I knew that the moment you saw the title, you'll remind of some infamous Sakura franchise, and I planned to give Sakura Christmas 2 Review for the title since there's Sakura VN for Christmas. Then turned out the VN title was Sakura Santa. Don't worry, I'm not playing Sakura Christmas yet because it's not released yet (Hopefully Winged Cloud didn't get the idea for their new Sakura VN here). Oh, and the reason for the title it was from SakuSaku (Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura doki) title and Grey Christmas incident in Baldr Sky. Yes, this is once again not my review on Sakura Santa obviously, but my opinion in regard of AX announcement here of course. Today there's a lot happening, rollback (My VNTS Review was one of the victim by the way) and Sekai announcement. Well, let me try to tell my opinion in regard of this year AX. And I'll tell my thought for each company sorted based on their panel time, starting from Mangagamer.

By the way, Aksys here announce that Virtual Last Reward here was going to Steam, and 999 was indeed also going to Steam. As for the rest of announcement from them, not interested (Mostly otome game, but if some user look forward to that it's okay).

Mangagamer

This time they indeed bring 3 new partners here. But let's just said that it was not expected partner, or rather quite unknown partner. For my comment about Chuuable Soft, there's already news that the CEO from the company will attend AX, and turned out their partner was Mangagamer here. As for their announced VN, not a lot of interesting topic that I could talk about here, but at least I knew that from now on for each two weeks I need to keep my eye on those 5 VN Translation Progress that Mangagamer announced here. Here's my opinion in regard of Mangagamer release.

Suki Suki, well looks like it was only usual moege, but I heard that there was some interesting unique dating system and emote thing. I just checked VNDB and apparently there's Scenario Selection tag and Dating Simulation tag. I didn't knew of how Dating Simulation will apply here, but at least I knew that Scenario Selection there apparently would be like Majikoi or if some want to strictly following VNDB tag, that would be Imopara here. Nothing too special from the segment imo, but then again I just saw this playlist on Youtube to did a little research here. Maybe we could see more later if released.

Hadaka Shitsuji, well for answering Decay comment back at VNTS last Saturday (Which also got swept by rollback), let's just said that I'm interested in naked butler only if some flying pig was born at March 34th ie never happening. Anyway, for this announcement I think it's quite redundant because it was already translated in the past back at 2013 (It was hosted at TL Wiki too), even though the translation wasn't quite good for some people from some commentary that I read. The premise was like you got the strange job with very big payment, and the job was you must live for some time within mansion that full of handsome butler. The butler will obey ANYTHING that you order, no matter what (Including sex of course), and our male MC here was found his sadistic urge to sexually abuse the butler (This game had High Sexual Content tag at VNDB by the way). I would like to ask why not maid though, but then again the writer was like butler and yaoi, so there's that.

First time otome game was interest me from very start. Boukaku premise was like our high red eye female MC was got shunned because of her intimidating appearance. And 2 handsome man was interested to turn MC here into model. The premise here remind me of Paradise Kiss anime in regard of turning ordinary woman into model. The reason I was interested in this because this is first otome that had explicit sex scene, which was quite rare for otome game itself. Anyway, although the premise remind me of Paradise Kiss, if I may said the formation of female MC and 2 male character remind me of this bad nukige from Mangagamer earlier days.

Dal Segno, my first comment here would be will Circus release Al Fine game in future, now that we had Da Capo and Dal Segno (By the way, those 3 were terms in music). The premise is like MC was transferring to the star shaped island that had eternal summer. After that, MC will meet with 5 girls, one of them was AI with girl shape (Well, if I didn't knew that we could date space ship in My Girlfriend is the President, I'd definitely think that had date with AI was quite unusual). For more info, apparently the translator for this game would be Kouryuu if we looking back at his Twitter when Decay asking if Kouryuu will translating this ie Decay suspect that Dal Segno will be Kouryuu next job. Well, if we look from developer, maybe we will had something like Da Capo, only in summer.

