XReaper

Interesting side note: YumeHaven is a newly-formed sub-brand of Active Gaming Media, a pretty huge general localization house, which has handled localization for hundreds of games in the past. They're describing YumeHaven as their "first" VN brand. Implying there might be more? Maybe they'll do an eroge brand? It seems kind of unlikely to me, though, since this is a pretty well-established company who might not want to risk their reputation being tarnished by porn. Or maybe they'll be like Degica and not give a fuck.
Active Gaming Media generally does legit localizations with professionally paid staff. The fact that they actually are a large localization company with full-time staff means that their projects cost more money, which is typically why these kinds of companies don't do VNs in the first place. VNs bring in fuck all revenue. It'll be interesting to see if they stick around.

the main point is that the japanese voice acting, if there ever will be a full one, was not aimed at from the beginning, but them having decided on giving western va´s a chance, see the additional jp-voices as pleasant surprise or whatsnot. point is western works should primarily feature their native voiceovers, even moreso in case of them always claiming to make the genre great and blah. this is not related to ones possibly being superior over others, or not, it´s about integrity. & yes, the others you´ve linked to are more than enough, simply because they´re looked up to by smaller developers, being rolemodels or such, and are negatively impacting the western genre as a whole when exchanging native staff (artists, writers, voice actors etc) for asian ones. to me this appears to be a destructive move, mostly aimed at an additional pandering towards japanophils/weaboos/your-average-retard-believing-everything-japan-is-superior-by-default

edit. i refuse to keep on arguing any further with seemingly blind & highly fanatical propaganda-bots at this point.

the main point is that the japanese voice acting, if there ever will be a full one, was not aimed at from the beginning, but them having decided on giving western va´s a chance, see the additional jp-voices as pleasant surprise or whatsnot. point is western works should primarily feature their native voiceovers, even moreso in case of them always claiming to make the genre great and blah. this is not related to ones possibly being superior over others, or not, it´s about integrity. & yes, the others you´ve linked to are more than enough, simply because they´re looked up to by smaller developers, being rolemodels or such, and are negatively impacting the western genre as a whole when exchanging native staff (artists, writers, voice actors etc) for asian ones. to me this appears to be a destructive move, mostly aimed at an additional pandering towards japanophils/weaboos/your-average-retard-believing-everything-japan-is-superior-by-default

edit. i refuse to keep on arguing any further with seemingly blind & highly fanatical propaganda-bots at this point.

pretty sure bloody chronicles will feature english voice acting, and no, its contracted actors are by far no crappy schmucks devoid of talent. so yeah, every title that starts going for the opposite when still calling itself a supporter of the community is one too many, as already mentioned in the last paragraph of mine. same goes for exchanging english writers for asian ones. there is and wont be any substantial growth of the western genre when developers/studios who think they´ve made it decide on giving a piss. period.

pretty sure bloody chronicles will feature english voice acting, and no, its contracted actors are by far no crappy schmucks devoid of talent. so yeah, every title that starts going for the opposite when still calling itself a supporter of the community is one too many, as already mentioned in the last paragraph of mine. same goes for exchanging english writers for asian ones. there is and wont be any substantial growth of the western genre when developers/studios who think they´ve made it decide on giving a piss. period.

pretty sure bloody chronicles will feature english voice acting, and no, its contracted actors are by far no crappy schmucks devoid of talent. so yeah, every title that starts going for the opposite when still calling itself a supporter of the community is one too many, as already mentioned in the last paragraph of mine. same goes for exchanging english writers for asian ones. there is and wont be any substantial growth of the western genre when developers/studios who think they´ve made it decide on giving a piss. period.

Exciting news: We just surpassed the 20% translation mark!
Also, the progress tool now displays the individual route progress.

