Leaderboard

For those interested in the development side of VNs, VNConf is coming up soon on Jan 13, 2018. There will be 18 speakers from various parts of the industry including 2 from Japan: Kio Nachi and Watanabe Ryoichi. I'll also be doing a fun little presentation on trends in the VN medium. The presentations from last year's conference are online for free here. Tickets can be bought from the VNConf website here. It's priced to just cover the streaming and web hosting expenses, but for those who can't afford it, the presentations will be going up online a few weeks later. It should be a lot of fun~

This list won't feature the VNs in order of "how good they are". Rating them would be way too much of a clusterfuck to me. The VNs are not in their respective order. Meaning number 1 is not the best, and so on. 1_CHAOS; HEAD 2_Cross Channel 3_G-Senjou no Maou 4_Fate/Stay Night 5_Forest This Visual Novel is the easiest visual novel translated to get a bad ending without using a walkthrough- which just adds to the fun of it. It makes a massive amount of references to common literature, which makes it even better. 6_Katahane It may seem like an ordinary moege- the atmosphere is light, the story is full of cuteness, which you can note by the character design and soundtrack. It gets really good in the middle, and you'll be dying to know what happens in the end. A game with multiple perspectives, it's definitely one of the most enjoyable Visual Novels I've ever read. 7 Majikoi 8_Little Busters! 9_Tsukihime "You shouldn't tell lies that you can't even fool yourself with" 10_Swan Song A post apocalyptic Visual Novel. 11_Symphonic Rain It may seem like your ordinary moege. Trust me, it's not. 12_Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo (and sequel) 13_Sekien no Inganock Steampunk. An atmosphere full of mysteries and references that will make your head blow up. 14_Steins; Gate A visual novel that deals extensively with time travel and it's consequences. 15_Utawarerumono 16_Fault: Milestone (1 & 2) 17_Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni 18_Kara no Shoujo 19_Umineko no Naku Koro ni 20_Planetarian 21_Ever 17 Another top 10. 22_Remember11 It lacks in the ending, but otherwise the story of this VN has enough to easily become one of my all-time favorites. 23_Zanmataisei Demonbane 24_Rewrite "Could it possibly be rewritten, this fate of hers?" Another one that enters the top 10. 25_Narcissu 26_Grisaia no Kajitsu 27_Saya no Uta Only if you enjoy dark and messed up settings. 28_Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni 29_Eien no Aselia 30_Rose Guns Days (1 & 2) There are small sections of gameplay on this one, but you can skip them by pressing the space bar, so this still qualifies. 31_Sengoku Rance I feel obliged to comment on this VN before suggesting it to anyone. It's an Alicesoft title, which speaks a lot for itself... If you don't know how it's going to be like, well.. Kind of tough to describe. Lots of sex, including comedy rape. Alicesoft tends to make the whole story a comedy until right near the end, where things actually do get serious. It's worth checking out, if you don't mind Rance's personality. 32_Phenomeno Want a short VN that can captivate you for their whole duration? Here is it. Visual novel adapted from the youth horror novel written by Hajime Ninomae and illustrated by yoshitoshi ABe. 33_Ef- A Fairy Tale of the Two 34_Dysfunctional Systems Another one great for those who want short Visual Novels. 35_Daibanchou Another Alicesoft title. While Rouga is not near Rance's level when it comes to pissing off people, alicesoft's style is something which often doesn't please people. 36_Yume Miru Kusuri The endings pack quite a punch. 37_Kikokugai- The Cyber Slayer 38_Eden 39_Hoshizora no Memoria 40_Katawa Shoujo Yep, it's somewhat overrated. Still, the fact that it is substantially easier for those who are starting to play visual novels to read should not be discarded, and overall, the story was good. 41_World End Economica 42_YU-NO 43_Shikkoku no Sharnoth Yep, there is a minigame on this one. If you download a save data you can skip the minigame, though. So it still qualifies. Another VN that enters my top 10. 44_Muv Luv Alternative The first Muv Luv didn't have enough to enter this list. You should still read it, though~ MLA is definitely awesome. 45_Dangan Ronpa 46_Comyu - Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku 47_Hanachirasu 48_Ayakashibito 49_I/O 50_Deardrops

We just got a playable demo for our upcoming yuri-themed visual novel SeaBed up. To play it, just navigate to the Steam page and click "Download Demo". The demo features around the first hour of gameplay from the visual novel and focuses on two of the main characters: Sachiko and Takako. The upcoming release (as well as the demo) has English and Japanese language options and its graphics have been upgraded to 1440x1080 resolution, with support for multiple resolutions. The game's currently being reviewed by Zakamutt on behalf of Fuwa, so you can look forward to some impressions there too, but in the meantime why not check it out for yourself? The full game is out December 19. The full game has an estimated playtime of 20-30 hours. Synopsis SeaBed is a critically acclaimed yuri-themed mystery visual novel told through the perspectives of three separate characters: Mizuno Sachiko, a designer plagued by hallucinations of her past lover; Narasaki Hibiki, Sachiko's friend and a psychiatrist researching the workings of human memories; and Takako, Sachiko's former lover who has been rapidly forgetting her past, including how or why the two women drifted apart despite being together since childhood. All three live in different worlds, but seek the same goal. To separate truth from illusion. To make sense of their own lives. I'm personally super excited for the game, and looking forward to your impressions!

@Plk_Lesiak Change the title to Winter 2018 Definitely Overlord 2... I've been waiting for that since the first season. I'm in love with Mahoutsukai no Yome (no pun intended). Death March looks interesting. Fate/Extra, of course. Kokkoku will either be great or suck donkey butt. More Saiki Kusuo is always a good thing. Killing Bites looks like a nice gory side-trip. Toji no Miko smells like shit, but I'll give it a chance. Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens looks like one of those that will either turn out to be a cult classic or be forgotten and dropped by most after the first episode. The Basilisk remake will be the first new ninja anime in quite some time, so I'm looking forward to it.

My backlog just keeps getting bigger D: This seems very interesting, congratulations on the release

Late to report this, but we finally have this VN released - congratulations for the release. For anyone else who already got the copy, have fun. I see, well I'll keep in mind about everyday going-ons there when I read this.

Engrish is always fun

As far as I know, the game you mentioned was the only non-machine translation we've seen from them, and that's only because the developer insisted on Cafe translating it for them. Now that the game has been pulled from Steam, I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually popped up elsewhere with a different publisher.

Didn't care for both of Cinderella and Lamento VN thing, but after considering both of Sakura Dungeon and YU-NO I would say that it's better if you finished Sakura Dungeon first because it's pretty much quite straightforward compared to YU-NO. I knew that's quite ironic that I recommended Sakura Dungeon here considering that the infamy that came with the franchise here, but as far as Sakura franchise concerned I think it's their best and so does consensus think as well. Oh, and another reason that I recommend Sakura Dungeon here is that the walkthrough for YU-NO was very complicated at the first glance, and let's just said that it'll be very confusing if you didn't use it along with playing the VN, which pretty much a necessary because it's old adventure VN that did have very different interface from newer VNs - it was released at 1995 after all. Have fun either way in regard of your choice.

I was going to do a quickie presentation on the importance of QC but got rejected

I just finished the demo.Game seems decent.At least there are no boring heroines.Nice pick for a relatively small company.

I need voiced moans to masturbate, tbh.

Honestly, I don't get why people care about voices so much. To me they are always a nice addition to a story, but not a necessary one.