onorub

Just a thought that ocurred to me, but the whole "translation vs localization" discussion made me recall one thing: whenever a book has lots of foreign expressions, the publisher just deals with it by slapping a glossary at the last pages, in a way that anyone going the extra mile by actually localizing the dialogue looks foolish. With anime and JRPGs however, there is a certain fear of the dialogue not flowing well with the voices or to the faster spectator reading, so the dialogue is actually localized. Without getting in whether translations or localizations are the correct direction, my thought is that maybe the very idea of localization in visual novels is ingrained in publishing companies due to JRPGs/anime and translators are treating VNs as anime or games rather than books, perhaps without even realizing it. Does that make sense?

I'm going with ATRI, but at this point my VN of the year takes are gonna be highly unneducated as i dislike reading untranslated VNs from less than two years ago.

Maybe not what you're looking for because it's an all-ages BL, but Animamundi is an amazing example.

When you reach the "one year from now" gap where you said you'd significantly slow down on the VN of the month, are you gonna start doing more reviews?

I feel it's a mistake to say covid had an impact on vn attention because while the virus was first detected in late 2019, the spread of it only became mainstream news in early 2020. I blame lack of creativity more than anything.

I dunno, i felt that route structure was one of the most overrated aspects of 9-nine. Too much hand-holding in comparison to YU-NO or the Zero Escape series, especially in episode 4 since that had so many opportunities for puzzle-solving on par with 428.

Right now my top VN of 2018 is Summer Pockets, but that will likely change once i go through Rance 10 (waiting for the translation like a good boy). Butterfly Seeker seemed pretty promising given EGS ratings, though.

~Necro Necro yay~ Been watching some conspiracy theory icebergs for fun and i'm surprised at the lack of "aliens are fallen angels" and "humanity has reset many times" theories. "Space voids were caused by alien singularity" and "God is a 4th-dimensional being" would've been neat to see too.

Sasasagu could've been one of the best VNs ever if the plot didn't become so grand, but it's still a really good story. It'd likely surpass Mirai Radio if it had a proper PC version.

From what i've seen in reviews, the first 5 hours are really slow and even though the mystery gets much better later on, it's still not that great when it comes to character work. It does seem to be top tier as far as OELVNs go, but i wouldn't get too overhyped because we have enough of that with japanese VNs.

Can't comment on your pick, but right now mine for VN of 2017 is Monster Girl Quest Paradox RPG Part 2. The Paradox RPG series is not as thought-provoking as original Monster Girl Quest, but it's still a seriously fun multi-dimensional story.

I'm not that surprised, since the SubaHibi translation came out of the blue as well. The amount of rape is what you regularly get from the average action Nitroplus title, so don't worry about anything at ClockUp level. Muramasa is barely on my top 10 VNs of all time and not even my favorite of 2009, but i definitely recommend it and i wish i took the rumors more seriously, because i'd have probably waited the extra year and a half since i've read it.

Can't comment on your pick since i've never played it, but mine is BLge Hashihime of the Old Book Town (also favorite of the decade). The one route i've read from it was such a well done time loop storyline that it essentially made them obsolete to me. Also, i hope you prepare yourself, because 2017 is god-awful if you ignore doujins.

Can't really counter your pick since i've never tried that one. But i'll have an unpopular opinion and go with Steins;Gate 0 as my favorite of 2015. The plot was more of a side-story than anything and most of the new characters weren't memorable, but i just loved the route system too much.

Fata Morgana Fandisc is the best thing on this list by a mile, IMO.