I'm not surprised rarely anyone outside from more sophisticated and experienced readers recommends Christine Love's games and that's fine. Then, you have new games, like Along the Edge; a great evn I'm sure barely anyone even heard of, despite having a topic on this forum? It's kind of sad people complain so much about EVN's - especially the hardcore otaku crowds - yet, at the same time, they outright refuse to reach out and discover what's it currently made of. Everyone just keeps on bickering about how "mediocre and low budget they are, yada yada" etc. But forget, that almost all prominent japanese studios began as doujin circles, with usually even smaller budgets (if any at all) than the current evn's. It took the genre in overall more than two decades to "grow up" and turn from sex romps into story-driven adventures and that was only the beginning of it's evolution. I'm sure evn's will achieve similiar results, just give them time; it's hard to talk about development, when their sole playerbase feels so detached.

My opinion is closely aligned to Funyarinpa in his earlier message. I don't know if anyone else has spoken from the opinion of an OELVN dev yet, so i'll act as if i am the first. 
Naturally, i fall into the category of those who had their VN virginity brutally torn by Katawa Shoujo, but even then, after reading subsequent Japanese novels like G-senjou no maou, i never actually compared the two. Why? Because they were both great. This may sound like i'm trying to defend OELVNs but it's the undisputed truth. It doesn't matter how, why, what or who made a VN. A good story is a good story no matter what it's 'ripping off'.
Some who've read this far might still disagree with my notion. Then let me explain a little further basing my opinion on facts and ideas. 
There are two popular VN forums sites for western otakus. There's our very own Fuwanovel and there's Lemmasoft. Fuwanovel strikes me as a Vn site that is mostly focused on Pure Japanese Vns as opposed to lemmasoft which tries to promote OELVNs. this is true because this forum has a sub-forum for OELVNs that sees even less action that most virgin NEETs. Neither of the sites are better than the other and neither of them are worse. But after browsing these two for a while, I've come to learn quite a few things about the differences between OELVNs and Jappy VNs.
1. Literature. OELVNs use a different style of literature as opposed to Jap Vns. To be precise, they are more focused on prose and the utilization of text heavy lines and powerfully fluid description. So it's almost like reading a paperback novel on screen with art. I myself dislike writing with prose, as i prefer utilizing Japanese literature and plot devices. An example would be the very well known Boke and tsukkomi routine (think Comyu). Most OELVNs are focused on delivering the story with excellent wording at the cost of visuals.
2. Art. Art is the main branching point and the OELVN's greatest weakness. i'll be blunt. Sometimes i see some projects on Lemmasoft and be awe-struck by the art used to depict characters... and not in a good way. It seems like OELVN devs are satisfied with utilizing low to medium-low quality for their projects to cut costs, as they are not companies who can shelve the heavy costs that comes with great art. Most of the freebies have low quality art, while the Commercial ones have medium low art. Like Funyarinpa stated, this community gathered because of Japanese art, music and style, so OELVNs with such art would have little to no impact on those used to the excellent qualities Jap Vns deliver. I'm an OELVN dev, yet I've never bothered to read a single OELVN except KS. (the ones I've edited and proofread don't count). This is because, before i am a writer, i am an Otaku. that means i love Japanese stuff. that means i want  Japanese stuff. But attempting to produce something on the level of the Japanese is apparently being termed as a 'ripoff'. It makes you wonder what exactly the consumers want. Do they want westernized art? No. Do they want Japanese art? Yes, but not from you. A difficult situation indeed.
3. Communication. Another bane of OELVN creation. From what I've read/heard most Japanese devs are mostly located in a single room/complex/building during most of the VN's creation. Most OELVN devs do most of their communication over the internet. Something like this doesn't sound like a pressing problem from the perspective of a non-dev, but trust me, communication is what has lead to the crumbling and breakdown of most OELVNs. For example, an artist is working on a CG. Now CGs unlike sprites or Character designs, have to be done right from the get-go otherwise you're going to lose a lot of time in correcting it. So they send WIPs and Lineart sketches. You'd have to pray and hope your description and their understanding matched well, otherwise you'd have to restart. Jap devs, however, just need to look over their shoulder and check out their comrade's WIP, or the artist may even explain a better idea for positioning and perspective as opposed to the writers description. Also some associates on the EVN sphere can remain offline for days or weeks and there's absolutely nothing you can do but wait patiently for their return. The internet is difficult like that.
4. Commitment. Apart from one or two exceptions, most associates in the EVN creation are not fully committed to what they're doing, especially in the case of Artists. It seen by the style of advertising on lemmasoft. "Pay half to my paypal, i'll send a sketch and you pay the other half". After that payment is done the association has ended. Whatever the art is used for is not their problem, since it has been compensated by a few bucks. I'm not saying artists should work for free, but rather take a controlling share in what they draw for. Unfortunately for EVN devs 95% of artists aren't interest in Sales commitment or as it's called, "Rev-share". Yes, i know that economical and financial security play a part etc but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a problem. Another point under this, is that EVN artists hardly actually read the story their drawing for. I mean they just read the summary and draw based on whatever you give them alone, instead of mixing it with the emotions, perceptions and ideas you derived from reading. It still works for business purposes, but it would never match up to Jap Vns with their enthusiastic and moving work.
Aside from these points, there are many other deep rooted and subtle difference that bar EVNs from making it big. I can't touch on everything since i don't have the energy for that, but i would spent a little more on talking about my 100% personal opinion. 
What the OP refers to as 'ripoffs' are those EVNs that utilize Japanese names for characters, Japanese locations and Japanese culture, while using western style literature, art etc and the writers themselves only have a second hand grasp of the Culture. 
Like Funyarinpa said, what the EVN community needs is that one (or two) project(s) that stands out from the rest with Art, Music and story that are original and compelling while delivering it in the style that Jap VN lovers want. Hopefully, with the increase of the EVN output, that one project may come sooner rather than later.
EVNs may not be the best examples of VNs, but like all things that are shot down by humanity, it's just a mentality... which i'm also criminal of. Being someone who understands this very intimately, i hope that whatever i throw out would be to the satisfaction of both sides of the market and wouldn't fall into the demeaning category of 'ripoff'.

