ChaosRaven

Out of curiosity I've also tried two of those new western render VN's, and for the most part I was positively surprised. Apparently Acting Lessons and Depraved Awakening are the ones that stand out the most at the moment and so I picked those. The former goes more into slice of life and drama territory, while the latter is pretty much a nukige.
Depraved Awakening:
Overall, I found the quality of the two titles comparable, although Depraved Awakening impressed me a bit more with its erotic thriller approach. H-heavy titles with a solid plot are pretty rare and Depraved Awakening certainly tried to give you an interesting story to keep you engaged. You're playing a detective trying to solve a murder case in a film noir setting. There aren't a lot of Japanese VN's like that. The Innocent Grey titles have a similar setting but are way more serious and plot focused with less H-content. Except Cartagra maybe which was also quite H-heavy. The closest thing are probably the mystery titles of Astronauts: Sirius which have a strong western touch and a lot of H-content. Writing was a bit crude for my taste, but I liked the atmosphere and the fast pacing. It also had a decent soundtrack, but almost no sound effects and no voices.
Acting Lessons:
I think the writing of Acting Lessons was a bit better (except for the H-scenes) but I had the impression that it struggled a bit with what it wanted to be. Some plot developments towards the end were a bit... odd to put it mildly. It was also bit 'slow on the uptake' so to speak. I mean, if the VN asks me twenty times if I prefer Melissa over Megan and I'm answering "HELL, YES!!!" and the conclusion of the VN is 'Deeply in love with Megan, but plays around with Melissa', then I really don't know what to say anymore. I think the plot arc with your buddy was the most consistent one, even if I found some of his escapades a bit too over the top lol. The actual acting lessons and 'Improv' in particular was a bit boring for my taste, but I liked when they were just hanging out with each other. H-scenes were poorly written with almost no text in them which is a serious issue considering it had quite a lot of them. Soundtrack could have been better and just like Depraved Awakening, it had spare sound effects and no voices. Overall, I think if you want slice of life and drama and don't care too much about the style, then you probably find a lot more and better stuff amongst Japanese VN's.
3D versus 2D:
Nevertheless, there are a few things that stand out in both VN's and I guess in render VN's in general. First and foremost, the art content is way higher than in tradional drawn VN's. I guess it's way easier to come up with lots of render images and even animations if you have a finished scene in your 3D-render program. Roughly estimated, traditional 2D VN's usually have around 100 - 200 CG's if you include backgrounds, but 3D ones have thousands of CG's. Though it has to be considered that 2D VN's usually create their scenes on the fly by adding sprites in different poses to a background. In 3D VN's those are all pre-rendered.
However, a common problem of the 3D VN's is still the somewhat synthetic look of render scenes and as nice as animations are, they often feel unnatural if you do them without motion capturing. Though both VN's made huge improvements in that regard through the chapters. On the other hand, rendering seems to be a good technique if you want to produce glamour girls with an emphasis on sex appeal. While the faces are still a bit of a problem, hot appealing bodies seem to be easy - there's certainly a lot of potential in 3D VN's with an emphasis on sex. It can't really compare with the 'cuteness' aspect of manga art though. If you want adorable characters there's nothing to see here.
Style differences:
Another point that stood out amongst both VN's is the unique western style of them. The age group of young women in the age of 20 - 30 almost doesn't exist in Japanese VN's. Judging by appearance it usually goes from 5 - 15... and then continues with 30+ in milf nukiges.  Furthermore, since there's fortunately no obsession with school life scenarios, the heroines are older and more mature (and slutty) and less childish than their Japanese counterparts. The pacing is also way faster - almost too fast sometimes. But I definitely appreciate that they don't stretch 5 minutes of story content to 50 hours of slice of life like Japanese VN's.
Overall ratings:
Acting Lessons: 6.5/10
Deprived Awakening: 7/10
But Acting Lessons had best waifu with Melissa...
I've also tried the first three chapters of the upcoming City of broken Dreamers, the successor of Depraced Awakening and I was quite impressed to be honest. It has a cool cyber punk scenario and is more plot focused than its predecessor. And the technical advancements in comparions to the last title are impressive. There's certainly a huge potential here for western developers to make their own thing. Think 'Resident Evil 2 - The Visual Novel' with Leon as protagonist, Claire as waifu and Sherry as walking hugging pillow. Well, I guess I can dream... 

