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Since I got explicitly called out here, I feel somewhat obligated to comment... I don't think of myself as a purist at all, nor do I think there's such a thing as a perfect translation. I do still think there are both good translations and bad translations, and it doesn't look like that's really being debated here either (though I imagine the defining characteristics of a good translation would be very hotly debated!). Just to offer two common arguments for "good" translation over "bad" translation which I haven't seen mentioned here: I think a bad translation is an insult to the original writers. VNs are in fact written by professionals, and the vast majority of those professionals work their ass off to produce something worth reading. I think it's unfair to them to produce a translation which is obviously lower quality than the original. And, why is that...? A good writer makes the story beats land, makes you giggle at the jokes, and occasionally reduces you to a blubbering mess of tears. If you're basically just reading VNs to see the CGs and the sprites, to listen to the music, and maybe to kind of understand what's going on overall, well, you're entitled to enjoy things the way you want to. But me, I really like reading, and I want to get the same full-color experience when reading a game in English translation that the Japanese readers got reading the original. That means, at a high level, that the logical flow from line to line needs to be maintained, that the result needs to be true in spirit and in content to the original. My go-to example is always that the jokes need to still be funny. Look, everyone can believe what they want to believe, and I don't think anyone here is going to change their mind. But regardless of what some readers may think, I do think that translators should care about their writing quality. If you think you're translating something and you're not worrying about delivering an equivalent experience, then I think you aren't doing your job.

Huuuuuuuuh... I see many things that are absolutely wrong with your statement. First, really there's no translation quality/choice drama in other otaku niches? I've seen people going apeshit over minor details in anime translations and inconsistencies between the fan and official versions. On the one hand, there'll always be purists that are demanding top quality every time and on the other, there will be botched or poor-quality translation on both the fan and official side of things. The more choice and comparison people have, the more likely they are to criticize underperforming projects - when fan translators were your only hope for playing pretty much any VNs, you were less likely to complain about their work than now, when they compete with a fairly rich selection of professional releases. I things it's even somewhat legit to argue that nowadays there's little sense in translating a VN unless you can do it well. The second, do you know about many EVNs being translated to Japanese? People actually caring about those? It's a non-topic, but I would be surprised if Japanese VN fans didn't have a problem with poor translations - they aren't used to awful localizations and don't treat them as "facts of life" like Western otakus were forced to by turd-quality products offered to them on a regular basis. Demanding quality seems like a pretty reasonable standard, especially for commercial products. And the VN fandom today is not reliant on fan translations anymore and people's attitudes towards those are not any kind of "crucial barrier" for its growth. Also, there are many other reasons why fan translations are pretty much dying out - people that once done them professionalizing or moving on with their lives is the main one and there's no going back from this. What's left is the official publishers, and if you suggest we shouldn't take those up to highest scrutiny as their clients, that's pretty much saying you want them to screw you over with subpar services. Well, you're allowed to act against your own self-interest of course, but that doesn't look like a healthy narrative.

Addressing the topic author... ... translation purity is a load of shit. Good translators of any stripe basically argue over how far they go toward Americanization or retention of Japanese concepts. Honestly, speaking as a translator myself, I can say that there is no such thing as a perfect translation or localization. However, that is no excuse for poor work. Not everything is possible to translate. It is a miracle that games like Tokyo Babel and Dies Irae are readable and still relatively enjoyable in English, considering how much of a pain the butt it must have been for the translator to deal with the emotional aspects of his work (for one thing, Dies Irae's preexisting fanbase is full of jaded a-holes like me, so he was going to get bashed regardless of what he did). I will state this outright: Japanese translation is a pain in the ass as well as an oxymoron. Japanese doesn't translate, it just gets interpreted into another language with concepts that approximate the meaning while completely missing nuance and subtlety. Machine translation is annoying because it doesn't even meet the baseline of a Japanese translation... interpretation of the original material into comprehensible English that doesn't go off into the wilds and ignore all context (this is the baseline of an acceptable but not necessarily good translation/localization). First, I've yet to encounter a machine translator that consistently produces English sentences that makes sense. Second, I've yet to encounter a machine translator that succeeded in figuring out the correct kanji conjugations to produce words it needs to translate to another language (thus resulting in some seriously weird outputs). Furigana parsers just barely manage to pass muster, and even there you have to disregard the suggestions about anywhere from 30%-60% of of the time (meaning a high level of Japanese and English knowledge is necessary, in any case), based on the favored kanji of the writer and the parser's ability to handle unusual kanji choices (all parsers have their quirks).