@garine@Ronnie21093
Ageha's route is finally translated (or yeah, I was supposed to post an update about it... well, here it is ). Currently it's being edited. I haven't started going over Amane's route yet (I need a break after fixing that Ageha-route-trainwreck), but I probably won't be able to finish it this year.
As for the partial patch, we didn't want to deal with testing, QC and all technical stuff multiple times, so we decided to only release the whole thing.

My consensus is that ELVNs should just try to do their own thang and not try to be on par with / compare to JVNs
Kinda like how we got WRPGs vs JRPGs
Comics vs Manga
Cartoons vs Anime
And any other stretchy definition'o regional medio comparison'os

~~
I'm pro JP weeberz who only reads and is interested in VNs cuz of JPness, though I'm not gonna shat on EVNs, more i just don't care about them.

The problem with oelvn(and im going to includ several more languages too not just english) is the writing. It goes from people writing them that clearly dont know anything about writing itself to some really talented ones, sadly it seems to be more from first one and not the latter. 
In japanese, which happens a lot too,  there are many good writers that work with certain companies so they keep releasing good material or at least somehow decent, so the good vns kinda contrast with the really bad ones, with oelvn that doesn't happen so we tend to think that everything is crap when it's actually not, some oelvn dont have anything to envy to the japanese ones. Also japanese vns work with a really different budget that oelvn dont have, most of the time is the work of just 1 guy with the help of some friends here and there...

Just to name a few:

One thousand lies (spanish vn)
katawa shoujo (english vn)
Lucy (korean vn)
Juniper's Knot (english vn)
Бесконечное лето (russian vn)
 

Description:
Omni Link is a different kind of visual novel featuring space exploration, real-time combat, and choices that affect gameplay and story. Find love across the stars and learn what it takes to give everything you have for those you care about.

Story:
You play as Keb. A man of little consequence. An orphan without a past or a future. It's your first day on the job at Zaos Corporation when you encounter an alien vessel. Through a misunderstanding, your vessel explodes & binds you with an entity known as Ectype D-8, an attractive and powerful being of technology. You quickly learn that there is more to this ship and A.I. than meets the eye. The artificial intelligence is so advanced she is able to absorb energy from other ships and duplicate them. As well as use a mysterious ability called Omni Link.

