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  1. I would recommend: Kindred Spirits on the Roof Flowers-series (first two volumes, Spring & Summer are translated) SeaBed Not only are they great Yuri, but pretty fantastic VNs overall as well. Also do note that the full-voice version of Kindred Spirits should be coming out soon, so you might want to wait for that.
    2 points
  2. zxdvas

    unconventional hi

    Prob should have made this earlier but no point in introducing if that is the only post I make. Socially awkward and never get along with others. Has taken the role as a silent observer. Has a strong opinion about the world but would rather keep to myself. Irrational at times because irrational is better than insanity. Has a remote interest in literature and philosophy but not enough to dedicate myself into it. Facing an identity crisis of what kind of person I want to become. Has failed too many people's expectation to the point of not even being ashamed. Is that kind of person you would not want as a friend or colleague in real life. To be honest, I don't know why I even made this post. Would rather be left alone to save others' trouble. Realised that one single person's fate is insignificant to the whole of humanity. But have yet to let go. Like a lone survivor in some distant isle. Can either choose to live in solitude but somewhat self-sufficient or risk all to return to civilisation.
    1 point
  3. Hi! I'm not new to the VNs scene at all, but recently figured it was time to make a forums account here and try spending time in this community. I've been a VN reader for about 6 years now, and I've read several translated JVNs and a boatload of EVNs. A few months ago, I finally decided to start writing them too! My first release is Strawberry Daiquiri which is a short, free VN about two guys hanging out in a cyberpunk-ish bar. My favorite genre is mystery, but I'll read mostly anything. My favorite VNs are Fata Morgana and Danganronpa V3. I've read all of Higurashi but not Umineko yet (I know I really need to play it!) At the time of this post I'm currently in the middle of Fureraba ~Friend to Lover~. Oh, and since I'm the Bishounen Producer, I should mention that my favorite boys are Kagamine Len, Yamazaki Sousuke, and so many Danganronpa boys. Thanks for stopping by!
    1 point
  4. I love Kaito in particular too I just didn't wanna mention TWO vocaloids ya feel me
    1 point
  5. BLESS! Although, I'm a Kaito, Tachibana Makoto and Togami Byakuya fan myself. よろしく~
    1 point
  6. Lively backgrounds are the best. Sometimes these still background people have more character than the actual characters and you start wondering what their stories are.
    1 point
  7. I would assume you are an English monolingual speaker? Correct me if I'm wrong, and I don't mean it as an offense, at all, if anything, I can perfectly relate. Unfortunately my Japanese is still not good enough to comfortably read VNs (nor it'll be any time soon if I don't get my shit together and start to take it seriously ), but I had a similar enough experience given that English is not my first language and there was a time when I couldn't read it fluently. My native languages would be Spanish and French, and for a very long time everything I consumed would be in one of those languages, especially Spanish. The thing is, the few translated VNs available would most of the time be a machine translation from English, which at the same time would usually be a pretty bad translation from Japanese. Just imagine how terrible that is. Needless to say, since I got my English up to par I completely stopped consuming this shitty translations, and I'm now a happier individual and the world is a better place. And still, sometimes I replay VNs along with friends that can't speak English, so we download a Spanish patch... and I'm constantly thinking how much better those scenes were just by the way they were worded in English. The style and prose can definitely make or break a good scene. And before you retort that it's just because I've read the English translation first, nope, this goes both ways. I've checked the English translation of stuff I've originally read in Spanish/French and I still think it's way better. Either because you truly don't care or you are not yet aware that you do, I obviously won't try to force my view on you. I just wanted to let you know that I'm the farthest from a 'VN elitist' that you could get, and I still very much care for translation quality, as many others do.
    1 point
  8. Staggered by fan backlash over its censorship of President Yukino, Kagura Games has partnered with JAST and MangaGamer to provide uncensored releases. Kagura Games commits to uncensored releases after fan backlash
    1 point
  9. Greetings! Very soon we plan to share 1) the trailer 2) the demo version of the game 3) the Steam page for wishlisting. The former two are almost there - if they pass the testing process, we should be able to share them next Saturday. : ) Also, there is a good chance that Oray Studios (which makes a huge part of the game's graphics!) will show our work at G-Star 2018 in South Korea in just a couple of weeks!