While I admit that I like extreme sex scene back in Haruka (More like to the writing though), in Maggot Bait I wouldn't so sure to like it here. What I knew for now here that the opening was not as elegant as euphoria (More upbeat here), we will had many witch, and the setting here was quite dark so much that if Nitroplus was develop this I wouldn't be surprised here (Instead of developing SoniComi). From sex tags at VNDB, let's just said it was quite extreme. But at least I knew some members here like this so much.

That's all for Mangagamer section

Frontwing

For both of Grisaia side story, I didn't interested to those so my response here would be whatever.

The most exciting announcement from them would be obviously Island. The premise here would be some isolated island was had some sort of misfortune and disease. And the key to solve this situation was apparently lies in hand of MC. For other info, I knew that Conjueror and Garejel like this game, the writer and art team also responsible for Himawari, and Clephas didn't like this too much (Oh, and this is Frontwing 15 years anniversary project). And for the seiyuu we also got Yukari Tamura here. For my suggestion here, just find out if this game good or not by yourself later.

JAST

Nothing interesting here, so let me summarize this in one paragraph. One word for Katahane remake and Eiyuu Senki here would be redundant (Both of those were already translated). For Katahane, unless the remake offer new content here, I think Katahane remake announcement wasn't too interesting. While for Eiyuu Senki here the only thing that make me look forward to this release would be translated sex scene, and before forgot actually it's logical outcome if JAST picked Eiyuu Senki, if only the team behind this also the same team behind Romanesque (Since we already had Eiyuu Senki PS3 version translated with some sex replacement scene, Eiyuu Senki entering Steam here also logical outcome). For last announcement, interesting choice for some people who like monster girl nukige I guess.

Sekai Project

Okay, there's some interesting announcement from them. But let me commented on SakuSaku situation first here. Okay, so XReaper word back in my PM was true, and to be honest the moment I hear the opening was heard in stream, I'm was shocked and directly closing the window. Even though I'm slightly disagree with this, it's still Akerou choice here to sell it to Sekai. Personally, as long as they had 18+ version readily available, I didn't had problem with that. And one thing that made me find this tolerable, at least Akerou here didn't go Ren's way in regard of Aokana translation beforehand.

The most interesting thing from Sekai would be Baldr Sky. I remember that the moment I heard Dive 1 opening, I directly post about this in here. Okay, this VN was had some history with twice failed translation attempt. Back at VNDB, I saw some pointless anger in regard of this VN entering Steam. What I want to said that while entering Steam mean that there will be no 18+ content and GIGA will not release it uncensored, at least GIGA had some experience for releasing the game without H-Content. Just look at Duel Savior for example if you curious, I mean that translated version here had choice between PS2 version (No Sex Content) and PC version (With Sex Content). What I'm hoping here that if GIGA intended to release it on Steam, make sex scene replacement like Eiyuu Senki or Duel Savior, or if not hopefully sex scene here would be very pointless in the beginning. One more info, quite interesting that Aroduc was confirmed to translated this, while I knew that he was complained about how GIGA engine was pain to decode or something like that. Once again note that I didn't care much about sex scene removal here. By the way, the premise here was like some sort of calamity called Grey Christmas causing the world to be almost destroyed or something along the line.

For nukige with Nekopara artist art, not interested. As for Sunrider Idol VN (Starnova), the premise remind me of Idol Master here. Other than that, not much comment although maybe they'll need Kickstarter for Baldr Sky later.

I'll write my tier in expectation later at Arcadeotic thread, but I think that's all my opinion about the announcement here.

PS - I forgot another announcement. It was Kiminizo from Degica. What I knew is that it was only logical outcome that Degica will license this, it was had some depressive ending, and in western it was renaming to Rumbling Hearts. Once again, this VN was the beginning of Muv Luv, current Cash Cow Franchise from age. The premise here was like there were 2 boys and 2 girls who already friend for long time here. And also apparently we'll had triangle love drama here.

PPS - For Starnova, other than quite stripperiffic how those costume for the idols were, there's also interesting fact that apparently Love in Space had enough money to hire 7 eroge seiyuu who had some experience in voicing eroge. The most recognizable name for me would be Himari here. But I also wonder if they'll need kickstarter to cover all of the seiyuu cost here, or if not we'll probably will got short VN here. Well, I'm quite interested with this for now.