This comes at a time when an entity called "The Virus" awakens near the edge of the galaxy. Suns are disappearing and planets are dying. People discover that this threat is real. However, no one knows exactly what the Virus is or has lived to tell about it.

On your journey you'll discover what it means to love and lose everything. The people you meet--a child prodigy, an ace pilot, a computer genius--will all come to depend on you to save them. Not because you're anything special... because you give everything you have.

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W9-ySkjO-M&feature=youtu.be

Steam Early Access:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/529100/

Why Early Access?
Besides my artist, and help from the game maker community, most everything else I've done alone. This includes advertisement, programming, most art, and I even wrote the theme song for the game. My excitement for the characters, the story, and gameplay has helped me work long hours. I can only do so much alone. I come to early access to involve you and ask for help. I want voice artists for the characters, more backgrounds, and art for you to enjoy. This is the only game of it's kind.


A Man without a future


Meets a woman from the past


A powerful intelligence


Links them together


Learn from past mistakes


A family to protect


Adventure leads to strength


Poll
I added a poll that might be fun to fill out after you play the game and story. When we get to that point, I can learn what characters you like so I can focus on them or make changes if needed. If this thread lasts that long

>EVN's are meh
>KS is an exception because it was first
This can't sound any more biased
Instead making another pointless topic, where people will repeat the same things over and over again, why not use search and add something meaningful to one of the already existing topics? Like this one or this one, for example?

Despite playing more VNs than before, I've mostly stopped posting my impressions since then. There is the fact that finishing an untranslated VN doesn't feel like an accomplishment worth celebrating anymore, however there are mainly two reasons:
1) My impressions of the VN are too personal to be worth mentioning. "I loved that aspect of the game, but I'm sure most people wouldn't care", "I hated it, but I'm sure most people wouldn't mind". あと、単に恥ずかしい。
2) The game left such a bad impression that I prefer to forget about it asap. I think it's a healthy attitude to help one get through the regular disappointments on one's VN world exploration journey.
 
This time, I played Aiyoku no Eustia, and simply put - I didn't like it much. However, I wanted to discuss the issues I have with the characters of the story.

Starting with Caim, specifically. I'm sick of his tough guy attitude. He's not such a bad protagonist, he doesn't find himself at a loss for words every time someone makes a seemingly sound argument, he's capable in a fight - there's that. But
He also has less face than the protagonist of Fortune Arterial, which was nowhere near as plot-focused, and chronologically came before Eustia.
 
Moving on to Irene. I can't tell if August made an awful heroine by accident or was intentionally making fun of religious people with this one.
 
Finally, something that concerns pretty much the whole cast. Basically, they're too Japanese, despite the setting.
1) Gladly accepting whatever unreasonable burdens other people push onto you. Letting others set your direction in life as if it's the most natural thing ever. Applies the most to Eris, Irene, Eustia.
2) Pride. Caim loves to lecture Fione, Irene and Licia about how spoiled they are, bringing up the miserable state of things in Rougoku, yet he and other characters, who are in a much direr financial situation, stubbornly refuse to accept easy money, insisting on earning it instead. I'm sure those prostitutes love their job and wouldn't jump at shortcuts to leaving the brothel.
3) 恩返し (returning the favor). This is related to #1, but specifically involves wasting your life away for no good reason, in a way that won't benefit anyone.
Oh my, I'm really negative about the culture, aren't I? Then again, the VN is written by the Japanese for the Japanese, so it's understandable.
 
I apologize for only touching upon the negative points and making it sound like it's the worst thing ever. It's not. I quite enjoyed the early parts of the game, as well as some specific things later in the story - and thanks to the complete absence of slice-of-life outside of non-Eustia heroine endings and side stories it was an exciting read all the way. Fione was decent, Licia was good and is my favorite character in this game. This post isn't intended as a review and is more of an outlet.
Whether you agree or disagree with my impressions, I'd be glad to get some feedback.
 
