-Flashback-

Possibly one of the trickiest translations to get it to work properly. It envolves several steps and I took a good 4 hours just to get it to work the first time I was trying to play this game. I will make a step-by-step guide on how the process should be done. Getting Welcome To Pia Carrot (PC-FX) to work:   1) Get the .iso file and the emulator. For PC-FX emulators I suggest Magic Engine-FX or Mednafen. Mednafen is a freeware while Magic Engine-FX is a demo which you can play the games for 5 minutes and then the game freezes. You can buy the full version on their website with no limitations: http://www.magicengi...mefx-test16.zipAfter that, replace the original .exe file that came with the one you just downloaded. I tried it on the other versions and it didn't work, that's why I recommended getting the 1.1.1 version earlier on.   4) About the ISO: First, make sure it's not corrupted. The first time I got the Pia Carrot iso, it did not work when I tried loading it on the emulator. After I tried downloading it from a different source, it worked just fine. Make sure there is a .cue file and a .bin fine inside the zipped file you downloaded.   5) Get the English patch. You can download it here: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1372/   6) After you got the English patch, extract the files and put in one the same folder as the unzipped .cue and .bin files and the emulator. Make sure you have everything in the same folder, otherwise it will not work! Note: Do not open the patch file! Your game will not work if you do it and the .bin and .cue files will be ruined! Having the patch in the same folder as the game .bin and .cue files is enough to have it in English! Makes sense, right?    7) After you got the patch in the same folder as the .bin and .cue file, mount the .cue file into a virtual drive. Note: DO NOT MOUNT THE .BIN FILE. it will not work.   Open your emulator and try booting the CD. It should work now! Enjoy Welcome To Pia Carrot!

Want some butter? 
Oh, F/SN too.

You read it right. We've all played memorable Visual Novel games that won't forget, the ones that were just great in the aspects we value the most, being it storyline, creativity, character design, innovation, humor, great endings....
but there are also the ones which are also memorable... in a negative way. And that's I want to look into this time. I am looking to see what the community values the most and despises the most about VNs, what gets people going and what ruins it.... And what the hell, it looks like fun.
 
The funny thing is, the most popular VNs out there, the ones that are full of positive reviews are usually not that great to me, even some like Shuffle! that I simply couldn't even get to the end of it because of how tedious, predictable and just silly all around the plot was. It must have been the first VN I ever cried to... I was bored to tears!
On the other hand, the dark ones that nobody's ever heard, qutie unknown are usually the ones I like best. Yeah, I'm the hipster of VNs, lol.
 
 
So, give me your worst! If I get an interesting suggestion and play it, I would probably post a review somewhere about it. Just one note: No gay/lesbian/sadistic please.

You read it right. We've all played memorable Visual Novel games that won't forget, the ones that were just great in the aspects we value the most, being it storyline, creativity, character design, innovation, humor, great endings....
but there are also the ones which are also memorable... in a negative way. And that's I want to look into this time. I am looking to see what the community values the most and despises the most about VNs, what gets people going and what ruins it.... And what the hell, it looks like fun.
 
The funny thing is, the most popular VNs out there, the ones that are full of positive reviews are usually not that great to me, even some like Shuffle! that I simply couldn't even get to the end of it because of how tedious, predictable and just silly all around the plot was. It must have been the first VN I ever cried to... I was bored to tears!
On the other hand, the dark ones that nobody's ever heard, qutie unknown are usually the ones I like best. Yeah, I'm the hipster of VNs, lol.
 
 
So, give me your worst! If I get an interesting suggestion and play it, I would probably post a review somewhere about it. Just one note: No gay/lesbian/sadistic please.

Le me. (July 2014)

Le me. (July 2014)

Dating-sims/just nukige(beginning-late nineties)>moege/nukige(1997-2002)>genre explosion (2001-2008)>stable period(2009-now)

I only have like 5 visual novels under my belt so I can't comment quality wise on how they changed over the years, but visually:


 
 

Ah yes, I am familiar with the history of eroge. However, I opened this thread to know the opinions of others about it too.
I have quite a few visual novels for the PC-88 that I got in a collection from an abbandonware site a few years ago which included some doujins too. Unsurprisingly, they're all in Japanese but I could tell with the help of my brother who can speak Japanese what they are about.
The graphics were very anime-like. The storylines were very simple and straightforward. In most of the games, you just had to choose the actions to take from a bunch of options you were presented with, such as "look", "talk" or "touch" and you can easily get to the eroge cutscenes.
Others were less straightforward. I remember one where you were the manager of a cute blue haired anime girl and your goal was to make her a successful popstar. No eroge on that one. It was an interesting concept.
 
