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This thread is just like those disclaimers on VNs that say all characters are +18.

Finally we have HatsuKoi append patch finished here, and it mean that the time for Hoshiori project to begin has come. For the premise itself, we have the MC whose an improvement version of HatsuKoi's Yuuma, and more importantly the MC in question (Ryousuke) was come back to his hometown after seven years had been away from it. Other than Ryousuke himself is the improvement from Yuuma, tone work was also starting their trademark in this VN in which the trademark is their long writing in regard of the development, so obviously we'll gonna have a lot of lines (Around 200,000 lines). Also it's important to note that star will be the major theme in one of the route considering that we have 'Hoshi' in the title (That one route only will be obviously better than the whole localized Miagete, because it'll be uncensored lol), and the whole theme of Hoshiori is the dream for the future (Yume Mirai part) in which it'll depict the characters going forward to their future. Anyway, I'd been looking forward to this and obviously I'll be waiting until the route order announced at Tsurezure later. So feel free to discuss about the project here, although I'll mostly use this thread for reporting the progress though.

Welp, some two months after I started playing it, I finally finished Hapymaher. I liked the overarching plot quite a bit. This was a way better game than Chrono Clock in terms of both having an interesting premise and, more importantly, really getting a lot of mileage out of it. The Christmas arc was my favorite by far, and the true ending was predictable but still good. If every arc had had something as batshit crazy as the Christmas arc, but distinct, this game would have been an absolute legend for me. As it was, the common route was too long and the heroine routes were too short. I would've liked more distinct content. Though, that said, the game is still a far cry from something like, say, 11eyes, which has hardly any route differentiation. At any rate, even just that one Christmas chapter being so good was more than enough to make me consider it a great game. Art and music were both solid, too. Not my favorite or anything, but very good. It's a real shame the translation read like absolute ass. Talk about phoning it in. I can't decide if this was worse than Magical Marriage Lunatics or not, but it's at least the same level of low-effort mediocrity. Constant bad translationisms, frequent absolute nonsense, shitty English, the works. Don't know why MG keeps doing shoddy work on relatively big-name titles like this one. Oh well, at least Evenicle and Sorcery Jokers got good TLs, among MG releases I played this year. I just wish they'd focus more on consistent quality for titles like this, especially since this one happened to be so firmly up my alley.

1. Should I play School Days or Shiny Days first? --They're separate timelines/alternate scenarios with many of the same characters. You could definitely play shiny days first if you really wanted (Cause you really just want the lolis/moms). But you'd enjoy it a lot more having played School Days first, probably. I would suggest playing School Days first. 2. Is there any NTR/Protag getting cheated on? If there is, in how many routes does this happen? --The game has many endings, but the routes are very interchangeable/reused. It's quite a complicated flowchart. The odds of you running into NTR are extremely high - if not because they make a large percentage of the routes, than definitely because the way the game is structured, you will run into those scenes over and over near the beginning/middle-ish of many, perhaps most of your playthroughs. --It's technically NTR because a love interest is having consensual sex with/raped by another male character. But in every situation it's when the MC doesn't want/care about that heroine, so it might not fit your definition of "being cheated on". 3. I know there is a part where Taisuke ends up raping Kotonoha. Is them actually having sex shown? Is this something that happens in bad ends only? --There are multiple scenes of Sawanaga Taisuke raping Kotonoha in multiple situations. It's brutal and explicitly shown. Even hurts MY feelings a little. 4. I tend to avoid H-scenes that include a guy other than the MC. Does Taisuke (or any other guy that isn't the protag) end up having sex (or implied) with any other heroines? I also remember seeing a scene where Kotonoha and Taisuke are having sex and Makoto and some other girl are watching. In how many routes does this happen? --Like I said in answer #2, while it only may make up a small percentage of total routes, the way the game is designed you may run into this scenario very often. And again, yes, it's explicitly shown in several scenes with several heroines, and implicitly implied many other times. 5. Overall, did you enjoy School Days? In your opinion, should I read this VN? --I enjoyed the hell out of it. You shouldn't read it, it's terrible. A hellishly buggy game of hateable characters with atrociously tedious branch navigation. --I still enjoyed the hell out of it because there isn't a VN with this kind of gritty teenage drama horror. It's hella unique. Murder, jealousy, pregnancy, lust, poor, poor decisions. A lot of it I found gruesomely realistic. It's a case study for why teenagers should be chaperoned at all times. It's the cheating simulator and it's a special hell.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Hapymaher - Walkthrough - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary: Lucid dreams. Dreams where you know that you're dreaming. After an accident in his youth, Tooru Naitou began to have nothing but lucid dreams. Always being aware of when he's dreaming meant that his mind could no longer rest when he was asleep. Only when he collapsed from utter exhaustion does he finally get a reprieve. Lucky for him, he has a childhood friend, Saki, who insists on calling him 'Nii-san' that tries to do what she can to support him. In his science club, his senpai Yayoi is endlessly amused by his awkward way of living. And he has an underclassman, Keiko, who likes to sing in front of the station and likes to call him weird for his less than normal attitude towards life. Tonight, Tooru dreams again. But this dream is different from those that came before. Recommended order : Saki Hasuno Yayoi B. Lutwidge Keiko Hirasaki Maia Alice Alice true end -------------------------- Bad END -------------------------- -------------------------- Normal END -------------------------- Source: based on a comment on the site - removed -

