Darklord Rooke

I support the idea.
 
Fuwanovel originally wanted to aid in the production and distribution of visual novels in the West. I can understand the theory of spreading around free VNs to build up the initial fanbase, but I get the feeling we've gotten past this stage. We have a fairly sizeable community, and VNs are getting more exposure than ever now they're appearing on Steam. If Fuwa ever wants to seriously aid in the production of VNs, and not just low-budget free ones, it will need to eventually support the official products.
 
Furthermore, the visual novel industry is struggling in Japan, and needs much support in the West. The industry needs funds to grow and we should be encouraging the purchase of such products when able.

My name is Chaironiichan!
I'm a writer by trade, so my past-time happens to be reading xD it's a good thing visual novels are perfect for that!
I'm currently reading Fate Hollow/Ataraxia, Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort, To Love 2, Grisaia no Kaijitsu and playing Mass Effect  I really need to master finishing stuff D:
I'm also writing for NaNoReNo, for a project called Do Not Love - Violators Will Be Shot. 
Feel free to ask me anything about myself, about the project I'm working on, or just drop by and say hello!

In my opinion, Number one, Unique plot and Storyline ( mainstream can be good too, but It's will be bad if its too much similarity with other VN. ) ,  Nice drawing is number two, bad story with good drawing its meaningless, then, Good voice acting (especially heroine VA , it's can lift up their quality ), Protagonist personality ( I can't endure with loser or crybaby protagonist _- ) , and the last one, Heroine (Dere2, gap moe, or whatever, Its can be main factor for VN can be Good one ) . 

i think an amazing vn needs good characters first of all, with interesting motivations and values and good development
an interesting, engaging, and/or well-built setting/world is important so you can feel immersed in the world it presents
obviously it has to do everything else at least well too

Setting. The setting of a VN can make all the difference. Setting changes your characters, your stories, your tone. We have a bajillion VNs set in a Japanese high school. We have far fewer set in Cold War Europe, or early 1900s Japan. Having a unique setting, something to stand out, might be the single most important aspect of a VN.
 

Excellent characters are first in foremost in my mind when I think of a amazing vn. If it doesn't have that then it's just doomed from the start.
A story that can really grip me from the moment I start it up. I want to be drawn in immediately give me something that I want to come back to.
Good writing that is not overly focused on cliches, I'm fine with them being used on occasion but don't just give me nothing but that.
Something utterly unique to that particular Visual Novel is another hallmark of a excellent vn. Whether it is unique setting, unique characters, unique story, unique art style give me something I have not seen a hundred bloody times.
Finally, a great art style is a component that most truly excellent vn's share. Voice acting isn't a must when it comes to whether or not I think a visual novel is truly special but it does help.

Interesting characters, gripping plot, all routes (if not a linear game) must be balanced (as in one route is not clearly better than the other apparently lazily made ones).
Not really what I look for first but it also helps if the game have a good voice acting and the h-scenes aren't over long that it overstay it's welcome.

* Either stirs the emotions, or is thought provoking. Maybe both.
* Nice writing.
* Great music that really nails whatever atmosphere the VN is going for. This I find really important...
Anything other that that depends on the genre or the target audience of the VN itself. Not all VN's are fanservice or sexy, or are thrillers, or have gripping plot, or have warm fuzzy feelings, or will tug on your heartstrings relentlessly, etc.

I consider an amazing VN to be a VN with an great plot, good characters, and a lot of intrigue/mystery to both the plot and the characters.

Building on top of Zalor's post, I can give a quick and dirty version of my time here. Granted, I don't remember dates all that much. 
 
