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well.. after long time im became silent reader finally i decided to make fuwanovel's profile and i think i should introduce myself tbh it's my first time making profile so i dont have vndb or mal account, or should i make it ? im a fan of moege and i hope you guys can recommend me some good stuff nice to meet you all and sorry for my bad english

just dont forget to play on that date, otherwise youll have to wait a whole year before you can play again.

Nice to meet you :3 I'm a new lurker here, adding to the ever-growing list of people too shy to speak up even on the Internet. I may have opinions on things, sure, but I'm always afraid that I'm not informed enough to speak them. I've been reading and loving VNs for some four years now (starting with Hakuoki in 2014), but I actually hadn't read 99% of the stuff that everyone is gushing about, like Fate/Stay Night or Steins;Gate... It's a rather awkward position to be in, to be honest ^^' (I'm getting to it, I swear, I'm just REALLY slow). If you have any BL or yuri recommendations, please let me know, I love that stuff :3 (I’d prefer if it wasn’t too sexualized, but I can deal if it is). Or heck, just recommend anything good, I’m not biased towards anything (other than porn). Bonus points for interesting protagonists, friends-to-lovers and bromance. What else to say… I’m an avid shipper. Like, really. I can ship literally anything, especially if it has no chance of becoming canon :’) It’s gotten to the point where I had to make a list just to keep track of it all. I speak Polish and English (and some VERY basic German), hope to learn Japanese and Spanish once I’m through with college (English and game design, if you were curious - a strange combination, I know). I like to write, by which I mean that I’m awful at it and I hate everything I make, but it’s fun to come up with stuff so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Every song can be improved by a Metal cover, period. Dark Souls and Hakuoki are the only games I’ve bought twice, I just love them too much <3 And, umm… Ok, that’s it. I’ve kept you long enough. Let’s have some fun!

Worry not, after you meet @VirginSmasher you will soon be free of your virginity. Report to Canada within 24 days, use the code-word "cuckJOP" when ordering your ticket so we can track you. Thank you for flying VirginSmasher airlines!

This is an opinion that has been a long time in forming, but I am coming around to an opinion that the more simplistic viewpoints I've possessed on the differences between American approaches to storytelling and Japanese ones are somewhat off the mark. Note: This is a rant, it should be treated as a rant, and if it doesn't make sense to you, that is because it is my brain leaking into text on this blog. First, my original opinion: To put it simply, it was my belief that the Japanese had a tendency to go for emotional surrealism (in other words, emotional bombardment) and visual excess (exaggeration) to tell their stories. In opposition, Americans tend to go for the 'gritty and realistic', with straight out bullet to the head realism. This was a generalization that, while based on my experiences with Japanese video games that told a story (both VNs and jrpgs) and Western games that more or less tried to do the same (Isometric RPGs, Bethesda-style games, etc), was never meant to be an absolute statement but just a general opinion of the tendencies I'd encountered. Second, my new opinion: First, I've come to the conclusion that American gaming companies don't know how to tell a story anymore (since Bioware has gone crappy, Obsidian is about to get absorbed/has been absorbed by a company that has no idea of what it is doing, and the Witcher was made by Polish people). Second, the Japanese seem to suffer from a similar malaise... and the source is, quite ironically, fairly similar in the cases of mainstream games. It is the disease I call the 'MMO virus'. Yes, you who actually read my blog know my opinion on online multiplayer games and what they have done to erode storytelling games in general, but my recent conclusion is that this erosion has actually reached a critical point in the last five years. Rebellions against the progression of this disease have occurred (Tales of Berseria, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Nier: Automata come to mind for the Japanese, and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire for America), but these have been relatively minor upthrusts against the toxins released by the cloud of mission-based 'stories' you see in games nowadays. Bethesda has also contributed to this plague (fetch quests and hunt the monster quests being a common plague for them as well), and it seems like every time I turn around, I see another game trying to tell its story through an obvious mission or quest system is sitting right there. Sure, the systems had their roots in D&D games, but the way they've developed is the result of the plague that infected the world using games like WoW as its vector. I first began to see signs of this disease back in the PS2 era, though it was mostly limited to 'high end' games at the time, like Final Fantasy (XII having essentially repurposed and altered XI's MMO battle system for a single-player model), I was honestly horrified to see how easy it was to let myself get led around by the nose from objective to objective in hopes that I'd find the story in there somewhere. The problem was, once the objectives became my reason for playing (as was inevitable, because that is the tactic they use to draw you in), I increasingly realized that I couldn't enjoy what story was being told, because I was impatient to get to the next objective, even though I didn't find any of that searching for objectives to be fun in the least. VNs suffer from a different set of problems. While jrpgs and western games suffer from the simple fact that the current generation of makers grew up obsessing over pathetic attempts to graft stories onto multiplayer games, VNs suffer from the fact that the best and brightest of their creators are... getting old. Hell, some of them even died in between projects. Worse, no one of equal capability has replaced them, leading to an unfortunate confluence of near-universal incompetence and corporate inability to grasp the reasons for failure and fix it. No, I'm not saying that all new VNs suck. Hell, if they all sucked, I wouldn't still be trying to go back and play them, like the burnt-out junkie I am. No, my issue is that there is a sudden dearth of developed talent within the world of VNs that has gotten horrible in the last five years. Most of the major names are retired, have moved on to 'greater' things, or are dead. Shumon Yuu is silent, Hino Wataru seems to have gone underground, Masada is probably off in his own little world, Fujisaki Ryuuta is circling in place, Kurashiki Tatsuya is off indulging his inner sadist with half-assed games, Kazuki Fumi can't seem to stick with one thing long enough to make it great since Akeiro Kaikitan, and Agobarrier is three years dead. That isn't even mentioning all the formerly major names that have just decided to retire without telling anyone or got hired away by mainstream video game companies. What is replacing them are primarily LN writers... who, unfortunately, tend to write like middle school street kids on crack (and not in a good way). They often have great ideas, but they are fuzzy about execution and lacking in technique. As a result, you get a bunch of third-rate one-off VNs that no one really likes. Artists aren't a problem. There will always be plenty of skilled otaku artists who can draw h-scenes. The issue is and always will be writers... because it is the writer that decides whether a VN will become remembered for years to come or be dropped back into the dung at the bottom of the latrine.