On the 16-bit era, I've heard (but never played) Doukyusei. It came out in 1992 and it is considered the grandfather of the date sim games. I'm guessing it was the first of its kind to get popular at least. It envolved love points and knowing what every girl likes, what times they show up, etc.
The graphics are okay. 16-bit visuals are alright and good enough to make decent looking colourful characters. Take a look:

Doukyusei 2 actually came out for the Super Nintendo (SNES) in 1997 so I am very curious to know whether or not it has some hentai scenes because if you remember back then, Nintendo had some of the most strict rules about the content of violence and sexuality in the games published for their systems. I wish someone would make a fan translation of Doukyusei 2 to English but I don't have much hope.
Another date sim that came out for the SNES was Tokimeki Memorial. I never played that one either but I heard that it's a classic of this genre. It seems to have better graphics than Doukyusei.

 
For the computer (MS-DOS), there are some classics that were released in English such as Three Sisters Story, True Love and Season of the Sakura, all released in the mid-1990s. I played all of these, and I can say, that the storylines of all of them were simple but pretty good overall. They also had enough interaction you get to choose who  you can do on dates with, events during the year and who to give gifts which is something I personally value.
It's also nice to look back at the 1990s culture and the way things were back then.
 
 
I feel like some of the most recent visual novels released in the last 5-10 years got a lot more complex storylines, much longer gameplay (which are not bad things, but I personally prefer simplicity) but something negative that I noticed is that they have less interaction with the player: They focused more on the graphics and visuals than on interaction. IT's no wonder some people on this forum say "read visual novels" instead of "playing visual novels". Everytime I see "read" instead of "play", I cringe.
 
 
What Ecliped posted is actually a pretty good way to summarize the changes in visuals that happened recently in a lot of VN games. (note that I said a lot, not all of them)

In this thread you can share any story of just about anything in your life that is complete nonsense or ticks you off. 
 
I start:
 
You know what's bollocks? Regional lock. It's always the same thing. Every... single... time! What's the point of doing this? stoooooooop! ;_;
 
The hardware and software developers throw us the bulls!%3 excuse that they use region lock on DVDs, Blurays, video game consoles and other electronic devices of this kind because they say that "some products are not meant to audiences outside the region they were released in." That's a crock of s#%t Today's audiences have very different and specific tastes. They look for specific products, they want to see everything as much costumised as possible and they are getting more and more demanding about this as years go by. If I live in China, why couldn't I import a video game from Japan if I liked it for example? 
I understand that some companies try to protect their products by cutting the imports from cheaper countries and avoid losing money that way (for example iphones are cheaper here in China than in Europe), but giving us the cultural taste excuse is just low.
 
Everytime I try to get any electronic device from my country to work here in China, it just won't. It's frustrating. Try living in a region with a different system and you will see what I mean.

Ah yes, I am familiar with the history of eroge. However, I opened this thread to know the opinions of others about it too.
I have quite a few visual novels for the PC-88 that I got in a collection from an abbandonware site a few years ago which included some doujins too. Unsurprisingly, they're all in Japanese but I could tell with the help of my brother who can speak Japanese what they are about.
The graphics were very anime-like. The storylines were very simple and straightforward. In most of the games, you just had to choose the actions to take from a bunch of options you were presented with, such as "look", "talk" or "touch" and you can easily get to the eroge cutscenes.
Others were less straightforward. I remember one where you were the manager of a cute blue haired anime girl and your goal was to make her a successful popstar. No eroge on that one. It was an interesting concept.
 
