XReaper

In honor of having finished reading Stargazer in Fapanese today, I figure I’d give you an idea of how I can simultaneously have read quite a bit of vn writing in Japanese yet also only have completed two short yuri doujins (my first was 明日終わる世界、その前夜). A lot of things here were sorta read in parallel with other things, which might not have helped (´・ω・`).
I started out with Amairo Islenauts; I got quite far into Masaki’s route, then stalled that ’cause I kinda didn’t want to read the drama or something. Much later I decided to go back and read a bit of Yune’s route… and that’s where we’re at now. Stalled.
I started reading Air in Fapanese as none of the two translations available impressed me; I knew Winter Confetti’s had taken flak for inaccuracy, and the start of Gao Gao’s patch felt worse than Winter Confetti’s on the editing and flow front, not to mention I was told it would be technically inferior to the Winter Confetti patch as the MC would be unvoiced for certain sections. I kinda got discouraged by the choice maze though and eventually stalled it because frankly it wasn’t that interesting.
Angel Beats -1st beat-… Honestly if it wasn’t for a bug and/or sneaky copy protection measure I might have read more of this;  I spent quite a long time with it and eventually got to like the second or third map location select, which didn’t work for some reason. Also you can’t transfer saves to other computers apparently, fucking rip. I might pick this up again, maybe even reading it together with the forthcoming English translation so I can shit on VA fucking it up like we all expect they will (´・ω・`).
Watashi no Real wa Juujitsu Shisugiteiru, or watajuu for short, was a really entertaining otomege that I’d recommend to everyone. Ultimately though after reading two routes I stopped midway through the otouto route because… well I didn’t like it as much, choices in-route confused and enraged me for some reason, and given how long the knife of unforgettable betrayal had been twisted at that point, I started reading…
…Subahibi. I liked it a lot when it was a yuri harem, then I kinda liked it when it was denpa but it got harder to read and I stalled it about when a certain train arrived.
Then Kiririri eventually wore down my defenses, and I picked up Hatsuyuki Sakura. One of the better decisions of my life, as it’s consistently entertaining and seems well written both prosewise and plotwise. Finished the rather long “prologue” section, read a little bit of the “introduction”, stalled. Maybe I’ll pick it up again now though after finishing 11eyes and Stargazer.
I also read a bit of Zannen na Ane to no Love Comedy somewhere in there, but I think I’ll want to be able to power through silly SoL faster to not die reading it. Apart from that, I have like 20 minutes of …in white left or something, but I started reading that looking for short doujin vns to tl, so idk man ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.


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One of the things I've experienced more and more in the last decade as a part of 'the generation gap' is a difference between our interpretations of the word 'inconvenience', especially when it comes to games and devices.
Understand, when I say 'inconvenience', it generally means 'it doesn't have the functions I find useful'.  When I talk to people who were born after the year 2000, it is almost always 'too many functions I don't know how to use/are not intuitive to me'. 
Perhaps the most blatant clash of the generations, at least for PC gamers like me who play games from multiple locales, is the difference between versions of Windows.  A lot of the young people I encounter are perfectly willing to deal with annoying adverts and intrusive programs in exchange for the convenience of Windows 8 and 10 (and I will admit that, from the perspective of someone who likes to keep their brain as unwrinkled as possible, they can be considered more convenient *smiles dryly*).  In my case, those adverts and intrusive programs eat at my RAM, my bandwidth, and record my daily activities to be sent to people I don't know.  I my mind, that far outweighs any 'convenience' gained from the simplification of the system.  In fact, it is that very simplification of the system (which incidentally makes it more inconvenient to purchase and play games from anyone other than Microsoft) that makes it inconvenient for people like me.  Sure, we can download software that modifies certain aspects of the interface to get around these difficulties... but it becomes harder year after year. 
I was extremely shocked a few years back when I played Kami no Rhapsody from Eushully and saw a game that had obviously been designed by some moron who didn't understand why touch-screen functions were nothing more than an annoyance for someone without a touchscreen.  The 'simplification' of the battle system made the game flat-out boring in comparison to other games I'd played by the company, and the highly-restrictive character progression that gave an illusion of freedom (I'm not exaggerating) only made things worse... because the programmer was obviously someone used to working on games with microtransactions.
That isn't to say the game was horrible, but it was horrifying, in that I saw the worst aspects of mobile apps intruding on a PC experience.  I don't and will never like touchscreens.  They get dirty too easily, break too easily, and cost more than your standard monitor.  To be frank, it is far easier to use a mouse on a PC than a touch-screen and less likely to cost you a few hundred dollars every other year.
So what is the meaning of convenience to me?  I am, to be frank, shockingly old-fashioned in the eyes of many because I don't even own a cell phone.  I used to have one, a hand-me-down from a relative, but I disposed of it almost immediately because people were calling me and using money (unlimited texting being a bad word to cell phone companies at the time) to text me on things that could be done more efficiently by email.  I also hated it being possible for people reach me when I wanted to be alone, lol.
So what about a smart-phone?  I honestly have trouble developing an interest in smart-phone gaming, because microtransactions offend my sense of wanting to have things 'paid for and done with'.  I hate subscriptions, I hate monthly payments, and I especially hate having my personal information available to a company that sells info to others (as most cell phone companies do or want to do).  I can't maintain an interest in anything that makes me pay more than once to enjoy the experience.  If I spend $120 on a game and its season pass, I don't want to find out that there are microtransactions in game that nickel and dime me.  I also hate that I have to distrust any game application that cost me less than forty dollars because I can't be sure half the game won't be unplayable without further piecemeal investment of money. 
I also hate the dead-eyed look some of the younger gamers give me when they laugh about having spent their entire paycheck on virtual items in an app they'll forget about a month later. 
 
In other words, my idea of convenience has nothing to do with what others seem to consider convenience now.  My idea of convenience is playing video games on my retinas with signals from my nervous system, not playing drastically simplified games with flicks of my finger.
 
 
Sorry, I rave... but I get tired of all the BS about 'convenient features' that companies use to cover up the building layers of inconvenience in the shit they try to sell me.  Convenience has become such a meaningless term in recent years that it makes me want to scream.

My masterpieces list:
1. Can Can Bunny Superior
2. De-Ja
3. Illumina!
4. Misty Blue
5. Sekai de Ichiban Kimi ga Suki!
6. Slope 
7. Suijaku Sakusen 2 Moeyo Dragon
8. The 4th Unit - Merry Go Round
9. Toushin Toshi
10. Yami no Ketsuzoku
11. Urotsukidouji
12. Urusei Yatsura: Stay With You

1990 is the year of RPG. Their number and diversity put interactive adventures VNs to shame. 1990 is a revolutionary year in many aspects. First doujin works, first nsfw covers, first explicit sex scenes, first lgbt game, first strategy and SIM VN mixes.
The big three candidates for the VN of the year are De-Ja, Toushin Toshi and Misty Blue, but De-Ja exploration and humorous nature is much to my liking and thus De-Ja is the VN of the year 1990.
1. Body Inspection in Belloncho ~Girl's High-School Version~ ベロンチョ身体検査 ～女子高校編～ [900117] Hard 1 2 You are Nanako Hongou, a new transfer student to the all-girls school, St. Belloncho Academy. Hearing rumors of a sketchy body inspection taking place at the school infirmary, you decide to take it upon yourself to unearth the culprit, and expose the secrets of St. Belloncho Academy. Fight an eclectic cast of delinquents while going about your school life and solving mysteries. Simple turn-based RPG. There are also items to use in combat, including different types of panties. There is a limit on items held and that adds a serious difficulty layer. Graphics are fancy and characters are impressive. Graphics are done by Sapporo Momoko who is still in the industry and who is the author of the most erotic visual novel of the 1980s - Ayayo's After Five.  
2. Slope スロープ [900119] Queen Soft Mai transfers into all girl high school to break ordinary school life and experience everything that a girl school can give, including lesbian relationships. It's totally eroticism oriented yuri work, but it's one of the most beautiful and well-done works of 1990 (being a January release makes it even more astonishing). The number of commands and locations is small, so it's not really painful. There are two types of endings. Even without music (not detected by emulator) this work has just too much charm to be neglected.  
3. Ligarued リガルード [900125] Game Technopolis Hero is a student who frequents the coffee shop to look at part-time sweet worker Kawano Mai. At one such day some girl sits next to him. She introduces herself as Laseska and claims that she came from the world Ligarued and that the protagonist is a very important person who she needed to protect. A very short and not really interesting story. Basically soon another traveler from Ligarued arrives and the game ends after two battles and some celebration. I'll forever remember this game for the very unproportional big ugly head of Laseska. During the CG it's usually ok, but at gameplay scenes it sometimes looks horrifying.  
4. Misty Vol.3 Misty Vol.3 [900125] DataWest 1 Misty Vol.3 is a detective mystery adventure game set in modern-day Japan and starring the young private investigator Ryū Kamishiro. The game consists of five unrelated cases that can be accessed in any order from the main menu. These cases range from seemingly mundane matters to thefts, mysterious disappearances and murder investigations. This volume contains the following cases: Backdrop for Murderous Intent, Campus Disappearance, Memory of a Bloodstain, The Wine Glass Smells like Death and Legend of a Scratched Neck. A serious detective game which is a genre that I don't feel confidence to discuss.  
5. Sailor Fuku Senshi Felis セーラー服戦士フェリス [900128] Cocktail Soft A UFO came and abducted three girls. Their classmate rode her grandfather fighter spaceship and hurried to rescue! Ugh, a scroller shooter. Game has three areas each divided into four stages. And as you progress girl of the area strips. A very borderline material, indeed. You can visit shop and spend acquired money on lots of upgrades and options.  
6. Foxy [900206] Elf 1 The story of Foxy is rather basic: a hostile army from a country known simply as "Red" attacks the capital city of the "Blue" nation. Not only the enemy tries to invade the most important strategic points of the city - enemy generals also try to capture and enslave the "Blue" girls! Naturally, they must be stopped! As the commander of the Blue army, it's the player's task to face enemy forces in battles, rescue the girls, and drive the Reds out of the city. Strategy game with a basic country Red attacking country Blue. Between the battles there are cut-scenes involving girls rescue. The first elf strategy game with quite few units and simple rules, so not need to like strategy games to clear. With such a basic plot little can be done to make game worthwhile, but drawing is really good and at least it's not I-ADV but pure turn-based strategy + relaxation pure kinetic novel parts.  
7. Alice no Yakata ALICEの館 [900215] Alice Soft 1 A collection of additional materials including a new adventure story "Sentimental season". The heroine dates a boy, but the relationship in the pair of her school friend Mami develops much more intensively and the heroine does not want to lag behind. A short kinetic ADV designed just to relax and watch HCG.  
8. Nishimura Kyoutarou Mystery: Hokutosei no Onna 西村京太郎ミステリー 北斗星の女 [900223] TOSE Software 1 2 Hokutosei no Onna (the title refers to the express train connecting Tokyo and Hokkaido in Japan rather than the Ursa Major constellation) is based on the works of the Japanese detective story writer Kyōtarō Nishimura, starring Inspector Totsugawa and his assistant Kamei, who is the protagonist of the game. A man was found stabbed to death in his apartment in Tokyo; shortly after the investigation begins, another man is killed in a hotel room in Hokkaido. Kamei must question witnesses and suspects and examine evidence in order to solve the mystery. Game is reviewed in English.  
9. Fundation Shinjuku Story ファンデーション 新宿ストーリー [9002] Dott Kikaku Hero has some money and a lot of time to enjoy night Shinjuku life. Just trash about HCG which is surprising since Dott Kikaku has been one of the most interesting developers so far.  
10. Rakuen no Shoutaijou 楽園の招待状 [9002] Striker Hero is chosen by the gods as a humanity representative and thrown to another world with the only farewell words of "Have fun!". Since there's no purpose given all we can do is meet girls, accept their requests, fulfill them and get CG reward. There's the need to move a lot through the maze-like locations. In the prologue it's mentioned that we also get a map, but actually there is none! Game is mostly about finding items and applying them at the right spots to progress.  
11. Nishimura Kyoutarou Mystery: Super Express Satsujin Jiken 西村京太郎ミステリー スーパーエクスプレス殺人事件 [900302] Irem 1 At 23:49 at Osaka station a woman was found strangled to death in a private room of the super express train. The victim Nogami Kimiko was a president of fashion Tokyo company "Silano". Detective Kamei happened to be in Osaka at that time and he volunteered to proceed with the investigation. The testimonies of the passengers and staff showed that Nogami Kimiko was killed between Nagoya and Osaka, supposedly by her husband who went missing. But on the next morning the husband showed up at Osaka police station denying the crime and presenting an alibi. Another Tokyo fashion company "Knight" wanted to absorb "Silano" and thus its president had a motive to kill Nogami Kimiko, but happened in reality? A serious detective game which is a genre that I don't feel confidence to discuss.  
12. Kaettekita Tanteidan X 帰ってきた探偵団Ｘ [900309] Heart Soft A parody game to Tanteidan X and many other games. There are three stories: "Legend of Bravery", "Ganbare Earth Self-Defense Forces" and "Otome tears at the bottom of deep ocean". There's no real info on the game and my gameplay attempt was miserable - no matter what keys I pushed the submarine was getting swallowed by the shark. But there is a video with much longer playthrough on nico.  
13. Crystal Dream II ~Maou no Genei~ クリスタルドリーム Ⅱ ～魔王の幻影～ [900324] Striker 1 2 Hero is a brave person who is worried that the town stays under tyrannical rule. He sets to talk to magistrate, but on the way there hears a story that demon was revived and town magistrate being manipulated. So he forwards to Crystal castle to defeat demon king. Game is an RPG. But while it's relatively simple on the way to castle, inside the walls are mirrored so orientation is vastly confusing especially when you lose direction after battle. Just as the part 1 there is a command "make H" available to press on will and there seems to be HCG for every girl provided that the conditions for it are fulfilled.  
14. Cybernetic Hi-School Part 3 ~Top o Nerae!~ 電脳学園３ ～トップをねらえ！～ [900324] Gainax 1 Just like the two previous Cybernetic Hi-School games, the third part is a strip quiz game. This time, it is centred upon Gainax's famous Gunbuster animation videos. You, as an alpha-class Top, are supposed to win three keys to pilot the Great Gunbuster robot against the cosmic threat to humanity. The keys are held by Jung-Freud, Kazumi (oneesama) and Noriko, and you must retrieve the keys by defeating each character in a quiz game, which has the side-effect of stripping them of all their clothes. Quite a gorgeous work with the best Gainax staff members participating. Compared to previous parts there are less HCG here and much higher level of craziness.  
15. Destruction Gekan デストラクション下巻 [9003] Soft Studio Wing The time of battle between darkness and superpower mankind representatives has come. Final part of Destruction dilogy. Unfortunately second part of the story was unsatisfactory. The battle is transferred to another dimension so it looses all the realism of mystics atmosphere that Studio Wing works are famous for.  
16. Ikase Otoko Nyuumon ~Ai o Arigatou~ イカセ男入門 ～愛をありがとう～ [9003] Family Soft 1 Choosing the right answer out of the list gradually gets the leaf red resulting in CG. Choosing the wrong answer makes the player drink milk which eventually results in game over. I was pretty sure it would be 4th part of Ikase Otoko, but this time it's just a word game, more like a special edition to the series. Compared to the previous games this one feels story-less and ordinary, without personality.  
17. Misty Blue ミスティブルー [900402] Enix 1 2 Kazuya Mizukami is a young musician who returns to Japan after having spent four years studying abroad. However, things don't go very smoothly, and Kazuya even quarrels with a music producer who doesn't appreciate his talent. Everything becomes much worse when the producer is found dead shortly after their quarrel, and Kazuya becomes a murder suspect. He must clear his name, but for that he will need the help of his friends. Game is reviewed in English.  
18. Narutomaki Hichou ~Tsuukai Gag Aventure~ 鳴門巻秘帖　～痛快ぎゃぐあばんちゅーる～ [900410] Zenryuutsuu Akatsunenosuke is a master swordsman girl in Edo period. She works for detective agency. Once she got a request to deliver a small box with documents to Futura clan castle. A trivial request turns into a big adventure. All the main heroes are girls and while there are truly dangers on the road, there are much more lesbian H events. Since it's a gag (it's even in the title) comedy, there's plenty of fooling around. Command selection type would harm tempo greatly, so game uses plain adventure format with occasional choices. There are lots of bad ends but good ending is just one. Good light ecchi work, but certainly not a masterpiece.  
19. Sadistic Gamers Part 2 Otanjoubi Play サディスティックゲーマーズ PART-2 お誕生日プレイ [900410] Sixteens

