Hello. ^^
This is really an awesome place. You have no idea how you saved me time to search for all the info regarding the new visual novels out there. This site is going at the top of my bookmarks. Anyway, I'm 28 years old and I live in one of the poor countries in Europe. Yeah, I'm relatively old guy still hung up on video games and anime. Don't remember when I got in touch with VNs, but through some fog I think it all started with an oldie called Hexamoon Guardians on psx. It was in Japanese and I played it even if I had no idea what the hell was going on. But I looked at the images like a retard and it was enough for me. It also had mecha combat as the story progressed through VN style of gameplay. That type of interaction was interesting to me and I wanted to find out more about it. And yeah, it was a shocking discovery which showed me that not all games are made in America. Ah, the life of ignorance...
But anyway, I always try to play most of VNs in order to grasp experience from different genre, even Otome games. But, even then I tend to stay away from some, like those heavy on the heart since I'm a bit too emotional. The characters and the protagonist mostly does it for me in the game, so if the main dude is an a-hole, I'll certainly enjoy the overall story less. I'm even more picky when it comes to eroge. Still, there are exceptions like Lighting Warrior Raidy and Monster Girl Quest that I really enjoy. They are a bit different then your standard VNs but I guess it's worth a mention.
To wrap this up, my favorite current VNs are (in no particular order) are Steins Gate, Katawa Shoujo, Muv-Luv Alternative, Sharin no Kuni, Maji de Watashi ni koi Shinasai, Galaxy Angel, Kamidori Alchemy Meister, Little Busters, Monster Girl Quest and Okasare Yuusha series. Honorable mention goes to 11Eyes but since it was never fully translated I didn't want to include it in my top list.
So, nice to meet you all and sorry for my bad Engrish.