Context: a guy I met on Fuwa’s discord was told to end the TL for “his own good” and the translation team did not like him for his one too many jokes. After talking about it with the guy, I realized something. In the anime, manga, Japanese video game worlds, there’s nobody arguing over the purity of a translation, even weirder this doesn’t happen in the Light Novel world either. Light Novels are 100% text, but when translations come, nobody gets into arguments about whose translation is better or whatever. It’s the weirdest thing. Why in the VN community do have such a purity spiral for translation? None of the other mediums of Japanese entertainment have this issue even though they all need to be translated. Even when there’s an official release of a VN, all the fan translaters loose their damn minds. Like... why? I doubt our brothers from the land of the rising sun have such fervor when they translate EVNs. I think this snobby attitude over translation needs to stop because we’re not going to ever make a “perfect” translation because translation itself is a art not a science. Personally, look I thought about this before: I am going to bite the bullet and say: I rather read a bad translation than to never get a translation at all. With a bad translation, people can see how it’s bad and someone could make it better. I understand that people really care about doing their best, but there’s so many kamiges out there that will remain untranslated. The VN fandom is growing, but we’re nowhere near anime levels of mainstream thought, and I think this stupid purity spiral regarding visual novel translations is one of the main reasons why.

I agree; toxic attitudes like yours that make people release shit translations definitely need to end.

It's okay if you want to eat crap, but don't go around preaching that it isn't unhealthy.

[Marching Band] [Otome] [GxB] [Romance, Comedy, Drama, Friendship, Mystery, Psychological Thriller] Rating: T (Language, Suggestive Humor, Violence, Instrument Abuse) Check Out Our Kickstarter Trailer! tumblr - youtube - facebook - twitter -STORY- "Band, Atten Hut!" Hello there! My name is Cadence. I’m a junior in high school and the new drum major of my school's band: The Blue Mountain Marching Bandits! I’m so excited (and a tad nervous...) for my first year in such an important role. I’ll try to be the very best conductor and leader I can! To be honest, the past few years have been rough for the Bandits...it’s been pretty demoralizing. Directors have been coming and going, students are dropping out, and competition scores have been lower than ever. But all of that is about to change! This year, we're getting a new band director named Mr. Victor Wiley, a passionate alumni of Blue Mountain High School. I can tell he's determined to salvage the declining band program and take us to new heights when competition season arrives, just like I am! For Band Camp this year, Mr. Wiley said we'll be going away to a literal camp in the middle of nowhere--to "focus on learning this year’s field show and attain the ultimate level of band bonding." Words cannot describe how much I’m looking forward to this! I’m going to use this precious time to grow as a leader and make tons more friends. After all, it’s a fresh new year filled with hope and opportunity. I hope the band is ready to experience plenty of blood, sweat, and tears, because this is going to be a marching band season unlike any other! -GAMEPLAY/FEATURES- In Band Camp Boyfriend, the player’s choices will greatly influence day-to-day events, Cadence's leadership style, and her relationships with other characters. Eventually, her choices will determine which boy’s route the player ends up on. FEATURES -At least 7 Story Routes -20+ Endings -20+ Unique Sprites with a Wide Range of Personalities and Expressions -At least 24 CGs -Original Soundtrack -Partial Voice Acting -Unlockable Sidequest -Band Geeks STATS? - Stats will remain mostly hidden from the player as we would like the focus to be on the unfolding story. We believe stat systems should serve the story first and foremost, and will be using them behind the scenes to assist in creating the most authentic and engaging experience possible. DIFFICULTY LEVEL - The game will be difficult enough that players have to use their heads when making decisions, especially in the latter half of the game. But it will not be so difficult that everyone will be absolutely required to use a walkthrough to reach all the true/good endings. There is some room for error. We're a bit traditional in the way that each character has one good or "true" end and one or more bad ends, with no "neutral" endings. However, we hope the bad endings will be satisfying in their own twisted way. They should be experiences players won't want to miss out on! -CHARACTERS- Each of the dateable guys is based on the popular personality stereotype of the instrument they play. For example, Peter the trumpeter has a huge ego and Clark the clarinetist is a no-nonsense perfectionist. There are many other personalities band musicians will recognize! Sprites by FloraDrawz -CG ILLUSTRATIONS PREVIEW- Some CGs will have Light Animations. Check it out here! -CURRENT DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE/PROGRESS- We are aiming to release our full game in June 2020! Here is our current progress, broken down by asset... The script will undergo a number of revisions over the next year, but here is the current progress on the draft for the full base game. As of October 2018, only Poptart's arc needs to be finished. Every other route is completely drafted and in the editing stage. WRITING Common Branch: 100% Peter Arc: 100% Clark Arc: 100% Doug Arc: 100% Garth Arc: 100% Tom Arc: 100% Samuel Arc: 100% Poptart Arc: 17% SPRITES: 80% CGS: 20% BACKGROUNDS: 60% GUI: 50% MUSIC: 45% PROGRAMMING: 10% -STAFF- CO-CREATORS/CO-DIRECTORS Mello-Knight - Writer, Video Editor, Co-programmer, Character Design, VA (Felicity) Xandra - Composer, Programmer, Co-writer, Character Design, VA (Sabrina) ARTISTS FloraDrawz - Sprite Artist, CG Artist, Character Design BunnyVoid - Background Artist Potouto - Logo Artist mayunnaise - Chibi Artist Inferno - Concept Artist, Character Design VOICE CAST Joe Goffeney - Tom & Clark Jonathan David Bullock - Peter Devon Kay - Samuel Jared Raman - Poptart Richard Barcenas- Doug Joseph Ryan - Garth Mark Coutu - Victor Wiley Emily Woolf - Susie Melody Muze - Marian Daisy Guevara - Alex Daniel Acosta - Aaron Lasli Tran - Olive -RECRUITMENT- We are not recruiting new staff members at this time but we will definitely have needs in the future. Check back periodically! -FEEDBACK- Don’t feel obligated to answer every question if you don’t always have something to say. Every bit of feedback matters! 1. What piqued your interest in this game? Are you/were you in band or do you play a musical instrument? 2. What do you think of the premise and setting? 3. What are your initial impressions of the dateable characters? Which one(s) stands out to you most, or which do you think you would pursue first? 4. What do you think of the protagonist? 5. Do you have any expectations? 6. Would you consider supporting the Kickstarter? 7. Any other questions, comments, suggestions or feedback? Apologies for the length of this post; I still have work to do making some new graphics and streamlining things. Thanks so much for taking the time to check out our game and keep an eye out for more news!