Hello everyone, as I mentioned few times already our group (re)started the TL project on "Pure Pure: The story of ears and tails" after FOTS translations abandoned this project (got in touch with the head of the project, unfortunately he had to stop because he has too many real life issues...) This novel is really old one (published ~2004) so many of you won't know what is it about but people who were in touch with FOTS will know. =) I will post time to time in this topic but for people who are interested in this novel we created a simple FB page. I hope there is still someone who is looking forward to this novel, because this one has caught me so hard I decided to found a group and finish it. =) Me and Sachi wish you the best Aki Update - 19.01.2019 Game version: 18+ Necessary program edits to run the English version - Done (All credit goes to FOTS translations) Main menu - Done (All credit goes to FOTS translations) Extras - Done (All credit goes to FOTS translations) Translation: Chapter 1 - Re - Edited - 42,71% Chapter 2 - Rough TL - Done, Proofreading - Done, Testing - 0% (Abyss Translations) Chapter 3 - Rough TL - Done, Proofreading ~ 0% (Abyss Translations) Hinata Route - Rough TL - Done (Route has two different endings), Proofreading ~ 0% (Abyss Translations) Tobari Route - 85,05% -> 88,79% Rough TL (Abyss Translations) Bad Route- 0% Miwa Route - 0% Total Progress ~ 91,15% -> 91,79% (Rough TL) Please note that the total progress includes the FOTS' chapter 1. However we decided to adjust the 1st chapter so the writing style and the formatting is the same as it is in chapter 2+. More info can be found on our page.

