Vokoca

Don't even bother if you don't speak Japanese. I'd argue the Vita library of VNs is bigger, if you want to include the large PSP library in that as well - but only a bare minimum of these are translated, so it wouldn't really be worth it at all in your case; especially considering the ones that are translated usually have a PC port as well. On that front, the 3DS might be a better choice, as you at least have most of the Phoenix Wright franchise officially localized in English. I haven't tried on the 3DS, but any sort of game-file manipulation usually requires you to hack your device. This is impossible both on new Vitas and 3DSs, as you can easily softmod both only on lower firmware versions. You would either have to get them used or know for a fact what FW is pre-installed on the particular device you're buying, which might again be way more trouble than it is worth.

SubaHibi was a mistake.

Seeing how Dies Irae wasn't quenching my thirst for the #edge, I've decided to pick up Hanachirasu. I was about to just check out the prologue, but that has proven to be a huge mistake... you see, those few scenes before the opening we're all way more exciting and interesting than the entirety of Kasumi's route in Dies.Now this is a super unfair comparison, as I'm essentially putting two opposite approaches to action scenes against each other, but... damn, it only took a single scene to remind me why I like Narahara so much. The fights feel though out, with actual choreography and logic supporting the flashy coolness, and it's just so damn entertaining to me. I imagine this is extremely subjective, and I bet there are people who hate Narahara's style with a passion - but as soon as he started going into tangents to explain fencing theory, I was sold ten times over. I'll definitely get back to Dies to check out the story, but as far as action goes Hanachirasu will be my go-to for now.

Finished Kasumi's route in Dies Irae. I should probably first say that this is not the first VN by Masada I've read. I've read Senshinkan before, and that left me with pretty mixed feelings on the author. I consider myself a fan of chuuni, and the darker (even edgier) the story is the more I'm likely to enjoy it. As such, I was pretty excited when I read Senshinkan at first - Masada's works put on the airs of extremely edgy chuuni... but unfortunately, that is all they seem to do, as on the core they're nothing more but extremely cliched shounen. I was baffled by the stark contrast between the grimdark text and the "Friendship power!" kind of story in Senshinkan, but I just chalked it up to the main theme, given the main character's disposition towards virtues. I did like the story (there was some impressive layering going on), the (villain) characters, but I did have my doubts with the actual chuuni, getting bored to death with never-ending re-matches. As such, I was more scared of Dies Irae than excited, really. I did want to read it, but I was worried that it might be exactly what I disliked about Senshinkan - but in the end, curiosity won over, and the hyper-edgy Nazi aesthetic made me pick up the game. And, to put it shortly... I was right to be worried. The prologue didn't sell me on the VN, in fact, it almost made me drop it. It was full of Masada's flashiness for the sake of flashiness, with action scenes serving no other purpose but to show you how damn cool everything is... only I didn't buy it. When I read chuuni, I want infodumps. I want battles that get their rules laid down and thoroughly explained, and have crazy things happening according to these rules. While Masada does this sometimes (Senshinkan had some scenes like that, albeit not many), the prologue exemplified everything I dislike about his writing of fight scenes. It's like he is trying to convince you how amazing everything is with words alone, without actually giving you any reason to be impressed in the first place. It all comes across as pretty... flat. Luckily enough, the VN turned around immediately as the actual story started. Crazy pseudo-philosophy dialogues, edgy protagonist with clearly defined character that promised an interesting and entertaining point of view, some nice twists, it was great! And then... then the shounen tournament arc happened. The main character that was supposed to be unique, as the VN and the villains would want you to believe, quickly devolved into an insufferably cliched shounen protagonist. I won't go into any details to avoid spoilers, but the amount of shounen cliches in this route was driving me against the wall. What was even worse was Masada's attempt at being clever and self-aware - but making fun of things like friendship power and relying on it only seconds later doesn't make it any better, it makes it downright obnoxious. The actual chuuni was probably by far the biggest disappointment. The only fight scene that was actually exciting was the very first encounter, after that it just got boring. Masada just sticks to describing cool things for the most part, so there's not much to enjoy about the scenes other than mindlessly going with it - it's not like any of it really matters, because the main character just wins by some bullshit every single time in a true shounen fashion, and to make things even worse almost none of the wins even feel deserved. I get that this is the first route, but watching the main character fall for the same shit over and over and in the end be unable to do anything cool at all in a story about crazy battles isn't fun whatsoever - at least there are better characters than him that make the battle scenes at least somewhat exciting. Anyway, it's not like I hated the whole thing. I enjoyed the characters (maybe except Ren... and Kasumi, to some extent, even though I wanted to like her), I liked the story that got hinted at (as I mentioned above, the first half of the common route actually got me really hyped, hopefully there is more of that kind of stuff here), and I liked the route ending. At the very least the last battle was pretty cool, and so was the way it turned out. I can only hope that the VN gets better from now on, but so far, I'm not impressed. There are people who say this? The Umineko "fanbase" really is the worst. Never before have I seen a story where so many people would ignore almost half of it just to make themselves feel smart via pathetic theory-crafting that just picks the convenient parts and dismisses the rest. It's even sadder that this is happening to Umineko of all things, considering its subject matter. I'm glad you were able to get something out of these two episodes; after all, Umineko is trying to get across a message, and the last two episodes are crucial for that. Any "fans" looking on it strictly as a mystery story are not only doing the story huge disservice, but probably can't read at all in the first place.