Birthday issue of sadistic gamers doujin quiz game.  This time both main heroine and her tutor are girls, same as in further games of the series. Same doujin quiz as ever. You know the drill.  
20. Can Can Bunny Superior きゃんきゃんバニー スペリオール [900416] Cocktail Soft 1 The second game in the Can Can Bunny series follows the story of a young Japanese boy named Takeshi. One fine night he looks out of the window and notices a sexy girl undressing in the opposite building. "Oh, if only I could get her", sighs Takeshi. Immediately, the kind bunny-eared fairy Ariko from the Magic Land appears and... grants Takeshi's wish! He now possesses a Magic Book that will teach him ho to conquer the hearts of pretty girls... and not just the hearts! Simulation element here is simplified greatly and some mode in it that got on the video is just pressing space key to continue thus kinetic novel. Overall there are three scenarios with specific themes.  
21. The 4th Unit 5 D-Again 第４のユニット５ Ｄ－Ａｇａｉｎ [900420] DataWest 1 The criminal trade organization WWWF was finally defeated. The bionic soldier Blon-Win is appointed a high-ranked inspector and sent on a mission to protect the secret service agent Remi Binderk on the way to the United Nations conference in Geneva. On board the TGV train in France Blon-Win encounters her old acquaintance Dalzy, who tells her that former WWWF members have united to form the Einheit group, and are working on a new dangerous weapon known as G-R. From this work DAPS animation system is implemented for this series as well (pioneered in psychic detective series). Still the use of DAPS here is limited due to the need to publish the work on less efficient platforms like PC-98. The standing sprites of girls become somewhat not cute and the talking system is simplified here in that there's no need to choose the topic of conversation. But instead there's a need to constantly choose the same talk command over and over with different emotions to progress. This work has the climax of the series and it's the last multi-platform game of the series with the rest being FM Towns exclusives.  
22. Urotsukidouji うろつき童子 [900421] Fairytale 1 The game is based on the famous adult manga/anime series with the same name. It generally follows the main plot: the demon Amano Jaaku is banished from Makai (the demon world) to the Earth by the Elder, doomed to be trapped in a human body; he is given the mission of finding Choujin, the most powerful god, who is hiding in the body of a high-school student. Games goes pretty ordinarily as we check out three girls that may be the most powerful God. But at the second half the Makai demons show up for a big battle. The game inherits a great story from the original, has good gameplay with few commands and is hookable - that all makes it a masterpiece.  
23. Hacchake Ayayo-san 2 - Ikenai Holiday - Ayayo's Love Affair はっちゃけあやよさん２ いけないホリデイ ＡＹＡＹＯ＇Ｓ ＬＯＶＥ ＡＦＦＡＩＲ [900426] Hard 1 Ikenai Holiday is a follow-up to Hacchake Ayayo-san. It is a short visual novel focusing on the erotic adventures of two young Japanese girls, Ayayo and Tomoko. The game begins with the girls deciding how to spend the holiday. From that point on, depending on the player's choices, the story splits into three vignettes: going to see an erotic movie, buying shoes, or reading erotic books. Each story invariably concludes with a sex scene. A short and simple nukige, but with a bright atmosphere.  
24. Waterfront Adventure ウォーターフロント・アドベンチャー [900426] Hard The hero lost to a mysterious Mr.H. The winner's request is to bring him 10 used panties. Hero takes a sub to Yokohama Expo to try skillfully get panties from the local companies booths. Money is used to get to different EXPO parts. In contrast to the synopsis there aren't that many HCG here since many girls give away their garments willingly.  
25. Haja Taisei Dangaiou 破邪大星ダンガイオー [9004] Game Technopolis The four psychic teenagers find girl Ranpa in cryogenic chamber. Ranpa is who Dr. Tarsan is after, so a new wave of confrontation with his robot army ensues. The work has nice character designs and great sound for a pc-88 exclusive. There aren't HCG here - just some fan-service of after-bath towels and heroines being harassed by the drunkards.  
26. Twilight Zone Vol. 4 Tokubetsu Hen トワイライトゾーン VOL. 4 特別編 [9004] Great 1 2 Aliens have invaded Earth. Seemingly impervious to damage, they took control of the planet. Only a few partisan organizations dared to oppose their rule. All the aliens look like young and attractive human women, and soon it was found out that they have a weakness to sperm. Thus, a young Japanese man and his few male allies embark on a quest to defeat the aliens by having sex with them. This time it's top down view and we finally get outside the dungeons. "Great" needed a well-selling bright game so Chaos Angles was taken as a model and lots of parody elements were winded up on top of it. There are 108 enemy girls overall and difficulty is unbalances turning into very harsh at times.  
27. Rance II - Hangyaku no Shoujo-tachi - ランスII　－反逆の少女たち－ [900515] Alice Soft 1 2 3 4 Four magical rings were stolen from Custom Town. A bunch of sexy, but dangerous sorceresses terrorizes the land. The town mayor has no choice but to invite Rance, a freelance private investigator whose mind is mostly occupied with pretty girls and promises to pay him quite a large sum of money if he stops the evil. Naturally, Rance agrees. It's time for him and his trusty cute purple-haired sidekick Shiiru to fight evil once again! Game is reviewed in English.  
28. RAY-GUN [900515] Elf 1 2 3 4 5 Georgie is a young man who lives with his fiancee Miria in the quiet town of Lakeside, repairing large combat robots which are strangely called "steroids". One day he discovers several such steroids in the forest, and as he decides to inspect them, unknown flying steroids kidnap Miria. Now Georgie has to pilot a steroid himself and to rescue his beloved one. Game is reviewed in English.  
29. Kaerimichi wa Kiken ga Ippai 帰り道は危険がいっぱい [900516] D.O. Hero fell in love with the daughter school president who is also a student council president. And her father will not tolerate that. RPG where instead of monsters you fight with girls (33 overall) who stay on your way to Saori. School RPG setting was very new so it could be enjoyed at that time. And it was certainly better than Exterlien issued by D.O. the same year.  
30. Psychic Detective Series Vol. 3: Aya サイキック・ディテクティブ・シリーズ Vol.3 アヤ [900526] DataWest 1 2 3 Only a few people possess the unique ability to read people's hearts; those people are called psychic analysts, and Katsuya Furuyagi is one of them. One day, a fellow analyst pays him an unexpected visit and directs him towards a mysterious old man named Kamiya. Reading the old man's mind, Furuyagi ventures into the realm of memories, where a woman's ghost is attempting to avenge her own murder. This work is notable for full synchronization of audio and video, but the story is incoherent and lacks interest especially in comparison to the heights the Vol.2 reached.  
31. Misty Vol.4 Misty Vol.4 [9005] DataWest 1 Misty Vol.4 is a detective mystery adventure game set in modern-day Japan and starring the young private investigator Ryū Kamishiro. The game consists of five unrelated cases that can be accessed in any order from the main menu. These cases range from seemingly mundane matters to thefts, mysterious disappearances and murder investigations. This volume contains the following cases: Returning to the Sky, Time of Atonement, Moon Walk, Alibi in the Clock and Photo in the Nothingness. A serious detective game which is a genre that I don't feel confidence to discuss.  
32. Rouge ~Manatsu no Kuchibeni~ ルージュ ～真夏の口紅～ [900613] Birdy Soft Protagonist's father dies and leaves the will for his son to take care of his secret daughter Eriko in Yokohama or get stripped from inheritance. The hero sets off to Yokohama while having only the picture of the girl. This is one of the most beautiful games of Bridy Soft - and heroines here are very lovely. The bigger part of the game we just search for Eriko while getting information from neighbors and friends. And here comes a big "but" - but the hero actually lays down with each such friend or neighbor to know a piece of information. Add to that a very tragic story of Eriko revealed later and we get a really dark-themed game - which is not necessarily bad, but in my case spoilt the impression from the beginning of the work.  
33. De-Ja DE・JA [900615] Elf 1 2 3 4 You are Ryuusuke, archaeologist in pursuit of adventures and legendary treasure. One day you dream of finding a secret compartment in a pyramid filled with piles of treasures. That's going to be the discovery of the century! A naked woman appears and tells you not to take out the treasures. When you try to touch breasts, she turns into a monster. You wake up by the telephone ringing. A client brings you an antique cane with engravings on it. Those who possess this cane see the same dream every night with a golden hair girl. You take the cane to try to translate the symbols carved on it and end up in a real adventure yourself. Game is reviewed in English.  
34. PAL ~Wonder Trip! Chizuru~ ＰＡＬ ～ワンダートリップ！ちづる～ [900622] Birdy Soft A parody to CAL game. Once upon a time in one dark place there was hero Fuji... how will he escape? There are 10 consequential encounters with different goddesses and Miki comes as 11th and main heroine. There is nothing but funny dialogues and answer options here. I even failed to trigger a single H event and reached happy ending too fast.  
35. Urusei Yatsura: Stay With You うる星やつら STAY WITH YOU [900629] Hudson Soft 1 2 3 4 5 6 Urusei Yatsura: Stay with You is based on the manga series by Rumiko Takahashi. The protagonist is Ataru Moroboshi, a high school student who accidentally evokes love in the heart of Lum, the princess of an alien demon-like race. The game does not recount the initial events of the manga and instead is built like an episode, assuming the player's familiarity with the general story and characters. Ataru's ex-girlfriend Shinobu disappears under mysterious circumstances. Ataru and Lum must explore the high school building and find out what happened to Shinobu. Game is reviewed in English.  
36. Lupin Sansei - Hong Kong no Mashu - Fukushuu wa Meikyuu no Hate ni ルパン三世 香港の魔手 復讐は迷宮の果てに [900630] CSK Research Institute 1 Hong Kong no Mashu is based on the manga Lupin the 3rd and is built like an episode in the series, assuming the player's familiarity with the characters. The central character is the grandson of the fictional "gentleman thief" Arsène Lupin, who follows the same profession, traveling in search of riches and adventure with his companion Daisuke Jigen, an expert marksman. Joining them in this episode is Goemon Ishikawa XIII, a descendant of the legendary Japanese swordsman. Finding themselves in Hong Kong for different reasons, the heroes encounter an evasive and mysterious character with a dark past who crosses their paths and forces them to take action. It's an FM Towns exclusive and quite an obscure game, so there's nothing to add to Mobygames article.  
37. Youjuu Club 妖獣クラブ [900702] D.O. 1 2 Assuming the role of a lecherous lesser demon you must uncover the background image with your marker until 80% of the image is revealed in a Xonix-like game. Game is reviewed in English.  
38. Wedding Rhapsody ウエディングラプソディー [900720] Queen Soft Makoto Okawa has turned 17 years old and he is ordered by his father to find three ideal marriage partners selected by a supercomputer. All of the girls study at the same school, so Makoto starts attending the same school from now on. He's ordered not to reveal and fight for girls attention like a commoner. Okawa family legend says that marriage in 17 brings luck, so there's no time to waste! One road scenario. There are several commands, but they usually go with many subcommands which makes it rather painful. In order to get along with the girls it's needed to solve their troubles. The H scenes in the game are animated.  
39. Yami no Ketsuzoku 闇の血族 [900721] System Sacom 1 Miyu is a known designer. Since childhood she has had a red vision that showed up when in danger. Her friend model Marie gets brutally killed and Miyu decides to put her perception skills to good use. System Sacom novelware. It has a lot of interactivity compared to early Sacom games. First part is rather short and leaves a mystery hanging. Flags are somewhat difficult to catch. Game was innovative that it had female as protagonist with her thoughts and fears. It was advanced systems oriented game so graphics and especially sound were excellent for 1990.  
40. Exterlien エクスタリアン [900726] D.O. 1 2 3 4 5 The plot of Exterlien is very simple: a beauty contest is held in an amusement park. Suddenly, monsters invade the park in an attempt to kidnap the girls. The protagonist, a young man named Masato, decides to venture into the dangerous zone and rescue the beauties. Game is reviewed in English.  
41. Sora Kakeru Businessman 宇宙翔けるビジネスマン [900727] Zenryuutsuu Hero is a businessman in space trading company. He was able to get mining rights for resources in Norma planet. But ruling family was overthrown by the Queen of Darkness and his rights are in danger now. He undergoes a quest to rescue princess. For corporate justice! Command selection. Graphics are allright. Text field is huge. Why am I writing that? Because game's hardly noticeable. Setting is fantasy kingdom. Light and somewhat stupid adventure filled with lots of girls that you rescue. Not enough of comedy or plot to matter. And amount of naked scenes makes it borderline work.  
42. Sekai de Ichiban Kimi ga Suki! 世界でいちばん君がすき！ [900728] Cocktail Soft You are a show-business reporter who helps idols. One day you're tasked to make photos of rival idol night date. Horny pictures were made without problem, but you start to question such immoral approach and get closer to truth... Quite a typical Cocktail Soft work. Light bakage with cute heroines and occasional flashes of seriousness. Idols are always bright. CG are beautiful, text sets a good tempo despite command selection. Heroines show up one by one so flags are quite difficult in the first half of the game. Nowadays there are quite many cheerful charage, but at that time they were still rare and thus were valued a lot.  
43. School Wars スクール☆ウォーズ [900801] CreamSoft 1 Main character is a student who is entrusted by the teacher a mission to pacify the violent school girls. Unfortunately PC-98 version is unhookable and there aren't reviews of this game. There are turn based battles with the girls in the game. There are only 4 basic stats - HP, STR, DEF, EXP.  
44. Mainichi ga H 毎日がえっち [900810] Mini House Main character is only 14 girls away from his goal of having sex with 1000 different women. The first usage of concept of time in visual novels. Actions waste time by increments of 15 minutes. Unlike future time concept games here it's needed to clear all the girls so only one girl shows on the map somewhere at one time. Apart of that a nanpage to the bones.  
45. PIAS ピアス [900810] Birdy Soft 1 Hiroshi and Mayumi grew up together. They went to the same kindergarten, the same school, always spent time together, and naturally thought that they will never separate. Then the time has come when they both had to go to different colleges. They promised each other than they will still be together. But they both broke the promise... If jealousy and the knowledge of one's own betrayal were not enough to endanger their relationship, something far worse happened... the man with whom Mayumi spent the night was found murdered, and Hiroshi must forget his personal pain in order to solve the mystery... The man that Mayumi spent the night was found murdered and Hiroshi has to overcome betrayal and find the murderer. Wow, this game might be the first Nakige VN. Temptations, hardships, dangers, murder involvement, distance love... Surprisingly, work has many dark themes and even ending slides lack happiness. The seed of betrayal planted its roots in hearts forever.  
46. Silent Mobius サイレントメビウス [900810] Gainax 1 2 In 1999 portal was opened to Nemesis by mage guild in order to exchange Tokyo polluted air, but it was sabotaged by one mage and massive invasion followed through portal. Mage guild fought it relentlessly but most of it was destroyed over the next few years. In 2023 an AMP 5-female police unit was formed to protect civilians from attacks. Case: Titanic starts when real Titanic ship from 1912 is seen flying in the sky and AMP unit sets on its investigation. Manga is well known and cool but isn't Gainax just feeding on its popularity? It did not even do a single anime work on this setting! Let's figure out. Game's beautiful, all right. Command selection is simplified as much as possible. There are battle sequences and each AMP member has unique battle style. But most of the time you just walk over luxurious ship and gather flags to move the story. There's no mystery around and no real plot. And such work cost 14800 yen - that's the price of 5 full price games! That's an engrossing price for such an average game under a famous franchise.  
47. Nenriki Momoiro Yuugi 念力桃色遊戯 [900810] Ankoku Baitai Softwares