On the 16-bit era, I've heard (but never played) Doukyusei. It came out in 1992 and it is considered the grandfather of the date sim games. I'm guessing it was the first of its kind to get popular at least. It envolved love points and knowing what every girl likes, what times they show up, etc.
The graphics are okay. 16-bit visuals are alright and good enough to make decent looking colourful characters. Take a look:

Doukyusei 2 actually came out for the Super Nintendo (SNES) in 1997 so I am very curious to know whether or not it has some hentai scenes because if you remember back then, Nintendo had some of the most strict rules about the content of violence and sexuality in the games published for their systems. I wish someone would make a fan translation of Doukyusei 2 to English but I don't have much hope.
Another date sim that came out for the SNES was Tokimeki Memorial. I never played that one either but I heard that it's a classic of this genre. It seems to have better graphics than Doukyusei.

 
For the computer (MS-DOS), there are some classics that were released in English such as Three Sisters Story, True Love and Season of the Sakura, all released in the mid-1990s. I played all of these, and I can say, that the storylines of all of them were simple but pretty good overall. They also had enough interaction you get to choose who  you can do on dates with, events during the year and who to give gifts which is something I personally value.
It's also nice to look back at the 1990s culture and the way things were back then.
 
 
I feel like some of the most recent visual novels released in the last 5-10 years got a lot more complex storylines, much longer gameplay (which are not bad things, but I personally prefer simplicity) but something negative that I noticed is that they have less interaction with the player: They focused more on the graphics and visuals than on interaction. IT's no wonder some people on this forum say "read visual novels" instead of "playing visual novels". Everytime I see "read" instead of "play", I cringe.
 
 
What Ecliped posted is actually a pretty good way to summarize the changes in visuals that happened recently in a lot of VN games. (note that I said a lot, not all of them)

Ah yes, I am familiar with the history of eroge. However, I opened this thread to know the opinions of others about it too.
I have quite a few visual novels for the PC-88 that I got in a collection from an abbandonware site a few years ago which included some doujins too. Unsurprisingly, they're all in Japanese but I could tell with the help of my brother who can speak Japanese what they are about.
The graphics were very anime-like. The storylines were very simple and straightforward. In most of the games, you just had to choose the actions to take from a bunch of options you were presented with, such as "look", "talk" or "touch" and you can easily get to the eroge cutscenes.
Others were less straightforward. I remember one where you were the manager of a cute blue haired anime girl and your goal was to make her a successful popstar. No eroge on that one. It was an interesting concept.
 
On the 16-bit era, I've heard (but never played) Doukyusei. It came out in 1992 and it is considered the grandfather of the date sim games. I'm guessing it was the first of its kind to get popular at least. It envolved love points and knowing what every girl likes, what times they show up, etc.
The graphics are okay. 16-bit visuals are alright and good enough to make decent looking colourful characters. Take a look:

Doukyusei 2 actually came out for the Super Nintendo (SNES) in 1997 so I am very curious to know whether or not it has some hentai scenes because if you remember back then, Nintendo had some of the most strict rules about the content of violence and sexuality in the games published for their systems. I wish someone would make a fan translation of Doukyusei 2 to English but I don't have much hope.
Another date sim that came out for the SNES was Tokimeki Memorial. I never played that one either but I heard that it's a classic of this genre. It seems to have better graphics than Doukyusei.

 
For the computer (MS-DOS), there are some classics that were released in English such as Three Sisters Story, True Love and Season of the Sakura, all released in the mid-1990s. I played all of these, and I can say, that the storylines of all of them were simple but pretty good overall. They also had enough interaction you get to choose who  you can do on dates with, events during the year and who to give gifts which is something I personally value.
It's also nice to look back at the 1990s culture and the way things were back then.
 
 
I feel like some of the most recent visual novels released in the last 5-10 years got a lot more complex storylines, much longer gameplay (which are not bad things, but I personally prefer simplicity) but something negative that I noticed is that they have less interaction with the player: They focused more on the graphics and visuals than on interaction. IT's no wonder some people on this forum say "read visual novels" instead of "playing visual novels". Everytime I see "read" instead of "play", I cringe.
 
 
What Ecliped posted is actually a pretty good way to summarize the changes in visuals that happened recently in a lot of VN games. (note that I said a lot, not all of them)