With Date A Live: Rio Reincarnatio being confirmed for an english release I figured I should make a review of it. Date A Live Rio Reincarnation is actually a collection of two Date A Live VNs that released on PS3 as well as a new story that I think can kind of be seen as a fandisc. The two PS3 VNs are Date A Live: Rinne Utopia and Date A Live: Arusu Install while the extra story is just called Date A Live Rio Reincarnation. For this review I will focus on each individual part on its own. A quick summary of Date A Live Rinne Utopia Date A Live Rinne Utopia takes place sometime after the first season on the anime and includes the characters introduced in the first season. Other than this there is also a new character Rinne a mysterious girl who seem to be Shido's neighboor as well as his childhood friend (they were never reunited, she was always there). Other than this there are some other odd things going on, for instance there is a huge tower in the middle of the city that only Shido finds odd and he has these dreams of a spirit appearing before him. During the common route there are of course also date events where you can choose between Kotori, Origami, Kurumi, Touka and Yoshino. After some of these date events you get into their routes and get an ending with them. After having gone through all the different endings you then unlock Rinne's route where I would say the meat of the story can be found. For my opinion of it I would first like to say that I think this is a really good Date A Live VN. It takes full advantage of the setting of Date A Live and I think it does an excelent job both telling a large impactfull story while also giving lots of nice moments with each of the different heroines and pretty satisfying endings with each of the heroines. For the heroine routes there is always something going on whether there is an internal conflict for one of the girls or it is something else going on, because of this it felt like each of the routes managed to carry themselves as their own story and also make the romance between the heroine and Shido feel satisfying. For the overarching plot I think they do a good job building it up throughout the VN during the different routes and I think the story it tells is something that works perfectly within the setting of a VN. Rinne's route at the end then works as a great climax for the story with lots of epic as well as emotional moments. A quick summary of Date A Live Arusu Install Date A Live Arusu Install takes place sometime after the second season on the anime and as such also includes Miku and the Yamai twins. The main setup of the story in Arusu Install is that Ratatoskr has made a new dating sim for Shido to practise on which is a fulldive experience that has a recreation of the city they live in as well as the people living there. There Shido is supposed to go on dates with AI's with the same personality and looks as the spirits. However early in the game he meets an odd girl called Arusu, that he has never seen before and shouldn't exist in the game, she ask him what love is as she is curious about it and don't understand it. As this happens Kotori who has been talking to Shido when he was in the game loses contact with him and the people on the outside are unable to get him out of there, meaning he is stuck within the game. This then makes all of the girls hook themselves up to the machine to enter the game so that they can save Shido. This means that they are all stuck in a replica of their city going to the same school and living in the same house. So this means that it is essentially as if they were in the real world other than the fact that side characters are npc, they are forced into roles that fit a dating sim and there is Arusu using her powers to make special date events that happens in the dream of Shido and the heroine that puts them in special suituations with the aim being for them to get closer so she can learn what love is. As for my review of Date A Live Arusu Install I guess I should start with the begining. I think that the way they use the setting of Date A Live to set up the story is really cool. Referencing my little Shido with the fulldive machine is really fun and I think it is a really smart way of getting the characters into suituations they otherwise wouldn't be. Other than this it also sets up a nice overarching mystery with Arusu and them being stuck in the game. Also because of the game's setting there are lots of things that are able to happen that wouldn't otherwise make sense and this is used to make lots of different scenarios with the girls. This I would say works well as fanservice for the girls not necessarily sexual fanservice, but more so seeing them in lots of different suituation like magical girl Kotori or shrine maid Origami which also provides some nice interesting artwork. A problem with this though is that these scenarios don't really do any job with building a good emotional story for the girls or get you connected to them, it just feels like pure fanservice with no substance. This made the routes for the individual heroines seem quite hollow, something that really hurt my enjoyment as this is the majority of the VN. The true route I feel does a good job on the emotional side and just in general having a pretty good and satisfactory story. So overall I would say that the setup and the true route are really good, but that it suffers from the other routes feeling empty only offering hollow fanservice that mainly just show different suitations with the characters in what seem like what if scenarios, though they do have good art and I would say some are quite enjoyable (magical girl Kotori is one that comes to mind). Date A Live Rio Reincarnation works pretty much like a fandisc for both of the previous VNs. I don't think I can really go much into it without spoiling things from the other VNs, but what I can say is that they meet a small girl named Rio who looks for the most important thing (she doesn't know what it is just that she is looking for it). As for the content of Rio Reincarnation it features a few nice scenes with the heroines as well as give a bit more of a proper ending for each of the VNs. I very much liked this addition as I really liked the different endings in it as well as the story it told in general being interesting. Just some quick remarks about the visuals, the visuals are really nice looking, which is to be expected as the artist is Tsunako, the artist behind the Neptunia series and Fairy Fencer F as well as being the illustrator for the original Date A Live light novel. However I found some rather annoying problems with the PS4 CGs. While most of them were as they should be, some of the CG variations had parts of the art that had been missplaced by a pixel or two or there being a difference in colour between two parts of the CG put together. Under are two examples with some red circles added just to show the area you need to look at. While these aren't really that noticeable I found it annoying as I like to screenshot all of the different CGs and have them on my PC to look at later and I don't want them to have these kinds of flaws. Cover of the limited edition Back of the limited edition Cover of regular edition Everything included with the limited edition Cover of limited PS4 edition and regular PS vita edition

