Plk_Lesiak

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