Main character is an aspiring photograph. But for some reason he is only interested in nude girls photo sessions. Genre is pure ADV that is basically a HCG collection with some text.  
48. D.P.S. SG D.P.S. SG [900815] Alice Soft 1 2 D.P.S. SG is the second entry in the D.P.S./Dream Program System series. Like the other D.P.S. games, it is a collection of three short scenarios, which are unrelated to each other story-wise and can be played separately. Those scenarios are presented as cartridges played on a fictional console named Dream Program System. Each scenario allows the player to choose between two different protagonists, or two different personalities for the protagonist. All of the scenarios feature nudity and/or sexual situations. The scenarios in this game include: A traditional account of a private lesson given by an experienced male tutor to a cute teenage girl. It can be played as either the teacher or the student, the latter involving deliberately giving wrong answers to English questions in order to gain time to seduce the teacher. An episode entitled Fahnen Fliegen (German for "flags flying"), depicting capture and torture of a female war prisoner by an SS officer. The player can choose to control the officer, effectively torturing the victim himself, or take the role of a soldier who tries to ease her pain, hoping to gain her sexual favors. A scenario set in the Sengoku period of the Japanese history, in the house of the famous warlord Oda Nobunaga. It is possible to play this scenario as Nobunaga himself, or as his daughter, the spoiled princess. In either case, the goal is to seduce the cute maid who works in the house. Game is reviewed in English.  
49. Kujaku Ou II 孔雀王 II [900821] Pony Canyon, Inc. 1 2 3 The adventure continues as Peacock faces the incarnation of general Nobunaga Oda. Team up with Asura, a fiery spirit, Jukindo master Onimaru, and Zen master Kou Kaifou to fight Nobunaga's missionary minions with a vast array of Shingon spells! Travel to the mystic world of the Lotus mandala and defeat Hindu demons, dark boddhisattvas, and the shadowiest villain yet, the Phoenix! Exciting story line where Peacock King discovers his dark origins and his evil twin sister! Game has enough information in English.  
50. Misty Vol.5 Misty Vol.5 [900902] DataWest 1 Misty Vol.5 is a detective mystery adventure game set in modern-day Japan and starring the young private investigator Ryū Kamishiro. The game consists of five unrelated cases that can be accessed in any order from the main menu. These cases range from seemingly mundane matters to thefts, mysterious disappearances and murder investigations. This volume contains the following cases: Pretty Devil, Witness (Ryū Kamishiro), Stolen Gem, The End of Love and Hate and Mystery of the Snow Manor. A serious detective game which is a genre that I don't feel confidence to discuss.  
51. Bishoujo Shashinkan Bangai Hen Outside Story 美少女写真館 番外編 ＯＵＴＳＩＤＥ ＳＴＯＲＹ [900907] Hard This is a story of everyday life in female-dominant police department. Yuko conducts investigations, arrests and enjoys her work as police officer. PhotoClub Outside story is a very misleading title. The truth is that first two parts of the series were just shooting of girls and stripping them, the third part was actually an adventure story that concluded taking pictures of girls and stripping them. And this is the forth installment of series which has nothing to do with taking pictures at all. Women just pick up on each other and solve cases by stripping. What was very weird for that time - that the game was adventure novel without usual command selections. It's quite a short work and its purpose is just to entertain.  
52. Mitsubachi Gakuen みつばち学園 [900914] Hudson Soft

Main character is a newly appointed teacher at the only idol training girls' school in Japan - Mitsubachi high school. For a year he looks after twenty students and solves a number of difficult cases targeting the girls. Game is unique for live action still images and aggressive animation style. Idol wave was only starting, so some things are still crude, but at least one girl became a real life idol after the game.  
53. Yesterday イエスタディ [900918] System House Oh! 1 2 In the far future, human beings learned to travel to faraway solar systems; as a result, human civilization has spread across the entire galaxy. However, as they tried to explore the outer space beyond it, they encountered a huge black hole. It was said that a strange light emanated from it. A brave scientist and pilot named Sonya traveled to the black hole, and discovered a medieval-like world, whose inhabitants consider her a divine savior... I can't really add anything that's not in Mobygames article already.  
54. Marchen Paradise メルヘン・パラダイス [900920] Great Main character is a high school student who peeked inside a suspiciously looking pipe and got warped into a fairy-tale world. This work can be considered of the same series as Girls Paradise Rakuen no Tenshi-tachi released a year earlier. The are a lot of fairy-tale heroines featured like Little Red Riding Hood or Snow white. They are all nymphomaniacs, so H scenes are rather bright. It's very easy to get a game over, but frequently saving helps to progress steadily.  
55. Pure My Dool ピュアマイドール [900925] Agumix The big box arrived from a friend as a birthday present and a girl who does not know anything about this world jumped out of it. There are six endings depending on whether the girl develops into a long-life partner or stays just for fun. Game is short and is just for CG.  
56. Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Toki no Sugiyuku Mama ni 探偵 神宮寺三郎 時の過ぎゆくままに [900928] Data East Corporation 1 2 The fourth game in the Jake Hunter/Tantei Jingūji Saburō series, the second on a regular Famicom cartridge, and the last for the Famicom. There is a burglary at a mansion, which Jake goes to investigate. He sends his assistant Yulia Marks to search for the home of a young boy. While both cases seem simple on their own, they get more complicated when they become one. There is enough information in English.  
57. X-na X・na [9009] Fairytale 1 2 3 Tetsu is a young warrior who has left his home country in order to serve human rulers in their battle against the dark elves. But one day the valiant knight was heavily wounded in battle. Unconscious, he was found by a female fighter named Mei, who brought him to her house and cured him. Grateful, Tetsu promises Mei to help her venture into the huge tower standing nearby, which was built by the princess of the country and is now overrun by monsters... Game is reviewed in English.  
58. Ougon no Rashinban 黄金の羅針盤 [901005] Riverhill Soft inc. 1 2 3 Ōgon no Rashinban ("Golden Compass") is the second case starring the private detective Ryūnosuke Tōdō, following Kohakuiro no Yuigon. Like the first case, the adventure takes place in the 1920's. This time the investigator finds himself on a ship sailing from San Francisco to Yokohama. A mysterious murder occurs, and it is up to Tōdō to gather evidence and find the culprit. A serious detective game, but with a lot of point-and-click interactivity. The story is interesting, but there's a lot of effort needed to get through all the evidence gathering and interrogations. On the good part - mouse is used and clickable objects are actually highlighted. It's the detective game with the best system so far and it's an easy start for genre beginners.  
59. Yami no Ketsuzoku: Kanketsu-hen 闇の血族 完結編 [901005] System Sacom 1 Yami no Ketsuzoku: Kanketsu-hen is a direct sequel to Yami no Ketsuzoku. After a series of murders has occurred in Tokyo, Miyu Izawa, the heroine of the game and amateur detective endowed with supernatural senses, travels to Mexico with her friend Risa. There she has to learn about the history of the country's indigenous peoples, and venture into mysterious temples in order to finally discover the whole truth about recent horrifying events. 2nd part of the game. It infodums on the Maya civilization, gets much more realistic and more and more complex as narration goes. So it kind of stops to be entertainment matter and gets difficult to read. 2nd part has almost no flags surprisingly. Still, the ending looks hasty and leaves a shallow impression.  
60. Phantasy Star II Text Adventure: Amia no Bouken ファンタシースターII テキスト アドベンチャー アーミアの冒険 [901103] Sega 1 2 3 4 5 This game is one of the eight text adventures that chronicles the lives of characters before their story continues in Phantasy Star II. This particular game covers Anna Zirski, a counter-hunter. A counter-hunter hunts down and arrests hunters who have become criminals. Anna is tasked with capturing criminals holed up in a Motavian town. These criminals are accused of illegally accessing Mother Brain in order to disrupt the food production of that region. Anna must put a stop to these hackers. Game is reviewed in English.  
61. Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyoto Zaitech Satsujin Jiken 山村美紗サスペンス 京都財テク殺人事件 [901122] TOSE Co., Ltd.

Main heroines goes to a meeting with best friends. But one friend goes missing. Soon friend's body is found. Protagonist starts an investigation to discover the circumstances of sudden death. Third work of the series, this time with the sudden shift from Taisho era to more modern one. As usual, I could not care less.  
62. Misty Vol.6 Misty Vol.6 [901122] DataWest 1 Misty Vol.6 is a detective mystery adventure game set in modern-day Japan and starring the young private investigator Ryū Kamishiro. The game consists of five unrelated cases that can be accessed in any order from the main menu. These cases range from seemingly mundane matters to thefts, mysterious disappearances and murder investigations. This volume contains the following cases: Second Music Box, Requested Directions, Foggy Apparition, Devil's Stronghold and Shadow Testament. A serious detective game which is a genre that I don't feel confidence to discuss.  
63. Akazukin-chan あかずきんちゃん [9011] System Delta A parody work to the Little Red Riding Hood. You are given a task by mother to visit grandmother. There are multiple traps awaiting on this way... Game uses items. So each time there is obstacle you need to check your backpack for a suitable item or keep searching. Game is not particularly interesting. But art is good and comedy-styled with two separate windows for sub-images. That's the feature of the game.  
64. Review -Jashin Fukkatsu- ＲＥＶＩＥＷ －邪神復活－ [9011] Orange House Ryoko Kawashima suddenly lost consciousness on the way home from school when she met a mysterious boy. When she regained consciousness she was in a different world and the priest passed her the sword with words that she was summoned to save the queen of that land. Story is quite short and all the commands have to be depleted to progress. Ryoko gathers friends to rescue the queen together so it inevitably falls into yuri action. The world is actually going to be destroyed unless the queen is saved, but Ryoko is not given any money so she has to exterminate rats in the cellar of the armor shop. Girls CG are quite cute, but the unproportionally big heads make shiver at times.  
65. Illumina! イルミナ！ [901205] Cocktail Soft 1 2 3 4 A young man wakes up, only to find himself in a bed, in an unknown house, in an unknown place. A lovely girl enters. She says that her name is Ryuuna and that she is practicing the art of White Magic as a priest. However, the young man cannot remember anything. He cannot even remember his own name. Ryuuna says that he was found unconscious outside of the village, with a pendant lying nearby. There is just one name written there, his name: Seraphis. Also, there is a strange engraving on his hand. Who is he really? Game is reviewed in English.  
66. MIRRORS ミラーズ [901210] Soft Studio Wing 1 2 3 The plot puts the player in the role of a musician, the lead singer for the band "Elleno Vision", haunted by terrible nightmares and stalked by a mysterious murderer during the band's world tour. Game is reviewed in English.  
67. Sadistic Gamers Part 4 Rumi no Climb Play サディスティック・ゲーマーズ PART-4 ～留美のクライムプレイ [901210] Sixteens