Nice to meet you Fuwa-denizens, It's my first time in the forum (as a member) though I've known Fuwanovel site since way before, when torrents were still up and Katawa shoujo was my first VN (which I didn't finish, I completed only 3/5 routes of the girls that interested me, who knows if I will pick it up again). I registered because I wanted to be part of a community with the same hobby and have some social activity while searching for a stable job. I don't have a huge number of VNs completed and I mainly read Nukiges (Link - if you are interested, most of them are stalled so I didn't bother to put them on the list). I did start to self-learn Japanese since High school with basic stuff but I've really learnt to read it mostly thanks Nukiges (weird, right?) using VN Reader. I have a sort of aspiration to become a translator thanks to my hobbies (I've translated some comics and ero-doujins), though I'm still in the dark on what path to take in the future because I invested 5 years to get a master degree in Biotechnology and I still can't find a goddamn job. I will look around the forum just to feel up the situation and probably I would like to join in a translation project so I would use my time in a meaninful way. Well, thank you for reading all of this and I hope my interests don't creep you out too much. See you around!

This just sounds like an excuse people make to read butchered versions of VNs that they'll never be able to truly experience. Sure, there are a lot of good translations out there, but if you don't have any standards, even in the fan-TL scene, you basically get the quality of work we had in the early days of fan-TL. TLs should at least be decent in all facets of the process and it's just sad that people want to be lazy and read bad TLs when there are a lot of good localizations out there to read.