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I approached the world of Visual Novels and I have a rather special question. Are there any Visual Novels with a different design style than the Japanese one? Not that I do not like them but it seems a bit 'strange that the kind of game is related only to a type of artistic style.

Hi guys, I'm happy to have found a community so active in the world of visual novel!

I KNOW RIGHT?! God, the merchandising on this will be off the chart!

Is this real? How the hell it's not some kind of disgraceful abomination?? Why do I like the trailer so much??? *DEEP EXISTENTIAL CRISIS*

I love it uwu

I'm playing it right now and I agree with pretty much all that you said, I also wanted to write a review for this dammit! What I really don't care for is the obnoxious amount of referential humor its just not funny. Just the amount of it is staggering, like that long segment in which they referenced breaking bad. Also the boob physics are annoying as well. Tits don't move like that!

An Octave Higher and One Small Fire At A Time, both by Indonesian studio Kidalang, don't look that Fapanese.

I was actually thinking about Ef as I was typing that too. I was actually playing it for a couple hours earlier today. It would be perfect to start around Christmas. I started it around last Christmas and I found the opening church scene and everything, so atmospheric and perfect. I still haven't even finished it, but I love it. It can be so slow, but the art and music and everything is just so good. I'm gonna be sad when I finally finish it.

I was actually remembering "ef - a fairy tale of the two" just as I was writing that. lol I remember it fondly because its adapted anime was one of the few with Christmas in it. Since ef's beginning starts some time near Christmas, it might be fun for me to pick it up some time then.

In a way - it's because of visual novels either being Japanese or imitating the Japanese format closely. You'll find mostly people interested in manga and anime on both the producer and consumer side of Western VNs. And Japanese ones rarely go very far from the anime stylistics - I was also thinking about suggesting House in Fata Morgana, like @onorub did, but I'm not even sure if it's that "Western". I see it more like a modification of the anime artstyle, just like Steins;Gate or Danganronpa got pretty far from the generic moe aesthetic, but are still very visibly Japanese games.

Yeah, definitely. Plus, when you start the VN again the next day, sometimes the protagonist would forget about something from yesterday, and you would find yourself vaguely remembering it too since it's also yesterday for you. That kind of experience is just fun. Man, that's really cool, but I don't have seasons here (only rain or shine), so I can't pull off the same trick. That said, it is cool to be playing a visual novel during the same holidays as featured in the story sometimes. Like playing a story set in Christmas during December. lol That's kinda cool in its own way and makes the reading experience much more richer.

I think the first time I caught myself doing something that was playing Persona 4. I thought it would be cool to go through the year playing the date in game in real life, but since some days just fly past and others go on for awhile I never attempted it though. Playing VNs I definitely do like to quit at the end of a day, since it's usually the perfect spot to remember whats going on, but I also like to try to match up seasons with the ones in real life. Seeing it snowing and reading about how warm my character's tea is, while it's snowing in real life and I'm wrapped in blankets, drinking my own tea just makes me feel extra cozy.

VNs by Nova-Box have both a European setting and Western-style artwork. They also have pretty unique narratives.

Well, you'll not find many of those among Japanese ones, but with Western-made visual novels, there are a few notable examples - first ones that come to mind are Cinders and Solstice and to a slightly lesser extent CUPID. There are surely quite a few smaller titles that also used distinctly Western artstyle, but those are the clearest examples I can recall right now. There are also quite a few western VNs that mostly follow the anime style, but give it a slight spin that makes them distinct from Japanese-made games. Here I would include SoulSet, ebi-hime's VN illustrated by Sillyselly or maybe even VA-11 HALL-A with its pixelart aesthetic.