Rumi issue of sadistic gamers doujin game. This time genre is pure ADV, without quiz. It's probably the last game of the series. Finally all quiz traces are eliminated in favor of action.  
68. The 4th Unit - Merry Go Round 第４のユニット ＭＥＲＲＹ ＧＯ ＲＯＵＮＤ [901214] DataWest 1 2 Merrygoround is the sixth installment of The 4th Unit series and a sequel to D-Again, being the second chapter of the Einheit story arc introduced in the previous game. Koshinaka's research of the data bank on board the Diabolique, a stealth aircraft carrier of the United Nations, is aimed at increasing the life adjustment factor of bionic soldiers. However, members of the Einheit assault the laboratory, and the bionic soldier Blon-Win must decipher the clues left in order to proceed with the research and confront a mysterious person named Rua Rip Salisbury in the Original Matrix. FM Towns exclusive with full DAPS support. From this game it's not longer a command selection adventure, but rather an adventure with the limited error choice allowance. There is life bar and "wrong" command selection eats up a huge chunk of it. There's also timer for each selection so no relaxing available. But watching it in record is as satisfying as never before.  
69. Battle Skin Panic バトルスキンパニック [901215] Gainax 1 2 3 4 Arigawa walks Mimi from scool when they get attacked by female martial artist hooligans. Mimi admits that she studied fighting from the "Teacher" but many people use that to attack people. And Arigawa now gets involved into that face-off. Game is reviewed in English.  
70. Toushin Toshi 闘神都市 [901215] Alice Soft 1 2 3 4 Custom, a swordsman from a small village, is on a journey when he comes across a carriage being attacked. He defeats the attackers, rescuing the lovely maiden Kumiko. Kumiko was on her way to Toushin Toshi (Combat God City) to search for her father. She suspects her father is in the Combat God Mansion, residence of the annual combat tournament's champion. In order to get in, she needs to partner up with someone who can win the tournament that year, and Custom agrees that she can be his partner. They head to Combat God City to enter the tournament. Although victory in each round of the tournament earns one gold, special medicine, and other wonderful prizes, perhaps the most interesting prize is the opponent's partner. Each participant is required to have a beautiful female partner, and if the participant loses in combat, the victor gets his or her partner to do with as he/she pleases for one night. Female warriors in the tournament can choose to act as their own partner, as do the ninja Yayoi and swordswoman Morris. This monster-filled underground maze is located on the outskirts of Combat God City. One of the requirements to participate in the tournament is the retrieval of a Hero Crest from here. While the Hero Crests are on the first level of the labyrinth, there are several more floors and surprises waiting deeper inside. Game is reviewed in English.  
71. Dragon Knight II ドラゴンナイトII [901220] Elf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strawberry Fields - a magic country populated almost exclusively by beautiful young girls (that is, if we don't count the Wise Old Man and a couple of other male exceptions). All went well in this peaceful place, until the evil witch Mesaana abducted some of the country's lovely inhabitants and placed a curse upon them, turning them into hideous monsters. Enter Takeru Yamato (whom you might know as Desmond, the hero of Knights of Xentar), a young adventurer who happens to be in Strawberry Fields at that time. Takeru is told that in order to remove the curse one has to find three sacred writings, buried deep within three dangerous dungeons. Looks like a job for our adventurer - especially because the rescued girls will probably be very grateful! Game is reviewed in English.  
72. Pure 2 ピュア２ [901220] Queen Soft 1 The situation at the high-school soccer club is not good, and the coach is even afraid of getting fired... that's where the hero of the game, a student named Kitayama, steps into the picture. The coach asks him to become a "beauty manager", to search out pretty girls and to convince them participate in club activities. Kitayama is aided by two other schoolmates, but the player has to do the job all by himself... When title says Pure, it usually means the opposite. Pretty much the same happened with this game prequel "Pure". But game is very beautiful and girls drawing is cute so why not give it a try. Well, don't. Game has ridiculously difficult flags, morally old command selection formula and literally zero reward. But the main point of such games are characters, right? Supposed to be so, but here characters are so bland that no affection is possible. So game has great looks, but offers absolutely nothing, just torture, torture, more torture and then credits. It's a fraudware, not a real VN.  
73. Phantasy Star II Text Adventure: Kainz no Bouken ファンタシースターII テキストアドベンチャー カインズの冒険 [901226] Sega 1 2 3 4 Josh Kain (or Kain Ji An, Japanese: カインズ・ジ・アン Kainzu) is an 18 year old aspiring engineer who always loved machines, and had become quite knowledgeable in how electrical devices and robots function. He built many small devices, fixed appliances, and even learned to hack computers. However, due to being scatterbrained and clumsy, he would sometimes destroy the things he tried to fix. Eventually, after one particularly disastrous repair job, he gave up trying to be an engineer, deciding instead to put his "talent" for destroying things to good use. Thus did he become a "wrecker", his job being to trash anything electronic. He starts off joining a gang of rebels out to destroy Mother Brain, and eventually ends up teaming up with Rolf in Phantasy Star II towards that very end. Game is localized and has enough information in English.  
74. Beast ~Injuu no Yakata~ BEAST ～淫獣の館～ [9012] Birdy Soft 1 Muneto and his 4 friends seek shelter from the rain in a forest mansion. Servant does not allow to take them in but mistress Kiriko welcomes them inside. Next morning only Sandaihu is in his room. You must hurry and find your friends. There is an English review of the game.  
75. CAL キャル [9012] Birdy Soft 1 You are mostly interested in spending time with cute girls at school. One day a goddess of love Venus shows up and tells you that you'll soon be needed in the world of Cal which is populated only by cute girls. That was a dream, right? Time to figure out. Game emphasis lies in graphics. As in every game of Birdie Soft. Depending on the branch you're sent to eight worlds each with different atmosphere, so satisfaction level is high. Game follows the usual command selection formula pattern and presents ok'ish stories in a marvelous atmosphere. The atmosphere is nourished by introducing a lot of fairy-tale characters like Peter Pan, Rapunzel, Mermaid princess, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. It's difficult, but possible to get a bad ending, so frequent saving is recommended.  
76. Yaritai Houdai 3 - As You Like - Europe Tour やりたい放題３ アズユーライク ヨーロッパツアー [9012] Lucifer Soft The third part of the series follows the same nanpa flow, but this time with international girls at exotic world locations. Finally the last game in the series or the next one would be multi-universe one. At least there is some sightseeing involved and girls personalities are very different.  
77. Yuuko Monogatari 優子物語 [9012] Heart Soft Hero is a famous novelist. One day woman Yuuko bursts into his mansion with demands to make a child with her. Heavy strategy mix about breeding. Strategy elements are different for each of four chapters. Breeding has never been so difficult! It's probably a grandfather of Princess Maker series.  
78. Circuit's Edge [9012] Westwood Studios 1 2 3 4 5 6 The player assumes the role of Marîd Audran, a private detective. The game is set in "The Budayeen", an entertainment/criminal quarter in an unnamed city somewhere in the Mideast that is a seedy reflection of modern-day New Orleans. While running a series of errands/"business deals" for "Saied the Half-Hajj", a friend of Marîd's, Marîd is framed for the murder of a man named Kenji Carter. Although Marîd's influential patron Friedlander Bey clears him with the local police, Bey asks him to look into Carter's death. Doing so leads Marîd deep into the criminal underworld of the Budayeen. Game is reviewed in English.  
79. J-Thunder J・サンダー [9012] 1 In order to save his sister and his girlfriend's father the hero rides a huge robot called J Thunder and confronts the kidnappers robotic squad. There is an English review of this game.  
80. Lime Light Lime Light [9012] Hypa Soft Lia's mother who was aiming for prima donna suddenly collapsed from illness and now Lia has to substitute for her. By a twist of fortune Lia's doll Tia arises to help Lia with this goal. An adventure game for hypocrites with a heartwarming story - that is self-description of this doujin work. The content looks all-age to me, but I never got out of the maze of the forest to know for sure.  
81. Madoushi Lulba 魔導師ラルバ [9012] Compile Co., Ltd. World is getting drown in hatred. Resurrected Lulba has tremendous power and army of 240 million monsters. Only a warrior Cybercat who can handle the sword of light can oppose him. Game is a predecessor of Madou Monogatari rpg series. Game has 4 chapters that were serialized separately. A simplified rpg with command selection and no real 2d gui, so it's like text rpg with small images. You travel and fight monsters and bosses most of the time, so it looks like a normal shounen adventure.  
82. Réserve [9012] MIN 1 2 3 4 5 You play the pink-haired heroine Mio, who just wants to go on a date with her boyfriend. However, she slips through a crack in timespace and finds herself in a realm of monsters that all want to do lewd things to her. Make it to the end and go on a nice date with your boyfriend! Game is reviewed in English.  
83. Sweet Girl [9012] Burning☆Apple The purpose of the way is to get into intimate relations with the main featured heroine "Milady", but there are a lot of encounters on this way. Another doujin game. Game's here for spontaneous H encounters. There are also items to use, like chloroform.  
84. Sweet Girl 2 Sweet Girl 2 [9012] Burning☆Apple The ghosts have haunted the girls and the aim of the main character is to exorcise them. The game system is also very funny because elements like ACT ADV are incorporated. The content got even nastier. The system is now action mostly as we run through locations looking for items or people in action mode - and the events are usual ADV.  
85. Yuugekitai 遊撃隊 [9012] TKO Soft The story of adventures of a school boys band. Just saying that game is a parody is not really enough - it just can't run a single CG in a normal way. Distorted face features, funny emotions and extravagant behavior of those guys can't leave anyone indifferent unless there's strong aversion with those faces. The flow is several short stories driven in a kitetic novel form.  
86. Yuugekitai Bangai Hen 遊撃隊・番外編 [9012] TKO Soft A submarine suddenly appeared on the coast and the fighting squad is back to uncover its mysteries. The main difference about the second part is inclusion of action scenes when we control a boy and whirling blades wrecking the enemies. As for the rest it's new short stories and new portion of absurdism.  
87. Angel Commander 2 Gaiden Angel Commander 2 外伝 [90] Fairy Craft

Game features a story with Angel Commander 2 scroller game characters living a normal school life after the adventure. Another obscure doujin game of the early era.  
88. Sadistic Gamers Part 1 Shinjinkyouikuteki Play サディスティック・ゲーマーズ PART-1 新人教育的プレイ [90] Sixteens

Rookie issue of sadistic gamers doujin quiz game with chibi characters.  This doujin series has poor information coverage. But it's still a quiz game.  
89. Sadistic Gamers Part 3 Telephone Play サディスティックゲーマーズ PART-3 テレフォンプレイ [90] Sixteens

Telephone issue of sadistic gamers doujin quiz game. Genre is ADV+quiz again, not really sure what this game has to do with telephone.  
90. Suijaku Sakusen 2 Moeyo Dragon 衰弱作戦2　もえよどらごん [90] H.E.O.software

Main character Rie-chan is a master of karate. This summer an evil shadow surrounds a quiet town. Rie finds herself in the middle a mysterious incident. It's a very fascinating Sci-Fi romance comedy. For example,  first time Rie-chan introduces herself as a she-male, and we never get to know if it's a joke or not as only bust is shown in the lewd scenes. Game develops as a bakage with  lovely character until Dr. Himalaya who aims for a transfer device shows up at which point there are even battles (only command selection is used everywhere). Game has 80 CG strips, but no character sprites are used, so it's still only a moderate volume. It's the best doujin pc-88 visual novel that I know.  

Selekhs remain a mysterious race of aquatic beings, dwelling in most of the southern and south-eastern oceans. Not much is known about them, albeit their appearances were noted throughout the pages of history. Since the times of dawn, Selekh were often called spirits of water and each race gave them different names - Sylphaeans, Nixe, Selks… while humans called them Melusines. The so called stories of mermaids, bewitching the fearless sailors of the southern seas were their tales of unrequited love, sang by the bards and glorified by decadent poets of the new age.
Selekhs seem to age differently, retaining their youthful looks for almost entire lives, which they spend mostly underwater. They appear on the surface world rarely. When they do, one can only be mesmerised by their unearthly beauty - slender limbs, smooth and delicate skin, softly shaped faces with those iridescent red eyes, that seem to swallow your soul. Their heads are adorned with various growths, that seem to resemble underwater plants, while bodies have different pigmentation - from shades of grey, through blues, yellows and greens - often covered in different patterns. It is said every single one of them is as unique as lines on the palm of every human.
They seem to be attracted to the civilization above. Sometimes, they appear within port cities around the world, bearing no ill intentions. Since they're somehow able to communicate in the surface languages, they often remained between humans for a while longer. Some of them did it for far longer, forming peculiar relationships with surface dwellers. Yet, as human-like they might look, one also can not unsee their inhuman side - swimming membranes between their toes, sharp claws, finned backs, tails and lack of hair; Chests adorned with gills, which help them breathe underwater. Their mouths hide two rows of sharp teeth and there's no denying they are, without a doubt, predatory creatures.
They are best described as exotic flowers of the seas; Their graceful swimming - colours glittering through the warm waters, their ravishing look as they leap through the waves and extend their arms - as if to welcome, beckoning you. As you step to throw yourself off into the cold embrace of the sea, you realize it is only as poisonous, as the beauty of flowers growing within the tropical forests of the west, revealing their ugly, carnivorous nature.
Selekhs have longed to be with humans for a very long time, but those two races share two entirely different worlds, not meant to ever become one. Whether it's mere curiosity, escapism or something more, remains completely unknown. Their numbers are short between few and as trustful they remain towards humanity, they tend to avoid talking about themselves or their origins, retaining a safe distance, merely observing. Curious, but not lacking common sense. Their homelands seem to be as far away as the most distant outposts of the known world, hidden between the mists, down below the crushing waves, somewhere within the impenetrable darkness. Legends speak of a once glorious kingdom - a gem shining within the seas, now sunken and devoid of it's past glory; traces of olden times and secrets of the past, buried to never resurface again. An ancient civilization, so advanced it finally lead itself to it's own downfall. Are the Selekhs remnants of a bygone age, sole survivors, or perhaps the last children of that shimmering ghost of the past?
It might not be of importance to them any more. We see those nimble beings, now living their lives in perfect harmony with the sea, unconcerned with the fancies of human civilization, clothing nor glitter and sparkle of temporal goods. The sea embraces them - like a mother's womb and within that womb, they nourish, rest and love. It is only deep within their eyes, you'll sometimes see that strange grief of what seems to be aeons of sadness in solicitude. Then you'll understand the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Something I'm sure people have noticed in my posts in this blog is that I almost invariably compare VNs I'm reading on to either a genre standard or a similar VN in the past.  To be blunt, this is a shortcut, as it is incredibly tedious to write out an extensive analysis of a genre-typical something that is only minutely different from a hundred other VNs of the same type. 
Comparisons provide a frame of reference, giving the readers a chance to figure out what they can expect based on previous experiences.  In that way, my VN blog is a bit more geared toward relatively 'experienced' readers of VNs than it is to those just getting into reading VNs.  After all, if you have never read a charage, you won't have any point of reference to understand what I'm referring to when I indicate something is a charage.
Understand, I recognize this limitation... and in the end I have to shrug.  One of the issues I've made a point of reinforcing in the past, when working on VN of the Month, is to eliminate spoilers and try to be as objective as is possible, though in some cases this involves me posting something immediately previous that warns the readers about my prejudices and how they are likely to effect my viewpoint on what I'm reading.  I'm categorically prejudiced against Minori, for instance... and just letting people know just how I feel prior to posting on a Minori game (and reminding them each time another one comes out) gives you a realistic expectation of how I will be looking at the VN in question.  Similarly, I periodically reinforce the knowledge of my dislike of the charage genre (or rather, my dislike of many of its conventions) to help those who read my blog keep in mind that it isn't exactly my favorite genre.
In the case of chuunige, my prejudice is in perfect opposition to my prejudice with charage.  I am naturally inclined to give chuunige and fantasy VNs in general far more leeway than I would ever grant any charage... and thus I almost inevitably make an effort to savage any chuunige I play critically in retrospect.   A perfect example would be Zero Infinity and Electro Arms... both are by Light, a company I adore... and both are games that I found to be immensely fun to play.  However, in both cases I found myself lingering on their faults in the aftermath, savagely criticizing Zero Infinity's blatant Masada-worship and Electro-Arms' prolific sub-heroine paths and obsession with busty main heroines.  Did this mean I didn't like them?  Quite the opposite.  I enjoyed both immensely... but I felt obligated to be even harsher than them than I would have with a charage. 
Similar things occur whenever I find myself getting deeply interested in a VN.  I feel a sick need to nitpick at something, the more I'm enjoying it, as if I were some masochistic fanboy that likes driving himself into a rage.  This is a disease that has crept in as I've been posting on VNs, making it difficult for me to just sit back and enjoy the ride with many that I otherwise would have at least given a better chance.
Understand, some of those VNs I would have enjoyed immensely before I hit the three hundred VN mark.  Unfortunately, my habit of blogging on just about everything I play has left me with a sense of obligation to those who read this blog, to be as unbiased as it is possible to be or to at least warn those reading about my prejudice and bias beforehand. 
As a clarification, I was never particularly fond of the dating stage of a charage heroine's path... just to let you know.  'Cute' interactions grow stale really quickly when you've seen it a hundred times before (literally) in all its permutations.  It is also why I inevitably praise routes that step off the beaten path if they don't suck outright.

First, I should state that this is a VN I was unsure of from the beginning.  The concept of the 'rehabilitation program' in the VN is so similar to some manga and anime that have gotten attention recently that I had to shake my head in exasperation... not to mention that the concept is also at the core of why so many Japanese otakus like the school life slice-of-life charage that are produced in such profusion.
The VN starts out from the perspective of Hahakigi Hinako, one of the three heroines available from the beginning.  Hinako's perspective is the one through which you form your first impressions of the Tryment (not sure of this is the correct romanization, since no info has been given so far that might reveal it, lol) Plan's 'reform school'.  Hinako is a young woman who failed at work due to her social ineptness (extreme stage fright, inexperience with working with others, etc), and as a result she lost her job and was left with no idea of how to proceed.  This project was then suggested to her as a possible way to return to the workforce, and she chose to go with it.
It is probably best that your impressions of the world are formed through Hinako, as Tsukasa - the male protagonist - is something of an unreliable narrator (deliberately so on the part of the writer) whose viewpoint has some seriously gaping holes in it.  It becomes apparent even in Hinako's path that something weird is going on on the island, but it mostly seems irrelevant during the common route.
The two heroines I started out with were Kaizou Momo and Ootate Ruka.  Momo is a genius programmer and a researcher of artificial intelligence whose reasons for coming to the island are left to your imagination in the common route.  She is childlike, cheery, and more than a little emotionally needy.  However, she is appropriately brilliant, as is shown repeatedly in her path.  Unfortunately, her path ends on a somewhat confusing note, revealing little about what is going on except indirectly.  Ruka is a serious, intelligent young woman who was once part of a law firm that fell apart for reasons that would be a spoiler (lol).  Her path is somewhat more revealing about both the setting and Tsukasa than Momo's, but, again, you are left to fill in most of the details on your own through speculation.  The ending of both VNs feels definitely incomplete, and they are probably just setups for the Ai path, most likely.
So far, this VN has been interesting to read... but it is also looking to be pretty short.  Though, most of the reason for that seems to be the fact that the VN wastes very little time on the romantic and slice-of-life aspects that would have been the center of a charage.  Since it is so obvious that the heroine routes aren't meant to be complete in and of themselves, I'm going to reserve judgement until I've completed the remaining routes.