As others have pointed out, the idea that anime, video games, or LNs don't have their share of translation arguments is... not correct, shall we say. I'm going to guess you're new to those communities. Back in the early fansub days, in the early 90s, when people had to mail VHS tapes around ($12 and SASE for 2 episodes!), there was vicious fighting. Anyone remember the Ranma Wars? Or the fights over the Shinsengumi subs of Ruroni Kenshin? Even in the 2000s, people used to mock most of the Inuyasha funsubbers, The joke in the community was that every new fanboy (and many a fangirl) would cut their teeth on Inuyasha, releasing many terrible subs in the process, before either giving up or growing up and moving on to real shows. Even now, you still get complaints. Remember this meme? Or sites like this one? The basic fact of the matter is that translation is an art, not a science. And as Clephas said, even good translators disagree over things. Honorifics, slang... I got into a fight with one translator over contractions, FFS. There will always be disagreement, and there will always be jerks who make a big deal out of it. Your bigger claim, that a bad translation is better than no translation, is very much a matter of opinion. To me, it's trivial to prove you wrong - just run a VN script through Babelfish, and try to read what comes out.

Let's be clear... I have no reason to try to be fair to charage anymore. This might sound like a terrible statement to make, but the fact is, I've been a lot nicer than I wanted to be for years when it came to charage. I went out of my way to look for positive aspects, and when I found one, I deliberately put it in as positive a light I could without overdoing it. This was because the sensation I got coming out of most charage was fatigue. SOL, in small doses, is enjoyable and even relaxing... in the kind of doses I experienced over the last five years, it is downright toxic. Now, down to the game... CharaBration is what is termed a 'thematic charage'. This is a type of VN with a preset theme that all the heroines and possibly the protagonist all adhere to to one degree or another. In this case, it is the duality of the heroines/protagonist's character types. Each of the characters presents one face to the world and another in private... and in the case of this game, the gap between them is massive. The heroine who starts as the initial focus is Hai, the protagonist's cousin whom he thought was a sickly ojousama that he had to take care of... and is really the kind of tomboy who dominates all the males around her, with a coarse manner and foul language. Yukia, who is pretending to be her sister Mirei, presents herself normally as an arrogant leader who always dominates the room, but in private, she is shy and has trouble talking at all. Himeme is normally acts in a false male role, but she really prefers to act like the girl she really is. All the heroines are like this to one degree or another, and Rikka (the protagonist) ends up splitting his life between pretending to be a maid and attending school in his male form. Now... this is a game with a lot of potentially fun elements, and it would have been great if the 'hidden' character traits for Hai, who was presented as the main heroine at first, weren't so grating. Starting out with a positive hatred for Hai that never really faded even after I got into the heroine routes (her ojousama act just made me more irritated, due to that fake cough) was a huge drag on the experience for me, and it is the reason why I took so long to finish even the paths I did. Hai is annoying, to be straight about it. While her presence is necessary to create the situation going in, her persona (both of them) drove me up the wall. The fact that I actually liked the other heroines only made it worse, because whenever she came onto the scene, I just wanted to delete her character. I'm sure some will love her (there is someone for everyone, supposedly), but she isn't for me. Common Route Tbh, the common route spent so much time on Hai and stuff related to her that I'm tempted to erase it from my brain. However, it needs to be said that it does a good job of introducing the heroines and creating their relationships with Yuki/Rikka. Rikka is a standard 'I protest dressing up like a girl but I subconsciously am coming to love it' trap protagonist, and that creates a few moderately amusing scenes... However, I can't really said this did a good job of anything but introducing the heroines and creating those basic relationships. It is a pretty short common route, and the heroine routes afterward aren't long either, so it feels like more time and effort could have been spent deepening the relationships before they headed off into the romantic wilds. Yukia Yukia is easy to like, at least for me. Her helpful, kind nature is prevalent throughout much of the VN, and her other persona is mostly amusing (some of the ways she strings together lines to hold a conversation together make me laugh). Her relationship with her sister, Mirei, which comes out in her path, is amusing on several levels, and I like the way she grows as a character during the course of her path. That said, her ending is somewhat disappointing, as I would have liked to see what she and Rikka were like after graduation. Corona I chose Corona as the second heroine mostly because she is Yukia's opposite in so many ways... and because I rolled a pair of dice to decide which would be the second and final heroine I would play (I can't bring myself to play all the heroines in this type of game anymore). Umm... I really like her character, if only because it makes me laugh (an easily-embarrassed prime personality and a secondary personality that strips without a hint of hesitation and is obsessed with other women's breasts... definitely worth a laugh). In fact, this path is nicely weird, especially because of how those twin personalities interact with the romance. If Yukia's path was par for the course (predictable and staid as trap protagonist and ojousama heroines go), Corona's went pretty far out there. The epilogue and after story was also too close to the ending in chronology though, *sighs*. Conclusions Despite some high points, this game is pretty average as charage go. Like a lot of thematic charage, it makes the mistake of assuming that the theme is all-powerful, and, as a result, it falls short on a lot of minor points. I was particularly irritated at the way they handled the endings/epilogues, and I felt that the writer didn't really do Corona or Yukia justice, when it came down to it. Given more detail and time spent deepening character relationships in a believable fashion, it would have been much easier to engross myself in the setting. Unfortunately, that never happened here (the good parts of Yukia's and Corona's paths stand out so much precisely because they are the best parts of the VN by far). It felt like the writer wrote his favorite scenes first then sort of created a bare-bones framework to support it using the theme.