This article contains major spoilers for Saya no Uta, gratuitous re-interpretation of canon, and probably a lot of words. Be warned. When Saya no Uta first started showing its true colors – when Urobuchi first decided to throw a spanner of Lovecraft into a work that had been entirely plausible as a sci-fi story – I was a bit disappointed. Sure, the old L-C is cool and all, but the whole going mad from the revelation kind of thing never felt right to me. And honestly, don’t you think the “true” ending is kind of unsatisfactory? The aftermath is certainly implied to be a horror by the tone of the novel, but we’re never really shown its effects in detail to let us judge by ourselves. Let me fix that, and give you one heaven of a take. But really though, scale back the layers and think of any magic you see as merely technology you cannot comprehend. How did Ougai contact Saya? Through some kind of communication unknown to current science, accessed by the occult artifacts and knowledge he gathers. The transport of Saya to Earth? Through that same network. Her home planet’s motivation? Efficient spreading of their superior culture throughout the universe – the ends very much justifying the means for the dull, foolish population of the planet we live on. Let us ponder the method: detecting an occult signal is a surefire sign of intelligence, which indicates habitability by an intelligent species; genetic modification of the host species ensures ability to keep unique environmental modifications (though terraforming also occurs). It is also possible that teleportation is only possible through occult conduits, and Transformer probes such as Saya can only be sent if the other side invites them. Modification is also significantly more humane than another viable choice: eradication and founding of a new colony. While it can be argued that some of the humans transformed by the gene-modifying spores released by Saya in the good ending would consider themselves to have “died”, and the transformation process is likely to be distressing (though likely tempered by its relative rapidity in most locales as well as communal development), I cannot agree that the elimination of 7 billion humans through some means is preferable. As for any generations birthed after transformation, there should be no argument that them being of Sayan heritage is preferable to them being human by any sane measure. From Ougai’s notes as well as her own feats, Saya’s intelligence and ability to learn is markedly superhuman. Saya’s species is also sure to be able to create supertechnology far beyond the reach of our current civilization if they are able to precisely teleport anything. There’s only one conclusion: Saya no Uta has only one good ending, and it’s the one where humanity is turned into tentacle monsters from beyond the void. The two others are horrible losses of potential, and we can only hope that a world-conquering probe such as Saya will be summoned to Earth once more, this time to succeed. View the full article

Today, we’ll be continuing our agon… I mean, out adventure through the world of free VNs by ebi-hime. While the earliest games we’ve covered, like Dejection and Is This the Life? were very visibly ebi’s early works, simple on the technical side of things and featuring minimalistic artwork, today we’re jumping straight into very recent projects, all released not earlier than 2017. Mostly staying true to the general climate of heavy, existential topics and endings that are never the typical happy, wish-fulfilment scenarios, these games are once more not far detached from ebi’s commercial projects and while smaller, could easily have a modest price tag attached to them, with few people being able to claim they didn’t get their money’s worth (especially in the cases of Lynne and Six Days of Snow). But what are they exactly about? Where the Sun Always Shines Where the Sun Always Shines is another bittersweet story, although in a wholly different climate than Lucky Me, Lucky You. Featuring a 32-years old writer, suffering from a deep depression after losing his wife, and a teenage girl from his neighbourhood with whom he forms an unlikely friendship with, the game explores themes of grief, inspiration and moving on after losing one’s feeling of purpose, but is also maybe the only title on this list that provides a truly positive, hopeful conclusion. Before it gets to that point however, it presents to the reader rather convincing descriptions of writer’s block, anxiety and self-pity of the leading character, along with interesting interaction with Sunny, the aforementioned teenager, who first visits him out of pity, but then forms a bond of sorts over their mutual interest in musical – all that accompanied by very decent artwork. In a way though, it’s maybe the least impactful of the ebi’s stories, being overall solid and enjoyable to read, but lacking any interesting twists or highly emotional moments from the previous games. Definitely a worthwhile VN, but not necessarily a must-read. Final Rating: Recommended Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

IMO, it'd make things faster whenever you want to search for a particular translator/editor acknowledged by the community as good, while, at the same time, it'd allow us to filter MTL garbage like SakuraGame.