October is turning out to be a frustrating month, with the VN I was most interested in delayed until December (for some reason, December seems to be getting all the most interesting ones...).  I honestly had hopes that October would break the 'dry spell' I've been experiencing since I completed July's releases.  There is still a possibility of that happening, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Right now, I'm busy with work, trying to open up a nice quiet period so that I can get all of October's releases out of the way in as short a time as possible.  This is because I have a ridiculous amount of conventional games coming out next month on my list to play, and I don't want my VN habit getting in the way like it has the last few times a new game came out (yes, I'm that much of a VN junkie).
Anyway this is the list of releases for October I plan to at least try to play:
Nanairo＊Clip (I haven't played anything by this company, so I have no idea of what to expect, but it looks like a standard charage)
Unionism Quartet A-3 Days (the fandisc to the original game, mostly playing in case they give solid after-stories to the neglected heroines from the original)
Sora no Tsukurikata (Lovesick Puppies maker Cosmic Cute's newest game... definitely my initial pick for the month)
Reminiscence Collection (Random VNs rather than VN of the Month, but I can't resist)
Re: Lief (seriously, the Japanese finally crossed the line with this one, but I can't resist)
Signalist Stars (new company, looks like an oppai-girl charage)
Furerute Love Connect (charage, obviously... might or might not bother, considering how I dropped Nephrite's first game after only two hours of play because it was so boring)
Gusha no Kyouben (Akabeisoft3 is pretty hit and miss, and now they are doing comedy... I'm curious as to what this will turn out to be)

First thing that anyone thinks when they see a VN written by Choco Chip is 'nukige!!!'.  That isn't precisely correct.  I've played exactly three games by this guy that impressed me, though that was over four years ago.  Those three games were Prima Stella, Sarasara, and Sakura Iro Quartet.  Randomly, I decided to pick Prima Stella back up, and I relived my ancient experiences with it, gaining new impressions relative to what I've experienced since.
First, my impressions are universally positive about this game.  For those of you who feel negative about that kind of thing, there is sex in the common route (at least one scene for each heroine), but the situations in which they happen aren't too unrealistic as VN situations go, lol.  One of the reasons that Choco Chip's games almost always get put down as nukige is because of his fondness for sexuality in the common route... and that impression isn't entirely wrong.  Most of his VNs really are nukige, through and through.  His VNs are from an era where it wasn't a 'sin' for a nukige to have as solid a plot as your standard VN (as it has pretty much become now, save for rapegames). 
Prima Stella starts with the protagonist, Kousuke, an aspiring swimmer, throwing himself in front of a car to save a girl and little boy without regard for his own safety.  He spends two months in a coma, and when he wakes up, his body is withered and he is barely able to raise his arms.  Well, he manages to finish his basic rehabilitation (enough to live a normal life), but he quickly realizes that getting back in top form is going to be difficult at best, impossible at worst, especially at a school with no indoor pool.  It is at this point that he gets invited to attend school at a famous rich girls' academy, in order to take advantage of the facilities there.  Given the chance, he takes it, and it is there he meets the girl he saved, Shizuka.
This is all given away in the summary, so I'm not really spoiling anything, lol.  Anyway, the common route of the VN focuses on his and the heroines' trials and tribulations, as they all fall in love with him, with legitimate cause (yes, this is the biggest difference between your run of the mill charage, moege, or nukige... there are legitimate reasons for the relationships to form).  Other than that, story-wise there is nothing revolutionary.  The actual heroine paths are as solid as the common route (which is fairly high quality), and the heroines themselves are quite attractive as people. 
One of the things that most charage made in the last few years lack is dealing with heroines deep psychological problems and troubles, and one of the things I liked about this VN was that such troubles do pop up in the story.  Shizuka and Tomoe in particular get a huge dose of this kind of thing, and having the protagonist unwind their twisted hearts is one of the more pleasurable experiences of the VN.
Edit: A few words about the difference in how I felt about this game at the time and how I feel now.  Understand, having played numerous games of the type since my original playthrough,  my viewpoint on slice-of-life VNs has changed immensely.  The first time I played it through, I didn't have the 'eyes' to really see the loving detail that Choco Chip put into this VN... and I didn't have the right mindset to appreciate this type of VN to the fullest (thus my revised vote on vndb). 
One thing that is lacking in today's VNs is the characters' tribulations.  For better or worse, heroines don't have any major issues, protagonists remain the same through the entire VN, and there is no central story to motivate the relationships' growth.   Of course, there are exceptions... but VNs like this one, where the tribulations of the characters go beyond the minor 'drama' that is common in most VNs have gotten rarer and rarer over the last half-decade. 

Disclaimer: At the end of this post I get pretty salty, so be aware of that. This post endorses MY and MY OPINION ONLY. The numbers about the costs of a translation team were researched before putting them here.
Hello guys. Aizen-Sama here with another spicy rant. Although I haven’t been around the forums as long as other users who have spent their time here several years (I have spent around 7 months more or less at the present time being) I have seen that there’s a huge problem that I’ve mostly seen here, in Fuwanovel, more than any other site that congregates VN fans. In fact, I think that this doesn’t happen anywhere but here, but again, what do I know? I don’t really visit Reddit nor 4chan that much, let alone interact there.

Anyways, what I want to address is a problem that has been going on since the beginning stages of this site, and that problem is the Translation Requests, or what I like to call “e-beggars” (yes, I know this term has been invented already).

First and foremost, the majority of people that make these Translation Request posts are usually new users and I’m fully aware of that. But this has been blowing up lately. I know that 4 posts in the last month and a half doesn’t sound like that much, but the proposals are getting so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe sometimes if the guys asking these things are for real or if they’re straight out trolling.

Let’s take this post as a quick example. You’re scrolling through the forums and see this post, and then the thought comes to mind “Another typical Request Post. Sigh. Let’s see what this guy’s asking for…” and then you see this:

These posts show nothing more than ignorance and arrogance, as well as no interest towards these groups they are begging to translate something for them. Do these people even understand what it takes to translate a medium length VN? A medium length, around the 35-40k line mark in my opinion, could easily take a year. And the guy in this post begged for 5 medium and long length VN’s to be translated, one of them being >50 hours long.

But don’t be mistaken, the worst part about that post wasn’t the amount of VN’s he was begging for nor their length. It was the last statement: “Thanks in advance”. Although it sounds stupid, that’s what triggered me the most. A shitty “thanks in advance” is not something that motivates people to do these things. People have to put themselves in a translators’ shoes sometimes. Not only him, but also the people who aren’t translating, but the ones who edit the text, proofread it, the image editors, the quality checkers, etc… Do they think that the task can be easily done if the guy in question knows Japanese? Not even close.

The secret of a translation project.

I know this is hard to believe for the e-beggars, but the translation of a game requires an enormous amount of time, and one year to finish the TRANSLATION, not editing, of a medium length VN is a very decent deadline. And I’m talking about a medium length game, not a long one. Majo Koi has around 47k lines. Supposing it had one sole translator and the translator in question did 100 lines a day, the game would be finished in around 470 days approximately, this taking into account he diligently does 100 lines a day, no skipping, no nothing. Let’s convert that into hours spent in total, since that tends to shock people more; 470 days doing 100 lines a day, if the translator is an experienced one, meaning that he has done this before or is a professional in the field, he could get rid of that task in about an hour. But an amateur translator, basically the bulk of the community in itself when it comes to fan translations, could take around 1,5 or 2 hours to do the exact same number of lines. That could mean than in total, just translating could take from 470 hours for the experienced translator, which means around 20 full days translating something, to 705-940 hours for the amateur translator, which is around 30-40 days translating nonstop. And this would be just translation, I’m purposely taking out the other processes such as editing and QC’ing. Do you e-beggars understand the amount of work is being put in these projects? This is why Translation Request posts should be completely banned off this site and instantly deleted. Then again, where would I put my insulting memes towards the op’s to gain likes for no reason?

Let’s throw in another question now that we’re shifting towards that matter: Is fan-translating Visual Novels even worth it in the first place?

Before I answer (although it’s probably known what I’m going to say, given my tone) let me address this: I by no means think that fan-translation is bad, in fact, it has been the reason why we’re getting official localizations now and I think that no amount of praise of thanks can equate the amount of work the translators of these projects did in order for this genre to be known better in the Western community.

But, as sad as it sounds, fan translating at this moment is not worth it. Why? I’ll put in some of the reasons:

-          Although some members of the vocal community throw in the occasional thanks once the patch is out that’s all the team who translated the game gets. Nothing more, nothing less. Some people might say that recognition counts as some sort of reward as well, but personally I don’t think that’s the case.
-          No reviews of the translated VN’s are usually made (this is what in my opinion spreads the awareness of these games), only discussion threads are made, which is pretty sad in my opinion.
-          I’m going to quote something that Clephas said in one of my posts, that sums up this next point:  “Another thing is that most people in the community will never even try to experience fantl from the other side of things... they don't realize how much time it eats up, that emptiness you feel when you realize you've used dozens of hours of your personal time only to put out a patch that people bash left and right for 'errors' and other shit.”
-          The work put in to translate the game itself is not worth, meaning that the compensation that the translator/team worked for it is not even close enough to what they should be getting.
Lastly, I want to address the problem that comes with donations, awareness of localization costs/translation costs, and ignorance.

I’ll cut to the chase; for the people that think that with donations alone you can “pay” a translator to do some kind of game, you’re WRONG. Let’s put an example of what could a medium VN translation cost: let’s suppose that the team consists of three persons, to translate a 1.5 million jp character VN (equating to a 45k line count approximately). The translator gets 1 cent per Japanese character, the editor gets 1 cent per English word and the QC gets a quarter of a cent for each English word. In total, the final price equates to 33k dollars JUST FOR THE TEAM TO TRANSLATE A SINGLE VN. And these prices are apparently pretty shitty for a translator, so yeah, there you go. Besides, why donating a random group of guys, who could easily run away with the money and machine translate the game, or not even translate the game at all, when you can just support the official localizers? Contrary to what some people think they are actually releasing more games than ever and the 18+ industry in the scene has never seen so many official releases ever.

Summing up this 3 page-long essay of frustration:

1.       Please for the love of god don’t e-beg or Request for translations. Just no, it triggers people off and it only shows how ignorant you are about what happens behind the scenes.
2.       Fan Translating in this actual moment is NOT WORTH, only people who are very commited and have a strong resolution will be able to start one, and very few out of those will actually finish the project.
3.       Donations are NOT a solution to encourage Fan Translation, it ruins the very concept of it and it’s also ILLEGAL. Don’t support an already illegal activity by paying it.
4.       Before posting retarded shit on the forums please look for other posts similar to what you might want to post. Maybe looking at the responses could enlighten you and help the other users not waste their time by reading the same shit over and over again.
5.       Before criticizing Translations and patches for “errors” and “typos” and being a little whining bitch how about you try to show interest on how much effort people put on the translation of these games behind the scenes? (This goes solely to the people that haven't experienced working on a fan translation and whine non-stop about "how bad the translation of this is" and blah blah blah.)
Anyways, I think that’s all the rage out. For those of you who haven’t dozed off already have a nice day and all of that stuff.

And if you smash that like button you will get your very own… DIES IRAE MACHINE TRANSLATED PATCH. Yes! This is not a scam at all, your own personal Dies Irae Machine Translated patch. If you leave a like you can choose between a Google, Bing, or a Skype translated patch. I’ve invested so many hours on them, it was totally worth though ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Rapelay developer Illusion boldly promotes its upcoming virtual reality sex simulator VR Kanojo with a Steam Greenlight for the non-adult trial version.
Illusion reaches out to English fans with Steam trial of VR Kanojo
Fuwanovel discussion thread

Hey guys, It's dfbreezy here, your greenhorn Vn writer who's gonna use this blog to educate and enlighten readers as to the deeper workings and challenges in VN creation. The topic i'm going to choose for today would be Vn project recruitment.
VN recruitment sounds easy at first because, hey, all you have to do is post an ad and wait for the interested parties to flow, right? Unfortunately that particular thinking process was quashed in a very short while. If you have ready and available money to pay, recruitment is never a problem. In such a situation it all boils down to what you want and how much you're willing to pay. But for a newbie, unemployed university student (like myself), such feats of maturity are far beyond our grasp. 
Recruiting for a free project is actually easier than recruiting for a paid project with delayed payment. That's because when recruiting for a free project, members are aware that there is no monetary gain whatsoever. For a commercial project, team members expect some form of compensation for their work (not always monetary), so in the case of money, they expect upfront payment. They may have their own complex pricing methods or they may utilize a general flat fee, but all in all, you have to pay something.
Being a penniless soul planning to gather funding from Kickstarter, i tried to recruit a team of people on the notion of delayed payment. This, was the most trying time in the production process for me. This particular duty was made much harder due to the fact that all this is transpiring over the internet. Without seeing my face and knowing my name, i attempted to gather people to help produce my idea on the promise of future money that may or may not come depending on various factors. Laughable isn't it?
But it didn't fail completely. With not a single penny exiting my pocket, i managed to gather writers, A programmer and composers. Satisfied with my recruitment, i turned to what i thought to be the easiest avenue. Artists. To sum it up, it took a whole month and 15 rejections for me to finally fill up those positions.
Hardly anyone wanted to take the risk of trusting a newbie with no money with their time and experience. There's no way you can blame them for that... after all it doesn't align with reason to take such a risk. 
Nevertheless i gathered a suitable team and work begun on the project. Episicava had hit off and was going smoothly. I had quite a bit of a breather and a sudden increase in my leisure time, so i decided to work on a small scale project while Episicava's assets were being worked on.
The recruitment process for RD wasn't as difficult as that of Episicava since, i fully utilized my wealth of information and tactful wording to gather a second team. It took me about 2 weeks to gather a full team for RD as opposed to the one month+ time it took for Episicava. Experience really is the best teacher.
There are probably a few others in the same position as i am, wanting to work on an idea they have, but not being sure of it's advisable to move forward and recruit. To all those in such a situation, the truth of the matter would be to not recruit yet and to rather gather some funds, say at least $1000- $2000 if you're planning to use low quality assets. Another is to do the impossible and convince someone to work for free on a commercial project. If there's someone who can perform such a feat, i tip my hat off to you.
To round up my short essay, recruitment, whether free or commercial, whether EVN or another language, would possess and create it's own challenges that only the lead dev can solve with his own power and actions. That is... if you don't have a dime to your name.

