akaritan

@Kiriririri Yep, this analysis is just on what's popular so more obscure niche stuff, both in Japan and for OELVNs, aren't well represented. It's not meant to be a complete picture of the VN scene, just of what the "mainstream" is (in as much as the VN scene has a mainstream).
My analysis on trends with VN protagonists is now up:
https://bunnyadvocate.tumblr.com/post/159955558977/visual-novel-protagonists-what-are-they-made-of
I hope you guys enjoy it, I had a lot of fun analysing the data. There's some fun stuff to come in part 2, some odd connections that I didn't expect.

Part 2 of my VN protag analysis is up. Nothing too profound in it, but it's some fun data looking at what tags tend to crop up most often with different types of protags.
https://bunnyadvocate.tumblr.com/post/160500900017/visual-novel-protagonists-part-2

Right up your alley @Fred the Barber

I'm not sure about otome games on PS Vita (if you have one) but Code:Realize is highly recommended. It's a steampunk story-focuses otome game with real-life and literary characters (Arsene Lupin, Victor Frankenstein, etc.)
 
Steam has a variety of otome games. Amnesia: Memories, Nightshade, and Ozmafia are the best Japanese localized otome games. 
Amnesia: Memories A heroine with Amnesia who tries to regain her memories. It's kinda slice of life-ish but it can get really weird. It also has a lot of bad ends.
Nightshade: I really recommend this one because the MC is really amazing. She's basically a shinobi princess but other than that, anyrhing else counts as spoilers.
Ozmafia: Grimm's fairytale characters reimagined as Mafia members.
A Korean company, Cheritz also has a couple of localized ones- Nameless and Dandelion. Both are also well-regarded. Both are fully voiced in Korean.
There are also OELVNs that are quite good.  Backstage Pass is fully voiced in English. It has stats-raising though. Games without voices that are good are X-Note, Area-X, The Royal Trap, and Mystic Destinies. 
There's a pretty notable free game on Steam too. Cinderella Phenomenon is free, has an interesting story and has maybe 25+ hours of content. Itch.io and the lemmasoft forums have a lot of free EVN otomes like Asagao Academy, Airis, and Lads in Distress.

Fitting for a music themed story, the music has been my favorite part too. Especially how it isn't just about playing music, but how music plays a big role in someones life. Music shapes who the characters are. 
The concerts and performances are the pinnacle of that. They are not just performances to show good music, but more about the feelings the music evokes in the performers and listeners. More often than not the performances are the conclusion of a story ark or a character development, where they bare their feelings, dissolve their doubts, anything through songs. Music ties everything together and it works so well. I'm pretty sure all of the major performance so far have managed to move me in some way, which is actually really cool and something I really didn't expect. Kanade's route especially was full of such powerful scenes.  
The autoplay in concert scenes is really nice, mostly because I read way too fast for what's intended. Being "forced" to listen through the whole song at least for me makes it easier to concentrate on it, and so enjoying it more.
But more after I'm done with Riho's route.

Ahaha, most of my answers will probably be the same as TexasDice's... Oh well, here goes. My favorite aspect of the game is the music. Much like TexasDice stated above, music is what the VN is about so it's very important that it's done right here. But apart from that, the VN carried a very distinct aesthetic, and the music is a big part of it. It's an incredibly stylish VN as a whole. The art has a sort of "pop" to it and looks very bright and colorful without being overbearing. The music's instrumentation and general tone is similarly striking and suitable. On a side note, the H scene track is genuinely one of my favorite tracks and I wish it was used more outside of H scenes.
I didn't love how several routes felt sort of tacked on. It's not awful, but there's a distinct gap in quality between the Riho route and the rest that almost makes me feel as though the VN would be better linear (though, I think I'm the minority in preferring mostly linear VNs, so make of that what you will). I also didn't love the character of Kanade. I generally dislike the childhood friend archetype; they're an incredibly lazy way to make a heroine come with a prepackaged affection for the MC. For the most part she was fine, but I really wish her being in love with Shouichi wasn't so obvious from the outset. I think that these things are much better if developed during the VN itself...
My favorite side character was probably Megumi, the stripper who served as a friend to Kanade. She only showed up in Kanade's route, but she was really funny and charming in her own right. She wasn't complex at all, but she did everything she needed to do and was fun to listen to. Honorable mention goes to the cat. <3
As for the forced auto-text during the concert scenes, I wouldn't change it if I could (even though 9 times out of 10 forced auto-mode drives me insane). There's a certain magic to the concert scenes that makes them incredibly powerful and evocative, and I think that's part of it. It's almost as though you're experiencing things in real-time with the characters.