    1 point
  10. No, it's the most under rated thing among the apologists for low quality work I am convinced that Recettear took off because its localization is one of the best I've ever seen. There were other, better, quirky Japanese games that could have been the one that opened the floodgates. Why Recettear? Because someone at Valve saw the demo and was immediately taken by it. Well, why did that happen? Recettear is a low budget game and even its merchant sim mechanics aren't THAT special. Indeed, Recettear being a smash hit in the West surprised everybody; Japanese sales were so-so. Why is that? I'm pretty sure it's because Recettear's localized script is better than the Japanese script. I haven't actually checked, but I'll bet Recettear in Japanese is a fine script, but nothing spectacular. The English version, in comparison, cranks everything up to 11 and is a laugh riot. I've been thinking about this for quite awhile. When I look back at what I consider the best games I've ever played, there is a very high correlation with the best localization work I've ever seen. Nearly all the best translated RPGs and VNs have really good localization work. I have a very hard time thinking of any I'd hold up as an example of best-in-class despite having a bad localization. Because a bad localization kills the script. Many RPGs that I ultimately wasn't impressed with have bad localizations. Some are probably just... bad games. But I'm now convinced many would have ranked much higher had they been translated by competent folks who knew what they were doing, rather than by inept companies that didn't give a rat's ass. The Atelier series, for instance, has consistently awful localizations, which - combined with the already-fairly-weak plots - really hurts the games. I checked out entirely: I quit halfway through Atelier Shallie because I just didn't care, and haven't bothered looking at any released since. I have it on fairly good authority the Ar Tonelico series is good in Japanese; I couldn't get more than a few hours into either of the ones I tried because the writing was so. awful. RPGFan makes the point better than I ever could: Here is a review of the Japanese PSP version of Legend of Heroes: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch. And here, of the English version. Notice how every aspect of the game scored lower? That's not only because it's a different reviewer. That's because a good story does more than just hold your interest during the story segments. It doesn't make the whole game better, but it makes it feel better. It subconsciously makes people more willing to overlook flaws in the game as a whole. People recognize this effect for graphics; they call it bling. But they don't seem to acknowledge it's true for the text, as well. Bad localizations destroy games. They do it so effectively people don't even understand what happened, just that 'they didn't like the game'. They think 'that game sucked' when the real problem was 'that game was translated by a company that cares so little that when one of its employees thought it would be funny to change a character's name to Esty Dee, they just left it in the game'.
    1 point
  11. Prose, overrated? It's only the main point, and almost all of the content - it rather hope it'd be important! Even ignoring the fact that "subtle details" are often fairly important (mysteries, anyone?), the straightforward text itself can save or ruin a story. To give an example, would you enjoy reading a VN full of this: That's the beginning of The Eye of Argon, one of the most legendary (-ily bad) books ever written. Here's a fisking of Chapter 1. Imagine reading a 60 hour VN of this. Prose - the quality of the writing - matters. A lot. I guarantee you I can take a scene from your favorite game and ruin it, while still translating it 100% accurately.
    1 point
  12. Whether or not a crowd of people in the background helps increase immersion depends on the game, I think. Brains tend to fill in gaps, so even without the visual indicator, if something is implied through other means (text, sound etc.), that something can still appear to make sense, even if it isn't visually present. This is why the lack of crowds in VNs rarely is a problem. On the other hand, the presence of information that doesn't makes sense can decrease immersion, like in ittaku's example. The presence of information that does make sense (eg. a crowd of people on a crowded street) does probably make something feel more real. But then again, I'd argue that not everything benefits from being super realistic. Sorry not sorry for the gibberish.