I joined early on in Fuwanovel's history because i needed help fixing sound in Never7. I never fixed it. I think early on, I didn't care about Aaeru hosting pre-patched torrents because for me, it was easily the best way to get a VN. I didn't trust purchasing through Mangagamer or Jast USA and this was well before steam VNs, aside from random ones like Analogue: A Hate Story, were a thing. Anyway, I read Ever17 and loved it a lot so I began to pick up other VNs and take part in more discussions on the forums. I never delved heavily into VNs though and mostly stuck to anime and gaming discussions. Early on, though, I remember clashing with sanahtlig. I don't know what the hell I was fighting with him over but thats hardly unique to me. 
Someone then made, likely tay or ryoji, a terrible mistake and promoted me to a moderator with some others, like Down and Steve. At once, I got into a big fight with aaeru over hosting licensed content. I don't recall what the it was though, possibly Steins;Gate? Or something related to it This went directly against a rule that had been set up, that Fuwanovel would not host licensed games. Anyway, I was kind of a dickwaffle and wasn't very nice. The staff ended up splitting into two camps over the issue. I do recall Ryoji and myself were on one side with Aaeru and Steve on the other. Then Tay stepped in like the mighty God he is, and somehow solved the situation. I think we ended up making it a rule that no licensed content would be hosted by Fuwanovel, that it was to be strictly fan TLs. This would come back to haunt the site when Clannad and Grisaia got licensed.
Things chugged along for a bit, and I was quite active in doing nothing really. I do recall a spam war where suddenly everyone began posting AMA threads over and over. Your boi zakamutt was part of this if memory serves. By this point, aaeru's activity had begun falling off so Tay and Ryoji were left to deal with this situation. Ryoji favored the nuclear option of banning those involved. Tay wasn't too terribly eager to do so. I vaguely recall diving into the irc channel with him and talking the situation out. This marked the beginnings of the Coliseum of Chatter. Originally I think it was a single thread, and then a subforum, before it got split off into its own thing. Once again, Tay had achieved a middle ground. I think maybe one temp ban was handed out during all of this? 
Ryoji left the site, I don't remember the date but I remember it happening pretty vividly. Wasn't great. To try and bridge the gap, I volunteered to take the spot, never intending to actually keep it for a long amount of time. I admit, it was nice to finally be a higher rank than Steve, who was my nemesis on the site. I really didn't do much different than what I had been doing as a mod. I didn't feel it was my place to make any structural changes to the website so I tried to avoid doing anything major like that. The only thing I remember doing as an admin was spending 3 hours talking to steve in his cursed teamspeak channel to convince him that posting pictures of naked lolis wasn't great, and even posting p. risque ones could get people in trouble. Finally, after much talking, I finally convinced him to put them in spoiler tags and not post naked lolis. As the compromise, I went in and placed many of his pictures in spoiler tags to save him the effort. It was a dark, loli filled day for me, one I never want to repeat. 
Then the website blew up, thanks to aaeru pirating the software for the site. It was down for quite some time, nayleen stepped in and helped Tay get things back up. aaeru was long gone by this point, which complicated matters quite a bit. Regardless, Nay and Tay got things back up and running. I stepped down from the staff since I felt rather out of place, not knowing how to really help anymore. My activity declined somewhat around this time too, until Tay had a situation arise and had to leave for a while. As a result, Cybersteel took over the show and Steve was promoted to admin. Yeah... that was something. He asked me to come back as a moderator, thus beginning the meme of solidbatman joining and quitting the staff daily. 
I don't remember when it was exactly, that Clannad and Grisaia got licensed. Tay may have still been hanging around at this time? There was a huge debate over whether or not Fuwanovel should continue hosting those two VNs. I argued that they ought to be taken down as they were no longer fanTLs and a legitimate way of purchasing them was now available. Steve, and many others argued that because the official releases had a different translation, they technically were not the same and should be left up. The second part of their argument dealt with purchasing them from other countries (which as steam releases made little sense to me but not much about the VN community and culture does).  