Technically, in Rewrite he doesn't remember them, but ok. If you're interested on yaoi/bara, No, Thank You!!! has a very cool system: once you finish a route and replay the game, more information is added to the common route to go deeper into the story.
Also, in Clannad all routes are connected since they open the True Ending when all of them are over. The Infinity Series also have something like that, maybe, but I think the one you should really go into is Steins;Gate, as the whole plot involves the MC going through some time/space travel in order to reach its goal, and he really lives/remembers everything that happens during them.

Confession: I recently got a friend addicted to Monster Girl Quest. It was supposed to be payback for making me sit through Boyfriend to Death with her but she just ended up really enjoying it. 

I finished Kanade's route a few days ago and thought it was definitely much better than the Rimu and Yayoi routes since it didn't feel tacked on in comparison to those. I really like how the narration changed frequently between Kanade and Shoichi because I thought it was really interesting to see things from both character's perspectives. I hope to see perspective changes in Riho's route as well; I think it would be cool to see things through Riho's eyes. Some of the drama in this route felt really awkward and strange like Kanade's various reasons for not being able to sing and the Johann stuff, but there were other parts of the route that were really good that made up for some of the awkwardness. My favourite parts of her route was the concert near the end as well as Shoichi playing in the street.  I'm hoping to reading/finish Riho's route soon since she is still my favourite heroine so far  
I'll get to the questions in a bit since I want to think about them for a little while before responding.

Ahaha, most of my answers will probably be the same as TexasDice's... Oh well, here goes. My favorite aspect of the game is the music. Much like TexasDice stated above, music is what the VN is about so it's very important that it's done right here. But apart from that, the VN carried a very distinct aesthetic, and the music is a big part of it. It's an incredibly stylish VN as a whole. The art has a sort of "pop" to it and looks very bright and colorful without being overbearing. The music's instrumentation and general tone is similarly striking and suitable. On a side note, the H scene track is genuinely one of my favorite tracks and I wish it was used more outside of H scenes.
I didn't love how several routes felt sort of tacked on. It's not awful, but there's a distinct gap in quality between the Riho route and the rest that almost makes me feel as though the VN would be better linear (though, I think I'm the minority in preferring mostly linear VNs, so make of that what you will). I also didn't love the character of Kanade. I generally dislike the childhood friend archetype; they're an incredibly lazy way to make a heroine come with a prepackaged affection for the MC. For the most part she was fine, but I really wish her being in love with Shouichi wasn't so obvious from the outset. I think that these things are much better if developed during the VN itself...
My favorite side character was probably Megumi, the stripper who served as a friend to Kanade. She only showed up in Kanade's route, but she was really funny and charming in her own right. She wasn't complex at all, but she did everything she needed to do and was fun to listen to. Honorable mention goes to the cat. <3
As for the forced auto-text during the concert scenes, I wouldn't change it if I could (even though 9 times out of 10 forced auto-mode drives me insane). There's a certain magic to the concert scenes that makes them incredibly powerful and evocative, and I think that's part of it. It's almost as though you're experiencing things in real-time with the characters.

Nice to meet you~!

Nice to meet you~!

The music. By that I mean thrice the bgm, the actual songs and how "music" is basically the seventh main character in and of itself.
Most visual novels (or stories in general for that matter) have a theme, be it coming of age, redemption or plain old revenge and use various settings like highschool demon fighting or getting into a band as vehicles to drive the plot along.
Deardrops however, is about music more than anything else. Music goes through every fiber of the writing and I love it. Music is the setting, plot and tone, everything else is along for the ride.
Not having an enforced play order actually; Not reading Riho last will feel very underwhelming. And while Kanade's and even Yayoi's stories gave more things about universe and plot away, Rimu's route is pretty pointless? I didn't even like it as a fun "side-dish", like the Majikoi side routes for the boys. 
If I was put on the spot on what to improve immediately about this VN? Rimu's route. 
I adore jaded, cynical adult figures, especially when they come in the body of a 9 year old girl. 

I would say it's immersive for first time readers, because it forces you to follow along with the music (even more so for japanese readers, since they can actually understand the lyrics). People who are rereading Deardrops however, are most likely annoyed. 
 
... Oh wait, I'm not a member. Who cares, I love rattling on about Deardrops. Just in case anyone reading this thinks about going for the fandisk afterwards: Don't bother unless you've read Kira*Kira. You'll be utterly lost.

If you do that for Hapymaher, I'll crucify you.
I usually just use the music in the game.  The exception is when the music really does just suck, like Tsukihime...