Happy birthday, @Mr Poltroon of Varela! Hope you're enjoying it!

I may have agreed with your sentiment a few years ago, but these days we have official translations, and to be honest I d rather NOT have a translation than a bad one. Case in point the friggin Joke that is the White Album 2 "translation" that mess started 6 years ago bout 5 days after I made my vndb account and its a disaster! I am not so desperate for Visual novels to read that I m willing to stomach whatever shit show thrown my way and neither should anyone else.(mind you i've completed over 160 vns with no end in sight)

I think I'd go a little bit further still. On a 2010 VN market, with barely any official releases, every VN translation was a treasure. On a 2018 VN market, a poor fan translation is arguably pointless excess. I don't say people should be dicks about it, but at this day and age, there's no reason for FTLs to be above scrutiny. SOME quality standards should apply and if the project clearly does not meet those, discouraging the author don't feel like some high crime to me. Even while meaning well you can easily add to the general pile of misery that is VN translation quality - and even without being a purist, such as @Fred the Barber for example, I can tell there's still a huge room for improvement here, also beyond obvious frauds and shit-artists such as SakuraGame or MoeNovel.

Oh lawdy lawd

Pretty much what @Plk_Lesiak said. Fan TL? I'll take whatever I can get. Official TLs? They are selling them, so they'd better be good.

My guess would be that it is mainly because VNs are more niche and as such have a higher concentration of hardcore otaku than anime, manga and light novels. That being said I do think that there are translations that really deserve ridicule whether it is MTL or something like Libra, but I do feel like some people might be overly critical towards decent translations wanting every translation to be amazing and done by someone who has both perfect fluency in japanese and english as well as the writing capabilities of professional writers.

Ever17 is my favorite in that list, I think. Not well-paced, but worth your time, and has one of my favorite VN heroines.

I would like to seconded Koiken Otome here, and perhaps you may as well try Koi Resort in case if you want something lighter. Also in case you want some sci-fi, then you can try both of Ever17 and Steins Gate. Lastly if you want some all age VN other than sci-fi, then you may as well try Symphonic Rain. I hope that my recommendations here would be helpful to you.

Well, I won't bother repeating and explaining stuff, just join the group which suggest reading Steins;Gate, Fate/Stay Night and Grisaia Series. Furthermore, I would recommend to read them in this order because of their length. S;G is the shortest of them all, then follows Fate. Grisaia on the other hand, is long. You cannot simply stop after reading 1 part or you will lose excitement. From personal experience I recommend reading all of Grisaia VNs one after another in order to complete the experience. That is why I also recommended reading S;G and F/SN before Grisaia.

Happy belated birthday @Kiriririri and @littleshogun, and happy birthday to @Mr Poltroon. Hope you all have had (or will have) a wonderful day :).

I'd agree with alpacaman in that it does depend on what kind of story you're looking for, but there are several really good titles on your list - several have mentioned Grisaia (I'd recommend that as well) but there's also Fate/Stay Night, and Steins;Gate (both of which are very good reads if you're into something a bit more serious) as well as a bunch of others I don't know enough about to comment, so I'll stick to a more general recommendation for choosing what to read when. Maybe you can read one or two of the shorter VNs to help you get into the flow of things, before tackling some of the longer VNs - all three of the ones I mentioned above do have some SoL parts that (depending on your tastes and mood) can be slow to get through. If you want to get stuck into a particular world/story for a long time right now I'd recommend Grisaia since the first is on its own quite long and you have both expansions so assuming you like it you can keep reading afterwards. Given your comments in the anime thread, I'd probably put Toradora Portable further away, so you have time to digest the anime before diving in to [what is probably] the more story-dense VN. Other than that I think pick one and commit to reading it and think about the other options as little as possible (easy to say but hard to do) while you read the one you've picked.