I agree with this, you definitely need some sort of a foundation to work with. That said, reading (or using the language in any other way) is just as important, so doing both is the best way - even if reading is really hard and/or confusing at first.

Your ears also can hear from more than just two static directions, though. Considering the importance of orchestral positioning and the like, that's not much of an argument.

Blu-ray movies in general should support this, but I wouldn't count on (TV) anime doing the same.

Rather than a sequel, Umineko kind of feels like Ryuukishi's answer to Higurashi. He takes everything that he has experienced and learned while writing that and builds upon it; if you read between the lines, Umineko is a really interesting commentary on his previous work and on mystery itself - and you don't even have to look that deep, the story makes no attempts to hide the correlations at all. Silvz calls them references, but that's probably putting it mildly. But as others have stated above, that doesn't mean you should be going into this expecting Higurashi. Umineko is very different, in both its story and its message, so in the end you'll just have to see for yourself whether you like it or not. If you're going to check it out, I would highly recommend the PS3 port of the game, as it features both a revised translation and all the perks the console release had over the PC one.

Never.

I'd say go for it, I have the exact opposite opinion from Toranth on this one - F/Z might just as well be my favourite from the series, exactly because of the different tone. I guess that doesn't make me much of a Fate fan, but I do prefer Nasu's earlier stuff like KnK too, which are a bit darker in tone as well. You definitely don't need it to understand Fate at all, which goes for all of the secondary works really, but I suppose more so for this one because it's by a different author... then again, at least this one doesn't waste time on weird fanservice hijinks Nasu loves so much.

Just read Mahoyo if you like the Tsukihime side of things - I do, and I enjoyed Mahoyo much more than I did Fate. Also, Mahoyo is a kinetic novel in the main story, the choices are just in a thing you unlock after finishing it.

Finished 凍京NECRO. It's probably not much of a surprise, given how this VN is presented, but 凍京NECRO is an example of what happens when you have way more flair than substance. Luckily for Nitro+, though - the flair is really fucking cool. This entire visual novel is just a ridiculous budget explosion. From throw-away one-time use sprites to the numerous 3D-animated fight scenes, 凍京NECRO does all it can to impress the reader with its presentation. And for what its worth, it works for the most part - the 3D is pretty iffy, and probably downright shit by western standards, but if you can look past that it is really enjoyable. The models, animations and particle effects might look decent at best, but they do make for some really cool scenes when they all come together. The story... is really good too, for the most part. It is fun and complex, full of crazy twist and turns in each of the four routes - but things start to fall apart a bit as soon as the plot tries to go outside the box. The story deals with life and death and what they mean - or so it'd like you to think, because it never really goes much deeper than the surface level. Just like the nonsensical sci-fi, it is there just to be entertaining rather than to send some profound message. It tries to, however, especially with the true route. Now don't get me wrong, the true route is presented in one of the coolest ways I've ever seen, and it's really exciting while it is all happening - but as soon as you stop to think about it it doesn't really make all that much sense. There is also this strange meta angle that doesn't quite stick the landing either - but it's not really given too much weight just like everything else, so it doesn't really detract from the overall enjoyment. All in all, I've enjoyed 凍京NECRO a lot - but no matter how hard Nitro+ might try, the next Muramasa it is not.

What kind of horror are you looking for? If you're looking for straight-forward horror with ghosts and gore, the Corpse Party series is probably the go-to. There's also Iwaihime on the untranslated end of things. For psychological horror, you might want to look into Higurashi, or something from the denpa genre, like Sayooshi - this one isn't translated either.

Haha, that flowchart just makes it needlessly complicated, YU-NO isn't that difficult at all. Once you get onto a route it is mostly linear, and the game does let you know when you can cross onto a different world-line, so you at least know when to look out for what you pick. As for me, I've took the plunge and re-read Cross Channel in Japanese some time back. I've always wanted to do this, considering its reputation and the... embarrassing TL it has in English. hoping I'd find much more enjoyment in the VN this time around. And I did - the writing was playful and funny, a lot of the laughs I had while reading came from the writing alone. The nuances themselves were also fun for sure - but my overall issues I had with the VN my first time throuh remained. That is, the entire true route is just incredibly boring, and it explicitly hand-waves a lot of the plot details away, since they (usually) don't even matter that much to the VN's plot. Now, I'm not saying every story should explain everything in minute detail - I am a big fan of works that leave certain things to interpretation - but there is a big difference between details that were purposefully omitted, and details that didn't even exist in the first place. I feel like Cross Channel falls into the second category, as in one point the author almost directly tells you that he doesn't have to explain shit because nothing of it even matters anyway - and while I can agree with him to a certain point, it did kind of leave bad taste in my mouth. It's also baffling how incredibly bad the voice acting is even after all these re-releases, and how none of the pacing issues are fixed either (I was reading the Final Complete version, that essentially ended up being the exact same as the original, just with a bunch of worthless stuff on top no one asked for), but I suppose I can't blame the writer for that too much. Overall a very enjoyable read with some great comedy and intriguing characters, but I feel like there was room to improve. But hey... maybe I just don't get it.

Since the patch is out, it's probably a bit too late to edit? Most of the people who wanted to read this have probably already done so. Unless you feel like it really needs a look-over, I think it'd make more sense to just start with the next one.