Visual Novel Translation Status (10/08/2016)
Since image header from this week was from Higurashi, I think the book Tales of Tinfoil would be fitting for Higurashi there considering that the subtitle for real book was 'Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy' and we knew enough that Higurashi was full of those two (The first 6 arcs arcs at least). As for Hinamizawa subtitle, obviously it was from the setting of Higurashi there. Anyway, this is another my VNTS Review obviously and I'll admit that I'd just find about Tinfoil book right now. As for Decay's musing, I'm very agree that Mangagamer update was more exciting than their announcement from last week. Other than Mangagamer, there's also good news from fan translated one in regard of Majokoi. So let me tell my opinion in regard of this week progress one by one. Oh, and still no progress from JAST by the way.
Other
Thanks to our new friend PhleBuster who also work as Fruitbat employee there, we got some juicy news in regard of the progress from Fruitbat Factory there. Admittedly I should list this back at Monday, but I missed that. So let me tried to write some of my thought here. There was some progress from the project that didn't had VNDB page like Lionheart which had 95% for both of translation and editing, Dungeon Girl which was 78% translated and 72% edited, and Acceleration of SUGURI 2 which was complete for both of translation and editing. Those 3 were more in line with game than Visual Novel, and for the gameplay Lionheart would be alike classic JRPG, Suguri was sone kind of bullet hell only with dueling instead of avoiding it (Maybe), and Dungeon Girl was more like Huniepop or Puzzle Quest if we talk about puzzle game with some RPG element there. From three games which were either completed or almost, only Dungeon Girl game that was picked my interest, while for the other two not so much.
For visual novels project, they announced 2 VNs which had the progress (Enigma and Miniature Garden). As for Enigma, it was already completed the translation and for the next plan they'll release it at this winter, either late this year or early next year. Once again, the premise looks promising there, although I won't count on it for now. For Miniature Garden, they already started the translation there and they planning the release for Spring 2017 which could be at around March or if we follow Australia it'll be around September. While they write that they had good production from the art and seiyuu (The character design was quite good indeed), I would like to elaborate that Yazawa Nico (Love Live) seiyuu also voicing one of the character in this game. From the looks at VNDB, looks like it'll be quite a bad VN here but then again it's still too early to said that.
Seven Days, apparently this game that XReaper tried to tell the news earlier here, and they had gathered around 4,2 million yen (US $ 42,000) while the goal was only at 2 million yen (US $ 20,000). My comment here the art was very good and apparently they'll had Steam release if they managed to bring it overseas. The reason was because there's Shimizu Ai as seiyuu and she used her real name here, while we also knew that she was voicing eroge characters (The seiyuu usually using alias if they work in an eroge as seiyuu) so it's safe to assume that this VN will be all age. As for more comment, I think the production value was very high for the VN which had target 20,000 gathered looking from seiyuu, and I think it kind of make sense because Fruitbat announced that they also handling the funding here (Outside crowdfunding). As for the news, they'll reveal more the closer this game released at Japan (2017) so it'll take a while there.
This week we also had the progress from Libra, but too bad that the release will be pushed to May 2017 so no 2016 release there. As for the progress, they managed to finish 2 bonus routes here (Aoi's and Harem). Once again I would like to comment that those bonus route was quite short, and I think they could managed it first there (Although I far more interested to see the progress for the routes though). For the recap, the completed one was common routes, Calen's, Mari's, and those 2 bonus routes (Aoi's and Harem) there. I'll be waiting here if you ask my opinion in regard of delay.
Sekai Project
Seeing Libra release was pushed back to March, I think Chrono Clock release will definitely suffer delay there, more so if we looking at the progress not even reaching 40% mark yet (39.81%). Well, let's just waiting then in case this game will be delayed (Of course I hope there's no delay for Chrono Clock, but if there is couldn't be help there).
As for the usual progress, they still did good job there albeit slowly (Tenshin Rahman was 57.14% translated and Maitetsu was at 39.71% translated). And this time they also add more of their project to their tracker there. One of them was Boku to Koisuru Ponkotsu Akuma (Too mouthful, so I'll just called it Bokukotsu) which announced back at AX and for the progress it was at 8.85% translated there. Apparently they also already had both of Tokeijikake and Saku Saku in QA this week, or maybe they're already did it from last weeks and I missed that. The most surprising news was from Wagahigh which the translation progress was very crazy bringing it to 73.54% translated (Granted, the last update was from a month ago, but still). And for last update here Ne No Kami Chapter 2 was 33.95% translated.
They also had releases for Sakura series there, Sakura Maid 2 and Sakura Nova. Other than they made the sequel very fast for Sakura Maid (Less than 2 weeks or 12 days to be exact), my comment here would be whatever ie don't care.
Fan Translation
As for fan translation, they still give good progress there if we talk about usual one here. For more elaboration here, Bishoujo Mangekyou was 85% edited, 80% QC-ed, and 38% proofread; Tsui Yuri was 84% translated, 73% edited, and starting the QC there (1%); Loverable was at 18.06% translated, 3.26% TLC-ed, and somehow the editing progress was regressing to 1.29% there; and finally Majokoi was almost touching halfway mark translated (47.6% translated), 33.9% edited, and 16.2% TLC-ed. That's all for those who gave the update weekly here.
For the unusual one there's Kanobito, and in regard of that there's some bad news that they'll put the translation project in hold because of some real llife issue there. Although at least the still gave the progress right now which at 27% translated. And one more news in regard of Arcadeotic new project, right now the translation was going albeit slowed down a bit because of exam. Also there's some news in regard of Ushieta which although they're still not give the concrete update, they stated that Airi's route was starting the editing process and the translation for both Kaori's and Nagisa's route was begin.
Mangagamer
They surely had so much progress there, and once again it's definitely excited compared to the letdown back at Atlanta last week. Let me list the update one by one here, but beforehand let me state that Himatsubushi was released at Friday. Once again I'm waiting for the modding patch here, maybe until Christmas.
Suki Suki was at 92% for both translation and editing progress Maggot Bait translation was begin and it was translated at half percent Imopara 2 was 90% translated Go Go Nippon 2016 was finished for both of translation and editing, and will be scripting Rance 5D testing was completed while Rance VI about to do testing Nyuu Jene was about to finishing the beta testing Boukaku was 32% translated Hadaka Shitsuji was 28% retranslated Dal Segno was 66% translated Hapymaher was 51% translated and 32% edited Sorcery Joker was 52% translated and 40% edited Pygmalion was starting the scripting Evangile W was 62% translated and 42% edited Bokuten was still doing the porting Himawari was completing the testing Da Capo 3 was about to do the testing There's a lot of update there. First of all, congratulations for both of Hapymaher and Sorcery Joker for finally halfway translated. As for Decay's statement in regard of three weeks, it maybe true that there's some bigger jump in regard of the progress there. But I think it's still depending on the translator themselves if we want to determined of translation speed there. The example it was relative to the translator would be Naked Butler (Not that I care though, but this is perfect example), because I was take a look to the previous VNTS there and after doing some comparison the progress was pretty much very little with only 2% progress there (No excuse because I saw that they managed to had 3% progress in 2 weeks). Well, either way of course I'm still excited with the progress here.
As for Himawari finishing the testing, I wonder if they'll releasing the demo or not. But maybe now that they finally finishing the testing, maybe it'll be out this year. About Da Capo 3, once again they preparing the demo, so it'll be out this year although it's still my guess though. Either way, at least the waiting for whoever wait for those two games should be almost over, especially for Decay who looking forward to Himawari release the most. If I may give the reason why I guess those two release for this year, the reason would be Mangagamer pattern from last year in which they release two big one both at November and December (euphoria and Gahktun respectively). So I guess that if they want to release two big title for this year it would be Himawari and Da Capo 3, considering that the progress for those two was already done (Himawari) or almost done (Da Capo 3). Keep in mind that once again it's my guess only.
Oh, and I almost forgot about MYTH. From the looks it was quite good if we talk about character design. From the premise looks like it was mystery one and I think I could the music will be good or at least fittingly place, if only looking at the staff who also working on When They Cry music there. Other than that, I didn't knew much about this VN for now. There's already pre-order there, and it'll be released at October 28th.
That's all that I thought of this week, and see you next week.

So, this time I'm going to ramble about something that really bothers me in VNs, this also applies to any genre not just VNs.
While I was doing a review about ashita no yukinojou and another VN.. I kept thinking about this on and on and then I remembered yet other VNs that did the same thing (Tyr talked about one of them)
So, I scraped everything out just to write this. 
Here is my issue: If the core part of the plot is badly written and doesn't make sense or has serious flaws then even if the overall VN is good it cannot be saved and it will be bad no matter what, that's why I'm going to use the fruit of the poisonous tree analogy xD "The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the "tree") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the "fruit") from it is tainted as well." from wikipedia lol
Spoilers of ashita no yuki ahead (sorry but you will need to spoil yourself with the plot or you wont be able to understand my point, I tried to simplify it as much as possible)
Now, bare with me a little, I know this is a VN so it doesn't have to be 100% realistic buuuuuuuut if you are going with the "realistic plot" then you cannot write this kind of crap and then expect the reader to ignore it when it happens.
Does it always have to be like this? No, it's all about the context itself, but there is one thing you cannot ignore, if you are working with humans as characters (and not with orcs, neko girls, or some random alien civilization) then you cannot ignore some basic stuff. Humans use reasoning or so I want to believe, so if you are trying to tell me that you raised a person, lived with her just to use it as a sacrifice or you give me a moral speech about how I didn't rescue someone but at the same time you didn't call the police then go fuck yourself.
It doesn't matter if the plot has some fantasy settings, sci-fi, etc if you are dealing with humans you need to apply the basic reasoning that a human would apply to that situation itself or else I cannot take it seriously.
But wait there is more! Using the "human" as the only characteristic is a bit too broad and wide and not always can be applied... the second thing and the most important one is: 
Is the plot trying to take itself seriously, does it really want you to believe what it's going on or is just an excuse to keep the story flowing?
If it's actually taking itself in a serious way, then it is without a doubt a garbage crap, written by a moron.
Now, opinions and interpretations are a very subjective thing so probably we won't agree in many VNs regarding if you can or cannot apply this (specially some of the vns I've read and voted with a high score that might fall into this category) and I know that some readers don't want realism in VNs to begin with, so this is something they will never understand or even want in the first place and I can understand that but then again these are just some random thoughts and complains that I have and I wanted to share them, nothing more. If you don't agree with them I'm ok with that.
Sorry if this is just poorly written and seems a little rushed (it is xd) I was going to write a more extensive text but I'm too lazy and tired for that.
Have a nice day.
 
 

Now... as I said in the nostalgia post, I've been replaying a lot of games lately.  The reason is fairly simple... my backlog of VNs is almost nonexistent now.  I've played roughly 85% of the ones I purchased during the first days, including all but a few of those that I've purchased in the last few years.  That isn't to say that there are no VNs of interest that I haven't played yet... but many of them just aren't available to purchase by download and are too expensive to obtain a physical copy of (one in particular is two hundred for an open package).  What is left are some 'rainy day' VNs and a bunch of third-rate moege/charage.  Well, that and a few horrible-looking gameplay VNs.
So... the games I'll be playing after this month's releases are naturally going to be replays as well.  However, I'm not willing to replay any more charage, so these are my random VN plans for next month.
1.  Evolimit - I've been asked to make a full assessment of this VN and blog on it by several dozen people over the last year.
2.  Muramasa- Muramasa is a VN it takes a lot of energy to play, simply because it is so gloomy.  As a result, I keep putting it off, even though I like it.
3.  Ruitomo FD- This is a fairly low priority, simply because I found that after playing the main game, I needed a rest from that cast of characters, lol.
4.  Gleam Garden no Shoujo - I really, really need to replay this.  I loved it at the time, but the memory is starting to fade.
5.  Sinclient- similar to the above.
6.  Itsuka, Todoku, Ano Sora ni - In this case, I've long considered this to be the game I judged the most wrongly, based on my inexperience with Japanese VNs at the time.  So, I feel that I need to go back and reassess this one.
7.  Akatsuki no Goei series and Reminiscence series - I just love this stuff and it is great for stress relief
8.  Imouto Spiral - you ask me why?  it is because, while the story is... pathetic, the VN is hilarious.
9. Bradyon Veda- It is about time that my memories of the details faded enough that I'll probably be able to enjoy a full second playthrough.
10.  Akeiro Kaikitan- 'Already?!' you say?  I'm currently replaying Nanairo Reincarnation, so I feel a need to replay this one too.
11.  Gensou no Avatar- It is wasteful that this particular doujin game has been forgotten, lol.
12.  Futagoza no Paradox and Owaru Sekai to birthday- Because they don't make them like this anymore.
13.  Natsu no Owari no Nirvana
14.  Tenshi no Hane o Fumanaide
15. Boku ga Tenshi natta Wake
 

If some of you failed to notice, I've been going back over my list of ancient favorites amongst the moege/charage/slice-of-life genres.  Why am I doing this?  I actually have some good reasons, other than whims.
First, I keep recommending these things to people, but when you start talking about a VN you last played five years ago, people tend to let it in one ear and out the other.  I mean, my long-term memory for games and books is pretty good, but my brain is fairly compartmentalized, so I don't remember them actively unless I go through the effort to refresh that memory.  Can I continue to say that I honestly recommend something without playing it in the recent enough past that I can compare it to other, more recent VN experiences, through more jaded eyes?
Second, I want to know just how much nostalgia is coloring my viewpoint.  To be blunt, the longer you are away from your favorite games or VNs, the more the memory gets beautified by distance in time.  When I recently did a speed replay of G-senjou, I reaffirmed why I disliked the story structure while at the same time realizing that I didn't always do it justice due to my biases (no, I didn't blog on it, but I was mostly doing it for my own edification, anyway). 
Third, I like to think that I try to be as objective as possible, so I wanted to reexplore my VN roots when it came to my attitude toward charage/moege.  One thing I've noticed as I replayed certain charage from the past is that the best of the older generation wasted the least time on 'everyday' slice-of-life, ironically.  The gradual shift to put an excessive emphasis on the everyday life aspects of charage and moege is a relatively recent phenomenon, from what I've re-experienced.  A part of this is that, as the audience in Japan has aged, so has their nostalgia for an 'ideal youth' become much stronger.  The fact is, a lot of the 'devoted' moe-gamers in Japan aren't young people (at least not the ones who are also erogamers).  They are older people who want to experience an idealized version of youth through a non-person protagonist's viewpoint.  Ironically, this seems to be the reason why the market is shrinking, since younger generations don't find that kind of stuff as accessible as the older generation does, so you can tell to some extent what generation a company is appealing to by how weak the protagonist is and/or archetypical the characters are, lol.
 

Agobarrier, who was the writer of Shuffle (the work most familiar to people here) was one of my favorite non-chuuni VN writers.  Ironically, his best works were all written after leaving Navel and its massive stream of liquid cash to form Rosebleu, my favorite comedy company.  I started going back through his entire library of works (or at least the ones I've played and own) since I heard of his death in mid-April, and as I replay his final work, Valkyrie Runabout, I feel a need to look back on what he did for me, personally (though he obviously had no idea I exist). 
First, for those who don't know what works I'm talking about, the Tiny Dungeon series, which is on the second level of my Beginner recommendations list, is a harem/fantasy/action/comedy based in a multiverse where four worlds, inhabited by four distinct races that just recently ended a horrible inter-world war.  One of the nastier revelations at the end of the war was that it was a human and mostly human interests who had instigated the war's beginning and kept it going through some seriously Machiavellian manipulations.  As a result, the human protagonist, Shirasagi Hime, is a target for prejudice, contempt, and outright hatred regardless of his personal character at Trinity, the school built to encourage peaceful interactions between the three non-human races (humans weren't forbidden from entering the school, but remaining there was kind of... difficult, to say the least).  The series stretches across four games, three of them exploring the possibility of Hime choosing one of the three main heroines (the demon lord Veil, the divine princess Note, or the Queen of the Dragons, Ururu) and the resulting victories and tragedies that result.  The fourth game, Brave or Slave, ties up the series and brings it to a true ending, and Endless Dungeon (the fifth game that serves as a sort of fandisc/extra story) completes the saga.
The Tiny Dungeon series relies on a mix of the various common types of humor found in Japanese VNs in general (manzai, personality-humor, running jokes) and it shows the various eras Agobarrier worked through (from the turn of the century to last year).  In addition, it did what he probably wanted to do with Shuffle... ended things with a harem, lol.
His other works as Rosebleu's jack-of-all-trades (he apparently worked at least a little in every position... and I wouldn't surprised if the COD was overwork, considering this) all shared that sense of humor and maintained a level of quality that reflected his experience in the industry.  The fact is that, setting aside the fact that Rosebleu's games are mid to low-budget affairs, they were all written well and used what they had to its fullest to entertain the reader.
And so I, as one of those who has read every one of his works since he helped found Rosebleu, will soon finish my own period of mourning.  To be honest, his loss hit me almost as hard as the death of David Eddings (one of my favorite authors), and I often find myself purging myself of my grief through the cathartic scenes in his VNs.  I am still young enough to have rarely lost one of the authors I truly fell in love with, so each of them hits me hard...  harder than I really expected, really. 
Edit: My posts on the Tiny Dungeon series
 
Valkyrie Runabout
 
 

Second bi-weekly update, and oh boy things happened since the last one. There's a lot to talk about, so buckle up your seatbelts.
MAJO KOI NIKKI
Progress is steady, we made a new table to display it in our website, so goodbye the shitty one I did at the beggining, now it will show exact numbers and specific routes. You can check it out here:  https://lunatranslationstestsite.wordpress.com/projects-2/projects/progress/ . One of our translators is having some issues right now but he'll be back next week, so yeah, no problem about that.
Apart from that, here are the numbers:
13700 / 40208 (34.1%) Translated
7356 / 40208 (18.3%) Edited
4160 / 40208 (10.3%) TLC'ed 
5640 / 40208 (14.0%) Proofread
4298 / 40208 (10.7%) QC'ed (just the prologue; we probably won't be spinning up QC again for a while)
If you guys want  a more detailed summary of the progress in this project check out Fred's report here.
Witch's Garden
We decided to focus entirely on the common route as of now instead of dividing our forces in the existing routes. The common route has advanced a lot and it's now over the 50% mark and we will hopefully finish it soon, but yeah, until that happens that has been the only notable advancement in the project. All the other numbers have stayed relatively equal comparing the to last week's because we decided not to put much editing work yet. Sorry about it, but this is how it goes.
Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to.