Grisaia is a masterpiece imo, strongly recommended. Off the wall comedy ....... while exploring some psychological themes when it gets serious (and it gets more serious then most VNs). And that soundtrack! It does have a rather long common route. Symphonic Rain has a unique art style, and a unique world. And some interesting plot twists. It's one of the few VNs (that I know of), that ditches the moe elements (for the most part). For a suggestion not on your list.... * ef - a fairy tale of the two . Multiple love stories (which are somehow connected). Quite a lot of feels too....

It really depends on what kind of story you want to read. Seeing what kind of VNs you rated highly, Grisaia really might be right up your alley, but in my opinion (I'm currently reading it) it takes a good 10-20 hours until you get anything resembling some sense of conflict (which I personally need to keep reading for longer stretches of time). If you can motivate yourself to read something without any any actual plot for some time, but just painting really detailed personalities by means of SoL (at least for the first hours), it's a really good read. Dengeki Stryker is a fun to read action story mocking many action manga tropes while having an interesting enough plot and cast (very cliché though, but that's part of the fun) to be entertaining beyond being just a parody. Steins;Gate's is a great scifi thriller/drama imo, but the first half is paced rather slowly and your enjoyment of that part depends on how much you enjoy the characters and the science. What I love about the pacing in general is that it really knows when to give the reader and the protagonist some time to breath inbetween action, comedy and exposition. This gives the whole experience a really quiet vibe despite it being quite a ride. Just don't expect too much romance since the VN makes it pretty clear who the main heroine is and all the other character endings are clearly supposed to be bad endings since they are all pretty short and end on depressing notes.

Daresora is very short. I finished it in forty minutes or so, that including the time when the game was playing and I wasn't paying attention and considering the fact that I'm typically a slow reader. Completing it to 100 per cent took me a bit more time, but it definitely can be done in one go. For a longer read I recommend Ever 17.

I think that grisaia no kajitsu is a masterpiece and you definitely should play it, eventualy koiken otome is pretty good too

Not sure though based on the tweet it seems likely, of course they would have to come to an agreement though based on the tweet Lune wanted someone to translate it and MG was interested in translating it.