P.S. Listening to "Roots" was what kept me in the mood while writing up this post.

Thank you both so much!
AE got them out really quick!
I hope to start translating soon!

there are quite some who openly talked about them wanting japanese va´s for their titles, partly as stretchgoals, or which are already in the making like shining song starnova for example, though i still believe these titles possibly consisting of (top) japanese seiyuus is a step in the most wrong direction. thing is an oelvn stays an oelvn, regardless of all the surrounding whatsnot, primarily aimed at western customers (and not the jp market instead), so why no sticking with good and competent english ones? & nah a setting being set in japan, or talks about it becoming more authentic that way doesnt justify jp-voiceover at all. such decisions make me cringe like hell, because they could have poured the xtra-money, gained from deciding on english voices, into further improving the title/reading experience as a whole. and even in case the costs were to stay the same, better support a growing home-market than (semi-)abandoning it alltogether upon coming across an opportunity to do so.

pretty much feels like mockery to me, like you know, when they, who are lucky enough of getting supported by major publishers, the ones that keep on publicly encouraging other creators about them try believing in their own strengths/doing their own thing/making evn´s great are at the same time going after the exact opposite, means choosing the most risk-free ways of developement/creation for themselves, be it a more subtile hiding of jp-tropes/memes (compared to the majority, or not), includition of jp-voices, jp-op´s, masquerading a title as if it´s of japanese origin, or what´s even worse partly deciding on exchanging their writers for japanese ones - basically saying a stealth-abandoning of the community which gave birth to them.

there are quite some who openly talked about them wanting japanese va´s for their titles, partly as stretchgoals, or which are already in the making like shining song starnova for example, though i still believe these titles possibly consisting of (top) japanese seiyuus is a step in the most wrong direction. thing is an oelvn stays an oelvn, regardless of all the surrounding whatsnot, primarily aimed at western customers (and not the jp market instead), so why no sticking with good and competent english ones? & nah a setting being set in japan, or talks about it becoming more authentic that way doesnt justify jp-voiceover at all. such decisions make me cringe like hell, because they could have poured the xtra-money, gained from deciding on english voices, into further improving the title/reading experience as a whole. and even in case the costs were to stay the same, better support a growing home-market than (semi-)abandoning it alltogether upon coming across an opportunity to do so.

pretty much feels like mockery to me, like you know, when they, who are lucky enough of getting supported by major publishers, the ones that keep on publicly encouraging other creators about them try believing in their own strengths/doing their own thing/making evn´s great are at the same time going after the exact opposite, means choosing the most risk-free ways of developement/creation for themselves, be it a more subtile hiding of jp-tropes/memes (compared to the majority, or not), includition of jp-voices, jp-op´s, masquerading a title as if it´s of japanese origin, or what´s even worse partly deciding on exchanging their writers for japanese ones - basically saying a stealth-abandoning of the community which gave birth to them.

So now I'm nearly at the finish line, at least for the Light Arc, but judging from what I can see of the Dark arc I don't know if I have the heart to work on it myself. In any case I'm about to make a beta public release of the game, and would like guidance on how to do this. I'm also interested in making all my source files, including the scripts I wrote to extract and convert data and such, public, so that anyone who wants to pick up the translation work in the future can build on what I've done so far. Obviously I can't just export the Git repository I've got up on Github or a similar place. Maybe I'll just publish a tarball of the bare repository for download every now and then, and accept patches from people who clone from it.

there are quite some who openly talked about them wanting japanese va´s for their titles, partly as stretchgoals, or which are already in the making like shining song starnova for example, though i still believe these titles possibly consisting of (top) japanese seiyuus is a step in the most wrong direction. thing is an oelvn stays an oelvn, regardless of all the surrounding whatsnot, primarily aimed at western customers (and not the jp market instead), so why no sticking with good and competent english ones? & nah a setting being set in japan, or talks about it becoming more authentic that way doesnt justify jp-voiceover at all. such decisions make me cringe like hell, because they could have poured the xtra-money, gained from deciding on english voices, into further improving the title/reading experience as a whole. and even in case the costs were to stay the same, better support a growing home-market than (semi-)abandoning it alltogether upon coming across an opportunity to do so.