    1 point
  13. I disagree, on many levels. 1. No, the Kooky Tumblr Dwellers are nowhere, NOWHERE as prominent as the entire "hurr sjws" demographic. And that demographic misrepresents marginalized people entirely. Because when someone comes across such a thing and asks why it's funny or what it's about, the answer is going to be "It's making fun of SJW's!", and then that's going to be connected to other, more important concepts, much like the exact thing you've done with your examples. The thing that catapulted these subcultures into prominence wasn't the subcultures themselves spreading aggressively, it was all the alt right YouTubers and shit posters going "HEE HEE LOOK AT THESE STUPID POOPY TUMLRINAS", often to an audience of thousands, even millions. And then since those people gave no shits about actual trans (etc.) issues (its just memes to them), they carried that hatred over to hating marginalized people overall. 2. I'm proposing that we keep assholes from hurting people by criticizing harmful jokes and cultural things. You cite really, really obscure Tumblr subcultures, but you seem to be unaware of how much casual bigotry and harassment there still is in many online spaces. And if you don't want to stop harmful jokes from propagating, then you're just enabling the people who perpetuate that harm in the first place. You can't eat your cake and have it still. Some shitheads getting to make shitty jokes is far less important than the well being of other people. 3. You are blaming the victim. There will always be assholes, sure, but that doesn't suddenly mean that it's my fault or anyone else's fault that their assholery offends other people. That's fully, completely the asshole's fault. Pronouns are actually important facets of someone's identity, especially for a trans person, so you saying that that's "just the SJW's being really sensitive" proves my entire point. You were supposedly only criticizing Tumblr extremists, but now you're complaining about pronouns, a very fundamental thing about gender expression and trans identities. I'm very convinced that you actually are about trans people now. 4. Your knife analogy is incorrect. You use your own words and you communicate your own way. You're not a detached manufacturer, you're openly brandishing a knife because it's your knife, and you're walking in public with it, and you're saying it's someone else's fault if they bump into you and get a bleeding gash on their arm. A knife also has actual non-violent purposes, unlike these bigoted jokes, which only serve to mock people. Like it or not, you're responsible for the effect of the things you say, regardless of your intention. Regardless of intention, you can hurt people. 5. You've done the exact thing you claimed you weren't. Your examples aren't just weird people on Tumblr talking about gender. No, you've fully started to claim they're in your government and all that jazz when the far right is globally on the rise. You're looking down upon someone for wanting their pronouns to be respected, and that's textbook transphobia. That's the exact sort of thing I was telling you about. "SJWs are stupid because they come up with weird things and want to take our freedom of speech away, it's not about marginalized people!" is how it starts, and now you're saying something that is fully transphobic and you're blaming the "sensitive SJW" for it. It's because how almost everyone who uses that word is like you, they blame other people for their own misconceptions (after ostracizing them for decades, trans people do not owe the rest of society any blame for how they're represented), they refuse to reevaluate their behavior and they fall back on harmful stereotypes while blaming the demographic itself for having it (because that weird community you talk of is far more welcoming to trans people than you'll ever be) and yet claim to respect trans people. 6. It's almost funny to see someone claim a vast SJW conspiracy. It's not even been two years since the far right (and the alt right) surge started, with Trump getting elected (despite many sexual assault allegations) and Brexit passing its referandum, and yet somehow it's still the evil vile SJW's that is ruining everything. The same SJW's you complain of are the very people who unearthed the culture of sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood, in workplaces, elsewhere. The American president has nine sexual assault allegations against him (and a voice recording), who just nominated a judge for the supreme court who also has three allegations against himself. The point is that we're far from any point when we'll fear accusations are being abused, not when the general trend is that a lot of abuse that was being kept under wraps is getting uncovered. You've persuaded me of one thing, though. I don't want to be a part of Fuwanovel anymore. Because I know I'm in the minority when it comes to all of these ideas. I'll probably leave for good in a few days.
    1 point
  14. And that is why all I'm saying is, don't be an asshole. Let's not be assholes. We'll only need to get rid of free speech to keep this sort of dicky "humor" from propagating if people are not willing to exercise the self-restraint to not make jokes like this. "I have every right to be a dick so you cannot tell me to not be one" is a really, really nonsensical assertion. Let's just collectively decide not to be assholes. And, sad as I am to say, intention doesn't matter that much. At the end of the day, regardless of intention, stuff like this sees more light of day than discussion of actual issues. This sort of thing, even if you just want to mock the kooky feminist boogeyman, drags down actual trans people and their struggle. People left and right don't give a shit about actual trans people unless they can mock a concept related to them. You perhaps aren't the sort of person who goes around saying "hur hur yer feelins dunnt determine yer gender hur hur", but the thing is, that's the stereotype you propagate about trans people. It gets generalized to trans people because like it or not, people will use these jokes to mock trans people by saying "oh you identify as male even though you look like a girl? what are you gonna be next, an attack