"Die the death"

Appearently Sony is getting even worse now (I haven't found an official statement from Sony, so there's a small probability of a bad translation or a mistake but the news seem legit): -All communications and submissions between game companies and Sony are now filtered through their California branch, in English -- not just the censorship, any complaints about the censorship now have to go through the team performing the censorship. -Visual Novel porting to Playstation is now prohibited outright, those that were already in production before the policy change happened will be allowed, but must be heavily censored. -Sony has ended the policy of allowing publishers to use the "local rating system" but instead must use the full "Western Standard." In other words, instead of allowing Japanese published games in Japan to use the CERO rating system, all games on Playstation must adhere to ESRB, no matter where they're published.

Another update below: Common: 100.0% Sora: 0.0% Marika: 100.0% Natsuki: 0.0% Misa: 36.21% Rikka: 0.0% Touko: 0.0% Total: 27.41% Not much to say other than good progress as usual, and moreso if we consider that Trip was managed to get that progress when he was tired from the confrence at the week beginning. Also I like to note that he was work on those at the weekend. That's all for this week.

Nice to see someone that feels the same about choices as me! ^^ Walkthrough is useful for endings hunting and for getting those pesky 100% completion but it take all the fun out of the game. I love to experiment, to try, and pick what feels natural and to figure out how can I favor my best girl/boy. ...Although because of this refusal to look at walkthroughs my first ending on my first VN ever was the Bad Ending 13 of FSN (the one you get for insufficient points with Saber on the last day, you know?). The backtrack still haunts me to this day. Fun times.

Episode 10 of Muv-Luv Alternative was shorter than I expected, given that it's the final battle and all. But man... it's finally come to an end. A grand epic finale worthy of the hype. Sigh. Gotta hate it when good stories end. lol Though I've gotta be painfully honest, I actually don't have as hard a time leaving Muv-Luv behind as I do towards other franchises. It's one of those cases where you acknowledge and respect the hype surrounding something, but you're just not as personally invested as everyone else. It's a reaaaally solid story with amazing characterization, don't get me wrong, but I don't know, I just don't feel that torn up about leaving it behind. I guess if I'm to be honest, it probably comes down to not being that attached to the characters. I was going to blame it on all the infodumping dampening my experience, but then I remember how much I liked Fate/Stay Night (or specifically, Saber's character) in spite of the infodumping. Muv-Luv has a very clever way of growing its characters, but none of their personality just appealed to me the way other VNs/anime did. Even my favorite girl, Ayamine, was only so because I found her to be witty and funny, but no deeper connection than that. I might have changed my mind if there was actually an Ayamine route in Alternative to further explore the character, but I doubt it. This is going to be the same case with many VNs I've played and will play in the future, so I won't bother boring you again with a similar post next time. G-senjou no Maou, Saya no Uta, Corpse Party, and the Zero Escape VNs are all examples of popular visual novels I acknowledged the quality of, but not as crazy or fanatical as everyone else. It takes a really special kind of VN that go above and beyond the average quality to really get me singing praises about how much of an impact it has on me; timeless and epic stories like Steins;Gate, Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Clannad, and of course, Fate/Stay Night. Muv-Luv Alternative, unfortunately, won't be on my AAA list. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you; I'm extremely fussy. Second place is still considered great in my book. That being said, I will still be browsing the Muv-Luv spin-offs in the future. I am a bit curious whether if there would be sequels where But first, I need to finish clearing up some of the unread routes in Unlimited and Alternative, of course (I sort of rushed into Alternative without clearing all the routes in Unlimited because they were all so similar). I'm currently at the "Final Episode" of Alternative, so I guess farewells are not too far away. Anyway, to bring this verbose statement to a close, Muv-Luv Alternative is great. I enjoyed all the clever subversions they did for the harem setting. And you know, I have to talk about the music too, because that's a pretty solid soundtrack up there. Some of my favorites were the grander trumpet scores played during the closing of a large battle, and man, the theme songs inserted between scenes definitely boosted my spirits in the face of a grim battle ahead. "CARRY ON, MY WAY!" lol Final Rating: 9/10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now that Alternative is out of the way, I could hopefully get back to my favorite blonde tsundere over at Grisaia no Meikyuu soon... Then after that, I might see if I could spare some time for Ever17. Speaking of Ever17 - which I've dropped twice now - I remember that the second time I dropped, I was probably very close or at least halfway through the first route of the game. I was at the point of the story where Anyway, if someone could clear that up, I'd appreciate it.