To be honest, I wrote this point just several minutes after I finished that route, and maybe I overreacted a bit there. Anyway, it's not like it was entirely Himawari's point that I started to think about dropping VNs. It's more like, finding good VNs to read became a bit too difficult recently, and I'm not sure at what point it becomes just not worth it anymore. Like when I just started, I could just take a random high-rated VN often mentioned in reviews, and I was almost guarantied to like it, at least to some extend. For some reason, I managed to like VNs for that is good in them and almost completely overlook their flaws. There still were some VNs I didn't really like (mostly, less popular ones), but I always could just drop them at the very beginning and move to something else.
Then, at some point, about a year and a half ago, it just stopped. Suddenly, for almost every VN I played I could say "There were some great moments in it, but ... completely ruins it", or "I liked it overall, but there were some aspects that lowered my overall enjoyment quite a bit". For example, I liked very much how Ever 17 handled mystery, and I had very good time trying to add all things together. On the other hand, I couldn't care less for it's characters, and the final revelation turned out to be so little thought-out, that it dropped my overall mark by 2 points. It all got a bit tiring, and the thought that maybe my time with VNs is coming to its end started to appear in my mind from time to time.
Then for a few months I just didn't have enough free time to read VNs anymore. When I came back, I tried Fata Morgana, and suddenly I was engaged again. And though it wasn't perfect, I managed to overlook it's flaws and get the full enjoyment of the things it does right. The same thing with Pygmalion, though it's actually even more flawed than Fata Morgana (like, 20 times so). Then I tried Himawari, and suddenly I'm where I started. Overall, I can't say I hate it, or this is a bad VN. There are some things it does quite well, and the overall idea is quite good. Just, I cannot connect to the most characters, especially to the protagonist, and the number of plotholes makes it almost impossible to enjoy it to fullest extend. The worst part of it, though, is that I start to compare Himawari to some VNs I read earlier... and I don't see how they are better. It's not a very healthy thought, because it makes me wonder whether those VNs were actually as good as I remember, and maybe my tastes are just changing with time.
Maybe you're right @akaritan and I just need to stay away from VNs for some time. I'll probably try to get through some works in other media that I wanted to try. Anyway, thanks for your advice!
I'm stalling Himawari for an indefinite amount of time. I'm not dropping it, however. I still want to give it a second try, at some point of time. I had a single precedent when I suddenly started to like a VN long time after finishing it, even though I fully hated it the first time. I am still going to at least finish it, but I won't touch it at least before the middle of this summer.
And I'm sticking to VNs with good protagonists from now on.
@littleshogun
Yeah, thanks, but I tried both, though I haven't finished them. Actually, I'm a big fan of Higurashi and Umineko. Though, in case of Higanbana, I just couldn't make myself care about it, and dropped it on the third chapter. As for RGD... I played first two seasons when they the only ones available in English, but never got in the mood to finish it later.
@Funyarinpa
Thanks, but I already finished it.
@Vorathiel
I'm pretty sure Moogy wrote something somewhere... Though I don't have a link, sorry.

I'll cut you, rooke

I've had this experience several times before (thanks, Da Capo), and I really do think that you should just take a break, and probably drop Himawari too. If you dislike it to the extent that it's pushing you away from VNs as a whole, then reading more will be a huge waste of your time. Frankly, I don't think dropping VNs as a whole is a great idea, as you're probably just burnt out and I truly do think that there are still good experiences that the medium can offer you. However, that is your choice to make. What I would do is drop Himawari, and then do something else for however long until another VN piques your interest (be it weeks or months).

Just finished Kanade's route and got started on Riho's route (not looking like I'm going to finish the whole game by April, but I'm going to try!). I'll echo Turnip's comments that Kanade narrating so much of it really helps the route feel more complete. In general, I'm a fan of VNs that let the heroines narrate for a while (the longer the better, almost), especially when that means you see the protagonist from their perspective, so I'm hoping that Riho's route will deliver more of that. I also liked a couple of the new characters who appeared in her route, especially Megumi and Johann, both of whom ended up being much more interesting than they looked at first blush.
The story arc was solid and well-resolved, and felt both thematically appropriate for the game (in contrast to Rimu's or Yayoi's route) and quite different from anything I'd seen so far in the common route. Kanade hadn't really been properly shown off elsewhere, and it was pleasant getting to see her really shine. Also, I feel like the CG artist really loved Kanade; every last CG of her looks stunning. The sprite artist, well, not so much (though her secondary sprite is kind of cute, I suppose).
On to Riho's route!

AKIRA's art has this mesmerizing charm that I really like.
 

I finished the Aqua's route in Himawari, and, let me say it straight, I didn't like it. At all.
The truth is however, that I can't pinpoint what exactly I didn't like. There are still things like unrealistic characters and completely nonsensical setting, but, let's be honest, almost every VN has both, and we still like them. This time however... I saw exactly which emotion every scene supposed to bring, but they just didn't work. The reason, most likely, is that I failed to connect to any of the characters in the Common route, and it worked in that way. Though I have a feeling that maybe I should've stalled this VN before I had more time to spend on it and read the route in one go instead of stretching it to several weeks.
I don't know if I'm going to continue this VN right now. Actually, this VN made me seriously consider dropping the VN medium altogether. My next VN needs to be a complete masterpiece, or I might actually do it, you know.

Moyatarou <3

Moyatarou <3