They ended up being removed which marked the beginning of the end of hosting torrents of fanTLs on the website. Back to Steve's adminship. I ended up leaving the staff again shortly after when I realized I was only placed on the staff for optics. Steve, if memory serves which it may not as I am biased, really didn't listen to anyone and did whatever he really wanted to do. Admirable maybe, but I was not really in the mood to work under that knowing nothing I said or did would matter. In true Steve fashion, he argued with me for a couple hours trying to get me to stay on. Didn't work. 
Then Tay showed back up. What he managed to do still amazes me. He took down the torrents and kept Fuwanovel alive. I honestly have no idea how he managed to do this. Some members did leave over this and begin their own new fuwanovel thingy that does the same thing the old fuwanovel did. But the core of this site stayed intact. VNTS was revived by Zakamutt and Tay, and later Decay, who brought it into their current format. With the removal of torrents, Fuwanovel gained some legitimacy within the commercial VN industry. I've no doubt some fan translators still hate fuwanovel for hosting the pre-patched torrents but companies were willing to interact with Fuwanovel after the removal. 
FuwaReviews became a thing, and to be honest, thats all I cared about once we got it going. Ryechu did good work building some contacts within the industry to gain reviewers some review copies. I got into a twitter tiff with the Lupiesoft guy because I gave his shitty VN a low score after he gave us a review copy (the god damn game barely ran). I wrote the infamous Little Busters! review. The reaction was amazing. Doing FuwaReviews stuff was some of the most fun I think I had on this website. Regardless, with FuwaReviews, my interest in other parts of the site died off, and I no longer followed the happenings closely as they didn't concern me. Then I left all together for about 2 years before coming back in the past week due to boredom. 

So there is my 150% self-centered history of Fuwanovel. I admit its self-centered because all I really can remember is stuff I was involved with. Like I said before, I typically stayed out of VN discussions unless it was in regards to their distribution. 

Relevent comment from nay the bae about Steve: 
 

I did a thread on the History of my experience in Fuwa and what the community was like from 2013 - 2016. I didn't hang around that much in 2016, and in 2017 I was virtually absent. But If you are interested in the early days of the forums, then check this out: 
Edit: This thread is a real goldmine for Fuwa history because it doesn't just feature my experiences, but other members posted their experiences as well. Particularly Sanahtlig. Other members also dug through and found old threads that they liked and shared those as well (check out zhurai's post).   

Anything before 2000 is old for me. I actually prefer the art style from back then and I don't know why. I get warm fuzzies every time I see art like this:

A natural rock formation, like this:

Lol, like I said they all sound like kids. Even the mods.

A natural rock formation, like this:

A natural rock formation, like this:

A natural rock formation, like this:

A natural rock formation, like this:

A natural rock formation, like this:

Lol, like I said they all sound like kids. Even the mods.

Lol, like I said they all sound like kids. Even the mods.

Doesn't help that most of them act like kids as well. 

I actually liked the Berseria gameplay. Best Tales combat system since Graces F, IMO, and maybe even better than Graces F. Once you get the swing of it, combat is fast and rewards both skill and sound tactics, and all of that is important to me. There are rarely some boss enemies that make the combat system very unforgiving and less rewarding, and those can make a fight extremely frustrating, though. All that said, you probably just have different preferences, and that's fine; you can't all have excellent taste like me.
I'm currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is by turns fun and frustrating. I haven't gotten that far in (I'm in Chapter 3, I think?). The gacha is pretty infuriating; I've only rolled one rare blade so far, and it was for Nia, so my main character only has two slots and one of them is a lousy three-star generic, ugh. The combat is growing on me as more options open up. The only thing I'm not liking so far is that there seem to be major balance problems. Land in a new zone: prepare to be playing ludicrously safely for the first hour or two until you level up a few times, peeling monsters off one or two at a time so you can actually handle them. Then, once you level up, just roflstop everything for an hour or two. Then move on to a new zone and repeat. Add to that, all the boss fights so far have been an absolute joke; I'm much more likely to die by accidentally pulling three mobs in a new zone than I am to die to a boss. All feels rather off.

Lol, like I said they all sound like kids. Even the mods.