(making it a blog post because i don't think this would get any activity as a thread) I think this time period from 2011 to 2016 might have been the "golden age" of otome games because those were the years where a lot of the most notable otomeges were released. Just looking at high-rated otomes on VNDB: 2011: Amnesia Memories, Shinigami to Shoujo, Chou no Doku Hana no Kusari, Arcana Famiglia 2012: Black Wolves Saga (both parts), Dandelion, Koezaru wa Akai Hana, Cinders 2013: Ken ga Kimi, Nameless, Norn9, Arcana Famiglia 2, Getsuei no Kusari (and fandisc) 2014: Code Realize, Ayakashi Gohan 2015: Taishou x Alice, Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly, Re Birthday Song, Yoshiwara Higanbana 2016: Collar x Malice, Mystic Messenger, Nightshade, Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk, Code Realize Future Blessings I can only attest to the quality of a few of these VNs but for those that are more into this genre, i would like to raise this discussion.

Yeah, screams of an author that's run out of ideas for what might actually be funny...

Was it, I wonder? I'm not sure if relying on vndb in this case is reliable, because the highest rated titles are obviously going to be the ones that have English translations, and the localization studios seem to be focused more on the newer titles. I know that the otome game market was pretty big even prior to that, but I don't know whether those titles were actually as good as the ones released later. Well, I can't really add anything else, so I'm summoning @MaggieROBOT and @Mr Poltroon.

just wanted to say the same. one can basically expect each route being released in a very reasonable timeframe, even more so since both really liked the title, means double the speed - unlike their last one, which still has been done faster than many others. edit: can´t say arunaru is more slow, when doing gameplay-ish titles does include interfaces etc as well, plus the linecount of all he´s done in recent years easily tops the million mark

that´s the common problem i´m having with like 95% of all titles available. people involved in works of literature, goes especially for editors here, should´ ve no right to exist if no being talented in writing themselves - same as a janitor won´t suddenly do a ceo´s work, ungifted schmocks should never be allowed playing author. main issue is not even an inaccurate outcome, but rather the utterly lifeless read one gets to experience as a result. whole thing basically reads like an easy to understand manual for self assembling a closet.

I was suprised I didn't see anyone mention this until now, considering how people go off on comparatively smaller issues with some of Sekai's TLs. The TL for Hapymaher and Magical Marriage Lunatics aren't unreadable, but they read poorly enough that it had a negative impact on my enjoyment at least. I also saw some TL errors in Hapymaher pretty much making someone say the opposite thing, "reappear" becomes "disappear", "unsuprising" becomes "suprising", "had me guide" becomes "I was guided". Those are probably noticable even if you don't know japanese, since they contradict the surrounding conversation and/or context. So it's a bit suprising they made it through QC and such. Overall I also quite liked Hapymaher though, and my opinions on it are pretty similar to yours.

All this Umineko talk is making me want to revisit all those online theories damn

Finished Muv-Luv Extra. Started Muv-Luv Unlimited...... About an hour in..... ..... I'm already afraid.....

I feel ashamed for actually feeling bad for bing-chan

It missed the "We need to fuck an internet browser" trend.

You didn't buy DDLC too?

It's done. Next, Hoshi Ori.

Well, to be honest, I'm really not sure if I'd like it the same way if I played it for the first time right now instead of when I did it. There are certain plot points that I found absolutely amazing back then, but, considering that a lot of things about my worldview changed since then, I could easily find them annoying now. Well, I guess I should just follow @Silvz and @Funyarinpa and replay it at some point to see if I still like it the same way as I did back then. The characters are still amazing though.

Well, the music in 07th Expansion VNS is always top notch. I feel like I could flood this thread with RGD and Umineko tracks, and it would never feel enough. I'll just go with classics then.

facing said dilemma you could also ask yourself whether or not breaking your own dick might make it look better in speedos, seriously though, there isn´t even an opinion to have coming to machine tl´d titles of any kind. stuff is utterly unreadable and simply makes no sense, no matter how you look at it, means fortissimo has no english tl as of yet. nothing to read, nothing to rate.

Try using this. You can also try using a different mounting software. Good luck.

I've been really slacking off on watching anime for a while now, but I'm trying to get back into it a bit more. I started with one that's been on my backlog for a while, since a friend randomly also said good things to me about it: The World Is Still Beautiful. And it was great! It was a very satisfying romance, and it did my favorite thing (and a very rare thing, at that!) of mostly focusing on what happens after a new couple gets together. If I could complain a little, I did usually feel like the show didn't have quite enough dramatic tension: I always felt, with any given arc, that I knew how things were going to end up, and indeed I was right. It pretty quickly became clear that apparent villains were just misguided people (sometimes deeply so...) who would inevitably be won over by the slightly-too-perfect main characters after a good talking-to. But despite that, it was still a lovely experience. The highlight was watching the relationship unfold and grow, but a close second was the interesting setting and setup (though it was maybe a bit under-utilized most of the time). All told, a very pleasant watch. No earth-shattering experiences, no tears, but an enjoyable way to slide back into watching some anime. Next up on my list is Princess Principal, from another friend's recommendation. Hope it goes well!

SakuraGame disappointed everyone of us but let's not lose hope, one day we might get a fan translation

The fires of one man

How?..

And you thought those porn plots were fake?