pretty much feels like mockery to me, like you know, when they, who are lucky enough of getting supported by major publishers, the ones that keep on publicly encouraging other creators about them try believing in their own strengths/doing their own thing/making evn´s great are at the same time going after the exact opposite, means choosing the most risk-free ways of developement/creation for themselves, be it a more subtile hiding of jp-tropes/memes (compared to the majority, or not), includition of jp-voices, jp-op´s, masquerading a title as if it´s of japanese origin, or what´s even worse partly deciding on exchanging their writers for japanese ones - basically saying a stealth-abandoning of the community which gave birth to them.

pretty much this. gives me always the fucking creeps upon seeing it happen, same as their borderline dishonest and laughable excuses why them having decided on going for such atrocities. just be honest and admit it´s because them titles are more likely being purchased that way when pandering to weaboos/creating pseudo-clones of their jp-pendants, instead of setting themselves truly apart from the masses. same goes for oelvn´s which have jp op´s, like what the heck? and always those pseudo-bleh attempts to justify it with remarks a la "it´s because the voices do fit the characters better" , "the voices do fit the narrative better" & "they hightlight the setting as a whole" - honestly just die and fucking go bankrupt. for those, who even avoid taking the most small gambles in terms of individual creativity/originality, is no fucking place in an industry that has been founded on said virtues, at least that´s what i want to keep believing in.

edit: to me these jp-tropes- & memes-heavy attempts, same as with jp-voice acting where there shouldnt be any, are proof of its creators not holding their own works in high regards, btw. a lack of respect coming to them, or otherwise they would be more confident and try making these sell no matter what, without including the aforementioned literary shenanigans/going the semi-safe-route of distribution.

edit2: & regarding the topic, i dont see any wrong with english voice-acting there, regardless of a work being written by whomever nationalty-wise. personally i believe it depends on a titles primary target-market, like in bloody-chronicles case this would be the west, so why not sticking with eng-voices there? - contrary to popular believe there ARE INDEED some good voice actors around, not only cheap and borderline amateur-ish bums.

pretty much this. gives me always the fucking creeps upon seeing it happen, same as their borderline dishonest and laughable excuses why them having decided on going for such atrocities. just be honest and admit it´s because them titles are more likely being purchased that way when pandering to weaboos/creating pseudo-clones of their jp-pendants, instead of setting themselves truly apart from the masses. same goes for oelvn´s which have jp op´s, like what the heck? and always those pseudo-bleh attempts to justify it with remarks a la "it´s because the voices do fit the characters better" , "the voices do fit the narrative better" & "they hightlight the setting as a whole" - honestly just die and fucking go bankrupt. for those, who even avoid taking the most small gambles in terms of individual creativity/originality, is no fucking place in an industry that has been founded on said virtues, at least that´s what i want to keep believing in.

edit: to me these jp-tropes- & memes-heavy attempts, same as with jp-voice acting where there shouldnt be any, are proof of its creators not holding their own works in high regards, btw. a lack of respect coming to them, or otherwise they would be more confident and try making these sell no matter what, without including the aforementioned literary shenanigans/going the semi-safe-route of distribution.

edit2: & regarding the topic, i dont see any wrong with english voice-acting there, regardless of a work being written by whomever nationalty-wise. personally i believe it depends on a titles primary target-market, like in bloody-chronicles case this would be the west, so why not sticking with eng-voices there? - contrary to popular believe there ARE INDEED some good voice actors around, not only cheap and borderline amateur-ish bums.

But I was the first to express a reasoned impression of the game. Aren't the people who deliberately disagree with me and are only arguing with "muh feels" the edgy ones?
Remember the time when "egdy" wasn't an insult used by third generation otakus to revile well thought out criticism of their favorite escapism outlets? Ah, good times.

Tbh, what makes me cringe is Japanese voices in OELVNs... (Unless it's actually a Japanese TL, of course.)

you are too dark and edgy to fully appreciate a true kamige