helicopter?" and similar things. And honestly, it does not readily come off across as mocking the kooky feminist boogeyman and not trans people, anyways. People use the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS to mock trans people. LIKE IT OR NOT, many trans people are hurt by this joke. Because it was never just "mocking SJWs". At every stage of history, including the internet, these sorts of jokes have circulated under the guise of "mocking extreme progressives", while shutting down the voices of all sorts of marginalized people. Is there a single meme or term related to trans people you've seen more than the attack helicopter meme? Note: "Futa" and "trap" do not count. And that's the thing. It takes the idea of gender identity and mocks that concept as a whole, regardless of your intention. I have, buddy. I've seen my share of shit. I know of the things you guys see as "SJW bullshit" when it's not being used by people who are out-and-out bigots in their own words. And you know what? I'll take a confederacy of nebulagender people over a single person who uses "gay" as an insult. And therein lies the rub. That's the most harmful or outrageous thing about these people you can come up with. A bunch of Tumblr posts made by people you probably won't interact with in your daily life, and which don't harm you in any way. That's the huge, unacceptable offence that these people commit in your eyes: Saying "If you say things that hurt people who are already spurned by most of society, you're an asshole" is unacceptable in your eyes. It's not a tirade against free speech. It's OFFERING CRITICISM OF CULTURE, LITERALLY THE ENTIRE POINT OF FREE SPEECH. Free speech doesn't mean "say everything you can because they're inherently good things to say", we can all say things that hurt others, and we should try to not do that. """SJWs""" are just people who claim that some things people say are hurtful, and that we shouldn't say hurtful things. And that's it, that's fucking it, that's the fucking crime against humanity that the social justice warriors have somehow committed to get more ridicule, anger, ire and mockery drawn toward them than any other demographic on the internet, more than literal, overt racism, more than homophobia, more than out-and-out sexism. And that's why all of this is bullshit. People claim to give two shits about trans people and that they're not mocking trans people, no sir, but when it comes down to actually caring about and supporting these people it becomes "but the gays talk about being gay all the time it's annoying" and "free speech, you can't tell me what to do", "don't make this about race/gender", "you're overthinking it", and endless derivatives of such shit. They don't watch their language or their behavior, they complain about "forced diversity", they talk about how much they love fapping to "traps", and aren't uncomfortable when people say things like "fake and gay". Basically, 99.9999999% of people who use the term SJW say these jokes aren't aimed at trans people, because they don't want to deal with the consequences of saying they don't actually give a shit. And guess what, it doesn't even matter to you if the joke's actually aimed at trans people or not. By your very own metric, people have some sort of right to make overtly transphobic jokes since apparently "comedy" or "satire" can't be hurtful or bigoted, or at least doesn't matter if it is bigoted. By your own metric, you're allowed to make jokes that are mocking trans people and apparently that's all that's important beyond not being an asshole, so long as you can be an asshole. People who cause much more harm (to free speech and other things) don't draw the same ire. Somehow people deserve ridicule and mockery (if not outright hatred) from millions for thinking up new genders but it's okay if they get off to drawings of children (even toddlers) because that is free speech and they don't hurt anybody so don't criticise them!!! Y'all can really fucking tolerate an entire culture built around lolis but can't tolerate a bunch of people coming up with monikers for themselves. Fuck off with the "we care about trans people this is mocking another demographic that's not related to or associated with trans people at all!" bullshit already.
    1 point
  15. Making attack helicopter jokes to mock non-binary and trans people (and what they have to say) is not insightful, and is about as relevant and mature as exposing your dick to a vegetarian and shouting "so you won't eat this meat either, huh?????" while dancing in front of them. For all the claims about how this meme is satire, I find it perplexing that people have such a deep need to satirize something that's an important issue that still needs to be discussed. Trans and non-binary people aren't saying "let's call people attack helicopters", they're saying that for some people, the gender they identify as doesn't match their body. And they've historically been murdered and ostracized because of this. I see nothing "ridiculous" about this situation. "Oh, these people are being killed because other people can't accept their identity. How quirky and weird and satire-worthy." For all this "Oh, oh, it's to own the dirty SJWs!!!!!!" talk, it's the """""SJWs""""" who advocate most ardently advocate for trans rights. Funny how that goes. And no, people you call "SJWs" do not actually claim absurd shit just for the sake of shouting at people. Funny how if a trans person says "Please don't make these jokes, they hurt me and mock who I am" they're called an SJW and laughed at. An SJW -to basically everyone who uses that term- is someone who says "maybe we should watch what we say and do to not hurt others in unnecessary ways". That's it. And since people don't want to actually be critical of how they behave themselves, "SJWs" become these bunch of shrieking idiots offended at everything. Why? Because that makes it easier to laugh at people who say "Please don't hurt us." instead of examining our behavior and exercising some self-restraint. I wish we'd see the same level of coordinated mocking satire and criticism against actual bigots. And that's the key, "self-restraint". It's not about whether comedy should be allowed to satirize anything and