(Raw, unedited sneak peek.)
This has been one of our newest projects, the team has been gathered and everyone is very active as of now. You can check out more detailed info about the entire team that is working on it in our website, but I'll still make a list of them here. Progress is going very quickly but steadily at the same time, members are motivated and things are going well regarding this front. Now I'll list the completion of scripts as of now (we're still building a way to get the progress in a % instead of script completion) and the members list:
Team Roster (This team is not final and is subjected to change)
Mitch (Leader/Translator) Status:Mitch's PC died like a week ago or so, so while he's out of the game, @Dergonu will cover his leadership. Mitch personally asked for him to do the task. Octamatron (Translator) Nohara (Translator) Takeshira (Editor) Archonoffail (Proofreader Aizen-Sama (Coordinator)  
Now, for the completion of the scripts as of now:
Translation - 45/146 scripts finished.
TLC - 18/146 completed (Prologue is almost finished!)
Editing - 1/146
Proofreading  - 0/146
 I'll complete the table in our website whenever I'm able to, because I don't really have that much time to do it right now. Expect bi-weekly news of this project as well from now on.
Tsui Yuri
For some of you this may come out as a surprise, for others not. That's right, Dergonu's team decided to join us yesterday after several talks we had over these past few weeks. If you want to know more about this just check Derg's post here, but for those who are lazy I'll just quote him here:
"So first of all, me and my team will be joining Luna Translations. Progress wise, this shouldn't mean much, (in fact it might pick up a bit, as we got some help from them to fill a few missing staff positions.)
For those wondering why, I just really like the way they do things over there, and after having spoken with their leader for quite some time, I decided to join forces with their group. So yeah, not much will change really, but we are now officially a part of Luna Translations! (Hey, this means we'll finally have a progress page outside of Fuwa!)"
I'll briefly disect this statements. First of all, we filled the positions of QC, Beta Testing and TLC as Dergonu asked for us to do. And yes, very soon we'll insert his project as one of ours in our website, just like the other three that we have right now. Personally, it's a pleasure to have him on our team and he'll be a great addition to our ranks.
The Team
Dergonu (Leader/Translator) Meatbun (Editor) Shiruve (TLC) Archonoffail (QC) TamakiSakura (Beta Testing) Aizen-Sama (Coordinator) The progress as of now (copy-pasted from Derg's thread of the project):
Opening
Translated: 100% (26/26)
Edited: 100% (26/26)
QCed: 0% (0/26)
Common
Translated: 100% (1662/1662)
Edited: 100% (1662/1662)
QCed: 0% (0/1662)
Ichika
Translated: 14% (306/2183)
Edited: 13% (277/2183)
QCed: 0% (0/2183)
Futaba
Translated: 100% (2001/2001)
Edited: 100% (2001/2001)
QCed: 0% (0/2001)
Total
Translated: 68% (3995/5872)
Edited: 68% (3966/5872)
QCed: 0% (0/5872)
Last but not least, I want to briefly talk about Hanasaki Work Spring. Long story short, we got a very serious warning saying that if we didn't stop we could get into legal trouble. Basically, we got a Cease and Desist (C&D) so sadly all efforts regarding this project have been stopped as of now. Sorry to everyone who followed us because of Hanasaki.
Anyways, that's all for this update, as always if you have any questions just post them either in our website or here.
Have a nice week everybody, and until next time.
 

I want to preface this by saying that I enjoyed Highway Blossoms. But if I want to see better stuff out there in English language Visual Novels, whether OELVN or in translation, people are going to have to start criticizing the problems they have, and I didn't see criticism of the problems I found in Highway Blossoms. So, so that the creators (be they OELVN writers or translators) can learn and benefit from criticism and hopefully come back with something stronger next time around, and so that potential readers know what they're getting into, here's my critique of some of the flaws I found in Highway Blossoms's writing.
I'm really just talking about the writing here. I'll start by talking about macro-scale problems: issues I had with themes and how they were handled, and problems that should have been solved in developmental editing. I'm, frankly, not very good at seeing these kinds of problems: I'm better at seeing small-scale (line-by-line) problems. I'll talk about those second.
For what it's worth, I think the macro-scale issues are not that bad, but the micro-scale issues are pretty bad. If your reaction to the broader problems I talk about first is "yes, but all games have issues like this, and many/most are much worse about it", let's be clear that I'm totally with you on that one. I just think that this game could be made better by addressing some of them, so I want to talk about them a little bit. Let's start there.
 
Themes - Americana and music
"Americana" is a big overarching theme for this game, but in spite of that, the VN includes a lot of Japanese-isms. Why is an earthy late-teens American girl fretting about "indirect kisses" (scare quotes courtesy of the original text) like a typical Japanese schoolgirl eroge heroine? Why are both of the heroines flashing peace signs in a photograph, again for all the world like Japanese schoolgirls? In one scene that I blocked out of my mind until I found it in my screenshots, some late-teenage American guy is bowing repeatedly. Highway Blossoms wants to be about the rural American south-west, but these weeaboisms, in part, compromise that goal. Examples:
The topic of music was treated very oddly. It was almost constantly there, hanging over the conversation and the action, but it somehow never made its way into being a focus. One character liked to talk about music, and it seemed to hold a deep meaning for her as a personal connection to her grandfather, but the others just kind of nodded or frowned along when the topic came up - they understood and accepted the importance, but there was no real discourse about it, just constant name-dropping. Music as a theme featured prominently in both minor scenes and key scenes, but somehow never felt particularly important to the narrative. When I was done reading, I still didn't really feel that Marina and Amber had connected over music, and I still didn't have a good handle on what music meant to Amber. By way of contrast, I read VA-11 Hall-A about a week after I read Highway Blossoms. In the space of three drinks with Kira Miki, I learned more about the significance of music to that character than I did throughout all of Highway Blossoms's music mentions.
 
An unnecessary scene
Lastly on macro-scale problems, I did feel that there was at least one whole scene that should have been cut from Highway Blossoms: the Jumbo scene. The actions of the main characters in this scene actually subverted their characterization: I don't view Amber as the sort of person to commit petty vandalism against an individual, nor Marina the sort of person to laugh prettily about it afterwards, even if the victim was a redneck who wouldn't stop hitting on both of them. This scene was, I guess, meant to be comic relief? But it didn't succeed, at least for me. It just introduced a flat side character who served no purpose but to be the butt of a bad joke. Cut it.
 
Telling rather than showing
At a micro scale, which admittedly is something I'm more picky about, the writing has a few big problems. First, it tends to tell rather than show, a fair amount of the time. Examples:
The telling/showing issues are at their worst when the narration adopts what I can only call a first-person omniscient point of view, where the narrating character somehow reads the mind of the other main character and narrates all of her emotions directly. The first time I saw this, it was just a straight-up description of complex emotions and motivations; this does not make for an interesting or compelling read. In contrast, the very next line was a solid example of showing: it described actions in a way that vibrantly communicated the underlying emotions. The potential for solid work is here, but it's headed off by missteps like the above examples.
 
Purple prose
Second, verbosity and purple prose are a serious problem. Examples:
Most of these are not describing crucial events, and even the ones that are need better handling. For the second screenshot, for instance, all that needs to be communicated is "we drank a lot of beer" (not necessarily in those words; just that idea). Instead, it's been turned into a mess of mixed metaphors and unnecessarily complex verbiage. Unfortunately, this is par for the course - every well-executed line is balanced by one full of dead weight. Important lines fade into the background because descriptors are bloating the unimportant lines as well. Economy is an essential element to good writing, and it's sorely lacking in Highway Blossoms.
 
Awkward prose
Finally, there's a lot of simply unnatural phrasing and odd language choice, some of it even apparently intentional. Examples:
 
In closing.
When the writing avoids all of these issues, or when (as happened to me in one noteworthy scene) the music and CG combine to carry the reader pell-mell through a scene, so that you skim the text rather than actually reading it, the VN has some great moments. Unfortunately, a whole lot of the time, it does fall victim to one or more of the above issues and becomes a lot less of a joy to read.
Now, look, I know that all sounds pretty bad; it probably sounds like I hated this game. I didn't. I think the art was generally gorgeous, especially the background art and some of the CGs. I rather liked the soundtrack, and I thought it fit the setting well. On that topic, I love the setting — different is good! I am always up for VNs outside of high schools and outside of Japan. But the bulk of the experience in a visual novel, for me at least, is the novel part. It's the script, the writing. The writing in Highway Blossoms, especially when looked at line-by-line, comes up short.

... it's been a while since my feelings on a VN have been as complex as my feelings for this one are.  I say 'feelings' because this VN has massive emotional impact... not as much as Hapymaher, but nonetheless a lot of emotional impact. 
To be blunt, Makoto is nothing like Hapymaher's protagonist, so if you were hoping for more of his 'consumed by sorrow and despair but still living my life' personality, sorry, no luck here.  Makoto is... a blank slate.  I don't say this in a bad way.  For better or worse, Makoto has lived his life in an isolated village where people literally don't talk any more than is absolutely necessary, lest they accidentally compel one another with their power, 'kotodama'.  Makoto has a fiance named Mana (and no, not that kind of lukewarm, 'distant fiance' sort of thing you see in some VNs, since they actually get down to business), and a rather nice, slow life in that village... However, he yearns for the outside world, where people can talk to people without restrictions.
He escapes from the village and collapses from hunger in a small town four days later, where he is saved by the first of four heroines, Kokoro.  From there the story begins, as he makes the journey from an innocent 'kami' to a real human being with all the baggage that comes along with it. 
A lot of the most interesting parts of this game come from the fact that he naturally doesn't understand much about the outside world.  Makoto's innocent, unstained viewpoint, combined with his natural kindness and willingness to embrace new experiences, feel surprisingly refreshing.  Things other 'normal' protagonists would worry over don't even occur to him, and he is so laid back he makes the drugged hippies of US in the sixties seem tense.  While he does change as part of the story, his personal 'lens', through which he sees the world, remains remarkably clean throughout... not to mention the guy has absolutely no sense of sexual morality (in other words, his idea of sexual morality is 'don't use his power to compel people to have sex with him').

The first of the heroines, Kokoro, is a shojo manga addict who has fantasies about immoral relations with older brothers.  She is a natural at unconsciously grasping the hearts of others around her without trying, and she is pretty much the picture of a heroine who 'exists to be loved by everyone'.

The second heroine, Kyouko, is a miko that can see dead people (yes, I went there).  She has huge self-esteem problems and is more than a little weird... for one thing, her reaction to Makoto is one of the more unique heroine reactions to a protagonist I've encountered over the years... for another, she is abnormally self-derogatory in both action and word.

Mana... is the protagonist's fiance from the village.  She is pretty much apathetic about other people, unless they have the decency to provide her with food (from her point of view, people who give her food move up from 'stone in the road' to 'slightly adorable insect' in most cases).  She is a bit of an S, when it comes to Makoto, and Makoto is pretty much her reason for living.  Because of a careless use of kotodama by another member of the village, she is always cold and in her eyes, it is always snowing.

Hotaru... is the true heroine of this story.  Cheerful and active, not to mention highly intelligent and perceptive... she is actually a fairly attractive heroine from the start.  However, she has less initial impact than Mana or Kokoro, for reasons that are fairly apparent.  Since that is by design, I actually am not complaining about this, though.
Now, to get to the downside of this game... it uses the G-senjou 'ladder' story structure, wherein the story progresses arcs where you choose to either pursue the heroine associated with that arc to an ending or move on with the main story.  I can say that the path endings for the non-true heroines were actually pretty good, but having played the true path, they are comparatively low-impact.  A lot of this is the fact that the major events of their 'paths' are in the arcs they branched off from, so little is added by their endings save for more sex and some minor tying up of loose ends. 
To get back to the main game... the true path is the impact I was talking about.  The main arcs were all emotional, so I guess you can say that the other heroines' 'paths' were also emotional, but, as I mentioned above, there is a definite sense that very little was added by choosing one of the other heroines.  Hotaru's path is easily the most powerful 'arc'.  In fact, it is so emotional and powerful that there are two ends for it.  The first one (which you are required to watch first) is... sad, to say the least.  It isn't a bad ending, but it is a sad one.  I know I cried.  For the second ending... well, let's just say it is a good one and leave it at that.
Overall, my viewpoint on this game is... just as mixed as I said above.  My conclusions on the G-Senjou story structure are unchanged in the least.  I still believe that all VNs that use that story structure should be changed to kinetic novels, just so I don't have to deal with heroine endings that are neglected by the creators of the stories themselves.  While all stories with true heroines inevitably put a much larger emphasis on the true heroine, the way this story structure trivializes the other heroines is really irritating, especially when they are good heroines, like these were.  However, if you take the arcs, characters, and the true endings separate from that source of irritation, it is a great VN.  It just happens to use the single worst VN story structure in existence.  Indeed, that story structure and the inevitable realities it brings along with it are the only thing that kept me from naming this as a kamige. 
PS: I will erase any and all comments that spoil anything in the last arc.  I say this because this is the type of VN that can only be enjoyed to the fullest once, not the type that merely changes flavor with each playthrough, like Devils Devil Concept.  Anyone who spoils this VN should have their skin sliced open, drawn back, then have salt rubbed into the exposed flesh. 
... *Clephas drools and goes off to make BBQ*

Hello guys. This is our first bi-weekly update. I'll cover everything that needs to be mentioned and all of that. Progress speed has been the average, nothing extraordinary, but it's still progress whatsoever. Here we go:
Majo Koi Nikki
As you guys may or may not know, we have released our first partial patch (check the post out if you haven't) which covers around 4.200 lines approximately, basically the game's prologue. Apart from that, the progress has been steady this last couple of days and we managed to reach 30% of translated lines. The TLC has catched up with the translation progress and the editing keeps progressing with no bumps whatsoever.
Translation Progress
30% (12203/40208)
Witch's Garden

This game has probably the juiciest news out of the two, so brace yourselves. Eclair's route has been completely finished and the only two routes left are Ayari's. So yeah, those are very good news. Apart from that, TLC progress is steady and editing is still on hold, we want to keep making progress in the TLC field, because at this point we're basically retranslating full scripts sometimes and just a couple of lines in others, it's really strange and frustrating for the TLC's sometimes, so that's why we ask for your patience, because the TLC (or retranslation) will take some time to finish.
Anyways, here are the numbers for both:
Translation 66%
TLC 10%
We haven't included the accurate line numbers this time because we're experienceing some difficulties with the already linebreaked original lines, messing up the count. Sorry about it.
Other things worth mentioning:
We've created a Twitter account. There, we'll be pumping live and small updates about progress and what happens in the group in general, so be sure to follow us! One translator who previously worked in Majo Koi (Rauros Falls) has decided to step back from Majo Koi and start translating Musumaker again. Expect Musumaker updates as well as soon as he starts working on it. We are very glad to announce that we are going to be taking care of a new project in this group. The game is called Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to (VNDB). Soon, we'll add it to our current active projects and lay out the usual links and pages for it for people to be more informed about it. Expect progress about this project in our website from now on.
About Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to (or tototo or shorts), the people taking care of it were the recent team members that weren't listed in neither of our staff pages for the two current active projects in our website (Majo Koi and WG). The team is:
Mitch (Translator) Nohara (TLC/Translator) Takeshira (Editor) Archonoffail (Proofreader) Waterflame (Image Editor) Frc (Hacker) Aizen-Sama (Coordinator) Anyways, that's everything for now. I hope this wasn't a long read. Have a nice day everyone and until next time!