I/O VNDB Summary April 26th, 2032 A.D. - Megalopolis Tokyo - 00:12 in the morning A total lunar eclipse occurs for the first time in 3 years. Even though it's supposed to be a simple astronomical phenomenon, it soon sets off a series of unexpected events. Unexplainable mysteries, terrorist incidents, and network crime surge as if in unison. The truth mixes with lies, as if the world is awake but still sleeping. Something has begun. Somewhere no one can see. Something no one knows about. This is a story of the chance meeting and tragic parting of the young men and women living in this world. Players get to play the game from 4 different points of view: Route A - Hinata, a youth who has lost his sister and himself. Route B - Ishtar, a freelance programmer and leader of a hacker team. Route C - Ishtar, but seems a bit different from the Ishtar in Route B.... Route D - He, a man completely shrouded in mystery. And thus.. "The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning" Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order Every time you complete a route, bits of the Defrag system (Defrag System info below) will be "recovered" and you will unlock further content. If you're aiming for 100% then you'll have to replay all routes from the beginning after completing the whole visual novel. That's why I recommended you save on every choice you encounter. Expected Route Order: Route A: Ver. 0.1 -> Route B: Ver. 0.1 -> Route C: Ver. 0.1 -> Route D: Ver. 0.1 Route A: Ver 0.1 = Unlocks Route D: Ver 1.0 Route B: Ver 0.1 = Unlocks Route C: Ver 1.0 Route C: Ver 0.1 = Unlocks Route A: Ver 1.0 Route D: Ver 0.1 = Unlocks Route B: Ver 1.0 After you complete the four 0.1 routes above, you can start Route E to get Bad End 2/Solitude since you can only encounter this ending before completing any of the 1.0 Routes. You can go back to it using the Defrag system though so this is optional. If you choose to continue completing without Route E: Bad End 2/Solitude then start the 1.0 routes: ・ Route A: Ver. 1.0 - End/Sunset ・ Route B: Ver. 1.0 - End/Nether world ・ Route E: Bad End 3/"Marduk" (Optional; complete before completing Route C: Ver. 1.0/Overlap, or get back to it using Defrag System afterwards) ・ Route C: Ver. 1.0 - End/Overlap ・ Route D: Ver. 1.0 - End/"Enigma" ・ Route E: End/Lead Out Then you can continue onto Route E/Lead Out. When you complete Route E/Lead Out then you can continue onto the ' routes which are the true endings. It's recommended you play in the reversed order D' -> C' -> B' -> A' while leaving Route E for last again. ・ Route D': End/Dilmun ・ Route C': End/Beginning of legend ・ Route B': End/True End: O ・ Route A': End/True End: I ・ Route E': End/True End: I/O WARNING: REMEMBER TO COMPLETE ALL AVAILABLE BAD ENDINGS BEFORE COMPLETEING THE ACTUAL ENDING FOR ALL 1.0 ROUTES. If you complete the normal ending before completing the BAD ENDs, then it will reset the "Route Value". So if you complete Route A 1.0's normal ending and finish the BAD END after that, you'll never be able to reach Route E because Route A's "Route Value" is resetted. The DEFRAG SYSTEM: -If you want to find out if your "Route Value" is resetted or not, you can refer to the defrag system. If the value of the Route isn't zero but one, then you're fine. -If you're curous as to what the "X" on your defrag system means; It means that either there are material still have yet to be unlocked, or your "Route Value" is resetted. -This system is very important and is required if you want to complete Route E 100%. Certain conditions have to be met regarding the "Route Value" for certain scenes to appear. (but if you follow the recommended route order, then this won't apply) Complete Recommended Route Order: Route A: Ver. 0.1 - END/Clover Route B: Ver. 0.1 - END/Ishtar Route C: Ver. 0.1 - END/"He" Route D: Ver. 0.1 - END/Conclusion Route E: - Bad End 2/Solitude Route A: Ver. 1.0 - End/Sunset Route B: Ver. 1.0 - End/Nether world Route E: - Bad End 3/"Marduk" Route C: Ver. 1.0 - End/Overlap Route D: Ver. 1.0 - End/"Enigma" Route E: - End/Lead Out Route D': - End/Dilmun Route C': - End/Beginning of legend Route B': - End/True End: O Route A': - End/True End: I Route E': - End/True End: I/O Route Guideline Hinata Route A: Ver. 0.1 Route A: Ver. 1.0 Route A' Ishtar Route B: Ver. 0.1 Route B: Ver. 1.0 Route B' Ishtar Route C: Ver. 0.1 Route C: Ver. 1.0 Route C' {HE} Route D: Ver. 0.1 Route D: Ver. 1.0 Route D' True Route Route E Route E' 100% Scene Recovery: Up to this point, the leftovers hindering 100% would be messages/key words. They are not important, so the rest is up to yourselves if you want everyone complete! Good luck! Attribution This walkthrough is based on info attained on desertrain.sakura.ne.jp and from lemniscatranslations's I/O Guide with major adjustments made by me.

Keeping the cringe ball rolling:

YU-NO I've heard fantastic things about this visual novel, and have attempted to play it more than once - but every time I try it kinda drop it midway because the system is infuriating, and the art is pretty old. That said, apparently there's a remake coming soon, so there's that. Steins;Gate, CLANNAD Now before you raise pitchforks and torches to burn me at the stake, let me explain. Apparently these few VNs had a pretty good anime adaptations (some of the best, actually), and because of that, most of the twists are already spoiled for me, and I don't get any interest playing it. My policy now is that if an anime has a VN counterpart, I will always play it first, or wait for it to be translated, unless there is beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will ever be translated. SubaHibi I've also heard great things about this, but seriously, the first chapter really turned me off, and while the second and third chapter had its moments, I really need to get into the mood to enjoy this series. Also, because its seriously weird (in a good way, though weirdness need some time to get used to). I will eventually finish this... someday. Kara no Shoujo 2 The extended flashback scene was WAAAY too long, and while not bad per se, overstayed its welcome. I'm going to get back to it soon, since its Halloween and all. ... Pretty much a lot more which I've forgotten (Phenomeno, KoiNatsu Resort and Myth is some I kinda remember), these are the most memorable ones. Cross Channel is generally a slow burn and I can emphathise with dropping it because until beyond the halfway mark its seems like a weird slice-of-life and you have no idea what's going on. It gets better later though, though I must admit, the ending really left much to be desired.