everything. It's not about "shitty political correctness is taking our jokes away!!". It's about how shitty and hurtful it is to make jokes mocking people who have already been ostracized and hurt for who they are. It's not about whether it's "allowed" or not. It's about being good satire, which (besides general comedy) aims to portray something wrong in a humorous way in order to make a point that something is wrong about the thing being satirised. It's about not saying things that hurt people. And I think you can appreciate the fact that this is just a way of criticism, which is perfectly fine since free speech (including criticism) at its absolute is more important than anything else. Right? These jokes don't simply satirize a bunch of kooky extremists. They mock any trans person who says anything that's remotely new or uncomfortable. Memes mocking "SJWs" are fucking everywhere. Some people are a bit sensitive about some types of jokes and statements, wow, that's sure worth a level of coordinated criticism and mockery sustained for years we don't levy at sexual harassers, bigots, racists, homophobes, groups who actually hurt others. Guess it's their fault they're a bit ~offended~ at this stuff after being hurt for it for all of history. For all the snark about "SJWs can't take a joke!!!", people sure seem sensitive to having their behavior and words criticized. The idea that no trans person ever gets offended at these jokes (same with racial jokes, etc.) except "SJWs", and that it apparently doesn't matter if an "SJW" is offended (even if they're trans), is fucking absurd. It's a lie. It's just a way to sugarcoat hatred people want to spew when they're told something they're doing something wrong. This entire "b-b-b-b-but it's to own the SJWs!" argument is the most ironic aspect of modern society... Free speech -unimpeded, possibly harmful speech- is somehow worth more than anything else, but when some people try to exercise that very same free speech to express anger, frustration or hurt, they're mocked, ostracized and belittled for it. Comedy is allowed to criticise and mock everything but when "SJWs" try to criticise other things seriously, they're told "This actually isn't offensive, you have no right to feel hurt by this" and that they shouldn't criticise things. The entire SJW boogeyman is a lie people are using to avoid being told they can do or say harmful things. Knowingly so (even worse, if unknowingly). Obviously, I don't expect @neometalero to care about all this at this point, so all I'll say is that at least don't put a """trap""" character or something in this game.
    1 point
  16. Clephas

    Mirai Radio no Jinkou-Bato

    First, apologies to those who actually want to read about some of August's releases. I went on vacation (vacation being a word open to interpretation when it comes to sleeping in unfamiliar beds and helping with my brother's kids), and when I got back, I found I had absolutely no urge whatsoever to pick up a VN. I guess that taking a true break from VNs for the first time in almost a decade (no VNs for five days straight) was enough to free me from the spell of my obsession. That said, Jinkou Bato was pretty amusing, so I had every intention of getting back to it, eventually. This game is based fifty years in the future, fifteen years after a disaster caused by technology (deliberately) gone wrong wiped out the global internet and reduced people to using wires and letters to communicate. This disaster was caused by artificial lifeforms based on the pigeon that originally served as self-replicating flying antennas. The maker of these 'artificial pigeons' made them begin to 'eat' radio and electromagnetic waves, literally stopping all signals not passed through a wire. This resulted in innumerable deaths, and it was such a huge economic and technological blow that the characters of the story are quite aware of how they live in a much-reduced world. Sora, the protagonist, is an orphan who hates the artificial pigeons more than anyone, as he lost his parents the day of the disaster. Living with this adopted family, he succeeds in building a set of radios that can communicate with one another without being stopped by the pigeons, and from there the story begins. Mmm... I'm going to be straight about my feelings on this game. First, I like the character dynamics. There is a lot to laugh about early on, and the intensity of Sora and friends when they make a certain discovery is pleasing to me, as I'm a bit tired of characters living without a sense of purpose in my VNs, lol. That Sora and the others are college students at a vocational university rather than high schoolers is nice as well... and an adult heroine who is bisexual is also nice, hahaha. That said, both Mizuki's and Akina's paths are weaker than the Tsubaki and Kaguya paths due to the fact that only Tsubaki's and Kaguya's paths actually confront the central issues head on. Mizuki's and Akina's paths both stink of escapism, and while that is fine on its own... it left me feeling a sense of distaste for the characters involved (yes, I want my characters to be better or stronger people than me). Tsubaki and Kaguya's paths are the true path. No, I'm not saying that they are separately the true path... rather, together they form a single path, in a really weird (if familiar from other otaku media) way. The path is... extremely emotional, and I honestly felt that Sora, from beginning to end, fulfilled his potential as a character... something that is pretty unusual for VN protagonists in general. Lets be clear, this isn't a kamige or even VN of the Year material. This is a nakige with a great main path and two so-so side paths. I say 'great', but the game's pace is really fast after the initial, lighter stages of the story. That said, there is no sense of choppiness to the pacing, and it feels like the events actually occur in the time you see them happen in the game (less than two months), as there are no excess SOL scenes whatsoever. If you want a relatively quick nakige with some amusement early on, this is a good choice. I honestly can't recommend it for someone who wants a grand and sweeping opera, though.
    1 point
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