It has been a while since I did a partial post on a VN, and most of the time I either do it out of enthusiasm or because I got a specific request for a path-by-path detailed report from a friend.  In this case, it is because I ran out of time to finish Sekai de Ichiban Dame na Koi after I played through half the game and two of the paths.  I ran out of time because my copy of Senren Banka, which I asked me friend to ship to me directly, arrived two days early.  I wasn't expecting it until Tuesday at the earliest, and more likely I thought it would arrive on Friday, lol.  I didn't have an excuse to keep playing Damekoi at that point, so I had to start on the VN of the Month.
Damekoi is a type of VN we almost never see today... in a number of ways.  First is that the protagonist is a full adult, without the need for the usual 'all characters are over eighteen' BS.  Second is that he is a semi-hetare (despite the tags, calling him a total hetare is inaccurate, as he is actually quite capable in his limited field of capabilities), which has pretty much gone extinct as a protagonist type save for in those shota reverse-rape monster girl VNs that have gotten so popular in the last four years or so, lol.  The third way is that it is pretty much the only VN I've played that uses the G-senjou story-split structure without making it seem like the side-heroines were neglected or the main storyline was left in the dust. 
Understand, I believe the G-senjou no Maou story structure is an integral flaw added to any VN that uses it.  First, it is based off of there being a main storyline that is full canon.  In the case of Aiyoku no Eustia it was Eustia's path, and everyone knows which one it was with G-senjou.  That makes it an absolute necessity to maintain a certain consistency with the main storyline... but the fact is that most VN writers simply don't have the necessary multi-tasking capabilities to manage that many different threads in a consistent manner.  As a result, you get massive inconsistency in the sub-heroine paths in most cases... and for someone like me, who demands consistency in heavy story VNs, this can go beyond annoyance to insane rage, regardless of how much I enjoyed things up to a point (it took me three years to forgive G-senjou, and I still haven't forgiven Eustia). 
I honestly don't know how they intend to solve things in this case.  I've been playing the side heroine paths as they come up, and so I can only give you my 'in-progress' views of this game, which is considered a classic by many and has been one of the few 'gold stars' in my backlog full of crap and moege. 
To be blunt, this protagonist is a run-down salaryman in in his late twenties, who is kind-hearted but fundamentally unwise when it comes to preserving himself.  He has an extremely low self-esteem despite being quite capable/talented, and he has the worst kind of bad luck.  He, like more and more young people in this age in fully-industrialized nations, suffers from a sense of alienation from his fellow man, partially created by his alienation from his own family as a result of both of them constantly working and rarely coming home.  This has resulted in a nice young man who nonetheless is utterly incapable of reading the people around him without as much as ten times more clues than anyone else would need, lol.
The heroines are... interesting.  Universally, they are the type of women who are attracted to men that 'need taking care of'.  Their varying personalities and viewpoints on life only serve to emphasize this common element, and it frequently leads to conflicts and tension between them.  The main heroine, Mitoko, is the daughter of a woman who ran off with a man on a whim, leaving her to take care of an ancient apartment in one of the wealthiest parts of town.  Now, anyone with a lick of common sense would instantly sell that prime real-estate at an inflated price and put up a newer apartment in a somewhat cheaper location.  However, expecting that kind of common-sense attitude out of any of the heroines in this VN when it comes to their own affairs (as opposed to the protagonist's, lol) is somewhat... ridiculous.
Mitoko has that puppy-love thing going for the protagonist almost from the beginning, though she is the oldest type of tsundere (before the term was coined and Zero no Tsukaima patternized even the speech of the archetype) who beats up on the protagonist whenever he does something wrong but fundamentally is positive toward him.  Unfortunately for Mitoko, Osamu isn't exactly perceptive when it comes to the emotions of others, so he takes her at face value most of the time, hahaha. 
The first two heroines - and the ones whose paths I finished - are Kaya and Himeo.  Kaya is a somewhat lazy office lady who is a bit younger than the protagonist.  She falls head over heels for him after seeing him at work, and she is rather straightforward about her affections, actively trying to turn him into a freeloader she'll take care of for the rest of his life.  Himeo is the daughter of the president of a major real-estate conglomerate with a penchant for charitable causes and an unreasonably intense affection for Mitoko that manifests itself in some seriously screwy ways, though it is sincere. 
Both paths have to deal with Mitoko's jealousy, the fact that the protagonist's first priority is always going to be Mitoko, and the instabilities of the heroines involved.  The protagonist's emotions toward Mitoko are definitely fatherly, and their intensity combines with his sense of duty to make it impossible for him to make them his first priority outside of certain moments.
I've honestly enjoyed this VN up until now, and I think it would be a good read for someone who is looking for something 'different'.  I can also tell why this never solidified as a genre archetype, as most of the people reading VNs in Japan are the type of people who would hate using a Japanese salaryman as their perspective of the story, lol.

Another quick project plug: Luna Translations just released their v1.0 English patch for the Majo Koi Nikki (a.k.a. Witch's Love Diary) demo. And guess what? You should totally go get it. I've been helping out with their proofreading, and I can tell you they've done a bang-up job so far.
Best part? It's super easy to obtain. Qoobrand offers the trial, which covers the game's prologue, as a free download on their site. (You'll want to grab the first one, not Trial 2.) Just download it, patch it up, and Robert's your mother's brother. Just so you know, he gets a little grabby after two or three scotches.
It should also be said that Qoobrand jammed a bunch of H-scenes into the early hours of MajoKoi. Consider that fair warning... or the clang of a dinner bell, if you're hungry for that sort of thing. Unlike a lot of VNs, however, those sections are there for a reason.* MajoKoi is set up as an intricate puzzle, and the oddly early placement of the H is all part of the larger mystery.
So go on — pull up a chair, order yourself a Dragon Burger (medium rare), and settle in for a small taste of what Majo Koi Nikki has to offer.
Trial download: http://qoo.amuse-c.jp/01_mazyokoi/download.html
English patch download: https://lunatranslationstestsite.wordpress.com/downloads/
* Not a good reason. But a better reason than most, at least.

Yes, I went ahead and played this, having pre-ordered it on Steam. I've been pumping about three hours a day into it since it came out and my final level for my main party was 47 (which seems to be low, but that is apparently because people go for the 'beat the boss without weakening him first' trophy, pfft).  This is a game designed to bring nostalgia to the minds of those who are fans of the SNES and PS1 eras, and in that sense, it definitely succeeds.  It utilizes a battle system copied from one of the most famous kamige jrpgs of all time, Chrono Trigger... with a number of additions, both big and small.  The world map is also reminiscent of that estimable game... but the resemblance pretty much stops there, save for a few other superficial elements.
First, I'll give you a basic rundown on the story concept.  Endir, a mercenary swordsman, is sent to a certain island to assassinate a young girl, and it is there that he finds out that she is destined to die in any case, giving her life for the sake of the world, to appease the monsters.  It really is, from the very beginning, a story of compassion, driven almost entirely by Setsuna herself, with Endir as a sounding board, more than anything else (your choices as Endir are fairly irrelevant). 
It is easy to love Setsuna.  She is kind-hearted and genuinely compassionate, as one would have to expect of someone who is going willingly to their death to save the world.  As a character, she has, of course, been 'done before', but that isn't as problematic as you might think, considering how the entire VN is meant to stab you with nostalgia about as subtly as driving a nail into someone's forehead, lol.
The world map's design style is identical to Chrono Trigger's (albeit with modern graphics), and many of the skills are drawn straight from that game, name and all... though there are about five times as many skills total.  All skills, save for a few found in chests and a few defaults, are obtained by selling items gotten from monsters to the Magic Associations, which gives you their 'Spritnite' if you sold them enough of the right item.  There is no need for more than one of the 'command' type spritnite, as each character's techniques and magic are unique to them, so don't waste your 'budget' of sold items by getting more than one of any of them, lol.  Support spritnite are another thing entirely... these give various effects, ranging from stat boosts to healing you when you kill enemies, and using them strategically can make the game immensely easier. 
Most monster drops need you to meet certain conditions for them to be dropped, ranging from killing enemies with a specific element, killing them with damage close to their exact hp, or overkilling them (there are other conditions, but those are listed in the monster encyclopedia, so there is no need for me to go into detail here).  This can be a bit of a pain when it comes to items from bosses, but you can re-fight bosses in certain dungeons opened up in the late game, so don't worry too much about it, lol.
One of the positives of this game is that there are multiple characters capable of healing... to be specific, both Setsuna and Endir can serve as healers, as well as damage dealers.  Not being bound to keep any one character in your party just to survive can be immensely helpful... especially when their attack element is useless against the local enemies, hahaha.
The atmosphere of this game is not just shaped by the setting... but also by the music and the world itself.  Piano music dominates this game, giving it a somewhat 'realer' feeling than a lot of the half-synthesized music that is common in mid to low budget jrpgs.  However, while the tunes are just fine for activating your emotions, they tend to blend into one another after a while.  The world... is defined by snow.  Literally.  Blizzards, your feet leaving a path through snow drifts, monsters rolling balls of snow both before and during battle... this game is based in winter, and it doesn't even try to be anything other than a world in winter, hahaha.  Both aspects can leave you numb after a while... but the game is short enough that it isn't that noticeable if you play it in digestible bites of a few hours at a time.
Story-wise... I'd say that the writing/localization is several levels above what you used to see in the same era as Chrono Trigger (one aspect of that era that I am glad is gone is the weirdly inconsistent translations).  The basic plot is classic jrpg, with endless excuses for taking the long route to get to the final destination, lol.  The ending is... a bit of a letdown, from my point of view.  I honestly don't see why they chose the classic 'dialog-free' ending type that used to be common in SNES era jrpgs, even if they were going for nostalgia, hahah.
Overall, this is a first-rate effort, for what amounts to a mid-budget VN directed at retro-gamers.  It goes for the emotions, it ignores the intellect, and it breaks the fourth wall at times (you'll see what I mean if you go to a certain place once you get the airship).  In other words, it is a classic 'save the world' style jrpg, and for those who like the older console-style jrpgs, it is pure crack, though it does leave you wanting more (I'm probably going to yank Xenogears out and play it again sometime soon, lol).

Well, as most of you know by now, I completely obliterated all the links concerning BiMan1's prologue patch. This was because of two reasons:
Because it was terrible in every possible way to put it frankly. In order to make room for this post. The prologue patch was bad, really bad. The sentences were akward, spacing was weird, translations at some points didn't even make sense, etc, etc. That's why I've been fixing the first quarter of the script; retranslating, modifying and editing the script along with perfecting the engine this starting and last week. Doing UTF-8, some hex editing, final image editing and resource editing.
It was quite rough, but I finally got everything according to my wishes, and the price for my naivety has been paid back. Anyways! I present to you my hard work and labor:
Prologue Patch 2.0
Probably another 10~ hours down to drain, but it was worth it. The new and improved prologue patch (or well, partial patch at this point, but whatever)!
Features:
- Completely polished and finished engine, fully translated by me. Includes all buttons, menus, extras and other minor things.
- Music track names are translated, although I didn't intend on ever translating them.
- Translates the dialogue all the way to the end of the first H-scene.
- The two internal menus:
Are translated to these:
Things to note:
- The dialogue text is not in its final version that it will be in the final release, so keep that in mind. The patch, however, shouldn't have any typos.
- The amount of text ranslated in this improved patch is quite a bit more, because I wanted something more grand and of course, to make up to you for the travesty that was the original prologue patch.
- The text after the first H-scene will continue as Japanese, unlike the gibberish it was in the original patch. Sorry about that.
- All of the previous prologue patch download links are now going to be replaced with this version's link.
Download Link:
https://mega.nz/#!C8FDiagC!xeW7-MPcjsZWm5ebycEnEXJ66y-Ld7H6ojTa0yYF4b0
Install instructions:
Download the patch from the link above and open the .zip file. Drag & drop the new .exe into -呪われし伝説の少女-1, and data8.pack into -呪われし伝説の少女-1/GameData.  Launch the game through the new .exe file and have fun.

What up, everyone. Here we go with the 8th weekly update. Welp, two months may have passed but the progress done until now has been pretty nice if I say so myself. This week has been rather slow, so I apologize for that. We have recruited our twentieth member, @Torky who will help us in the Majo Koi Team as a Translator to fill our current MIA (but that will definitely be back, work issues don't let them be with us atm) translators, which are @Hasa and @RaurosFalls. On a side and personal note, I'll be working as a QC for Bishoujo Mangekyou in Euphemic Translations, so that's that. ANyways, let's get straight into the update, shall we?
Witch's Garden
The prologue has been completely TLC'd. The common route is already completed by 30% in that aspect and Misumi's and Ririko's routes have started to receive TLC as well. Ayari's route has had some TLC completed as well, but it will be stalled and Misumi + Ririko will have priority, since they belong to our future 50% game patch. The editing has been progressing rather slowly, but it will resume this week to complete the prologue. Currently the route being translated is Eclairs. We have an updated progress board in our website and... well... I think that's it for the news. I'll just post the numbers below:

Majo Koi Nikki
Progress has advanced rather slowly in terms of translation. Editing has been resumed and we've moved on from the prologue to the common route of the game. We'll post an updated progress board as well as soon as we completely figure the route's numbers out, since they are pretty bad divided and it's pretty difficult to tell them apart. Regarding the partial patch, the only thing left is to repack the translated interface images and we'll be pretty much done with it and be ready for releasing it. We're sorry for the delay, hehe. The numbers are below:

DISCLAIMER: THESE AREN'T THE EXACT NUMBERS, WE'RE STILL FIGURING OUT ROUTES AND OTHER STUFF.
DISCLAIMER 2: THOSE 99% ON BOTH EDITING AND TL OF THE PROLOGUE ARE BECAUSE THE TRIAL PATCH HAS EXTRA LINES. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF THAT ASAP, THE FULL GAME'S PROLOGUE LINES HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED.
Anyways, I think that's all for this week. Thanks for reading, as always, and have a nice week everyone.