Out of curiosity I've also tried two of those new western render VN's, and for the most part I was positively surprised. Apparently Acting Lessons and Depraved Awakening are the ones that stand out the most at the moment and so I picked those. The former goes more into slice of life and drama territory, while the latter is pretty much a nukige.
Depraved Awakening:
Overall, I found the quality of the two titles comparable, although Depraved Awakening impressed me a bit more with its erotic thriller approach. H-heavy titles with a solid plot are pretty rare and Depraved Awakening certainly tried to give you an interesting story to keep you engaged. You're playing a detective trying to solve a murder case in a film noir setting. There aren't a lot of Japanese VN's like that. The Innocent Grey titles have a similar setting but are way more serious and plot focused with less H-content. Except Cartagra maybe which was also quite H-heavy. The closest thing are probably the mystery titles of Astronauts: Sirius which have a strong western touch and a lot of H-content. Writing was a bit crude for my taste, but I liked the atmosphere and the fast pacing. It also had a decent soundtrack, but almost no sound effects and no voices.
Acting Lessons:
I think the writing of Acting Lessons was a bit better (except for the H-scenes) but I had the impression that it struggled a bit with what it wanted to be. Some plot developments towards the end were a bit... odd to put it mildly. It was also bit 'slow on the uptake' so to speak. I mean, if the VN asks me twenty times if I prefer Melissa over Megan and I'm answering "HELL, YES!!!" and the conclusion of the VN is 'Deeply in love with Megan, but plays around with Melissa', then I really don't know what to say anymore. I think the plot arc with your buddy was the most consistent one, even if I found some of his escapades a bit too over the top lol. The actual acting lessons and 'Improv' in particular was a bit boring for my taste, but I liked when they were just hanging out with each other. H-scenes were poorly written with almost no text in them which is a serious issue considering it had quite a lot of them. Soundtrack could have been better and just like Depraved Awakening, it had spare sound effects and no voices. Overall, I think if you want slice of life and drama and don't care too much about the style, then you probably find a lot more and better stuff amongst Japanese VN's.
3D versus 2D:
Nevertheless, there are a few things that stand out in both VN's and I guess in render VN's in general. First and foremost, the art content is way higher than in tradional drawn VN's. I guess it's way easier to come up with lots of render images and even animations if you have a finished scene in your 3D-render program. Roughly estimated, traditional 2D VN's usually have around 100 - 200 CG's if you include backgrounds, but 3D ones have thousands of CG's. Though it has to be considered that 2D VN's usually create their scenes on the fly by adding sprites in different poses to a background. In 3D VN's those are all pre-rendered.
However, a common problem of the 3D VN's is still the somewhat synthetic look of render scenes and as nice as animations are, they often feel unnatural if you do them without motion capturing. Though both VN's made huge improvements in that regard through the chapters. On the other hand, rendering seems to be a good technique if you want to produce glamour girls with an emphasis on sex appeal. While the faces are still a bit of a problem, hot appealing bodies seem to be easy - there's certainly a lot of potential in 3D VN's with an emphasis on sex. It can't really compare with the 'cuteness' aspect of manga art though. If you want adorable characters there's nothing to see here.
Style differences:
Another point that stood out amongst both VN's is the unique western style of them. The age group of young women in the age of 20 - 30 almost doesn't exist in Japanese VN's. Judging by appearance it usually goes from 5 - 15... and then continues with 30+ in milf nukiges.  Furthermore, since there's fortunately no obsession with school life scenarios, the heroines are older and more mature (and slutty) and less childish than their Japanese counterparts. The pacing is also way faster - almost too fast sometimes. But I definitely appreciate that they don't stretch 5 minutes of story content to 50 hours of slice of life like Japanese VN's.
Overall ratings:
Acting Lessons: 6.5/10
Deprived Awakening: 7/10
But Acting Lessons had best waifu with Melissa...
I've also tried the first three chapters of the upcoming City of broken Dreamers, the successor of Depraced Awakening and I was quite impressed to be honest. It has a cool cyber punk scenario and is more plot focused than its predecessor. And the technical advancements in comparions to the last title are impressive. There's certainly a huge potential here for western developers to make their own thing. Think 'Resident Evil 2 - The Visual Novel' with Leon as protagonist, Claire as waifu and Sherry as walking hugging pillow. Well, I guess I can dream... 

Out of curiosity I've also tried two of those new western render VN's, and for the most part I was positively surprised. Apparently Acting Lessons and Depraved Awakening are the ones that stand out the most at the moment and so I picked those. The former goes more into slice of life and drama territory, while the latter is pretty much a nukige.
Depraved Awakening:
Overall, I found the quality of the two titles comparable, although Depraved Awakening impressed me a bit more with its erotic thriller approach. H-heavy titles with a solid plot are pretty rare and Depraved Awakening certainly tried to give you an interesting story to keep you engaged. You're playing a detective trying to solve a murder case in a film noir setting. There aren't a lot of Japanese VN's like that. The Innocent Grey titles have a similar setting but are way more serious and plot focused with less H-content. Except Cartagra maybe which was also quite H-heavy. The closest thing are probably the mystery titles of Astronauts: Sirius which have a strong western touch and a lot of H-content. Writing was a bit crude for my taste, but I liked the atmosphere and the fast pacing. It also had a decent soundtrack, but almost no sound effects and no voices.
Acting Lessons:
I think the writing of Acting Lessons was a bit better (except for the H-scenes) but I had the impression that it struggled a bit with what it wanted to be. Some plot developments towards the end were a bit... odd to put it mildly. It was also bit 'slow on the uptake' so to speak. I mean, if the VN asks me twenty times if I prefer Melissa over Megan and I'm answering "HELL, YES!!!" and the conclusion of the VN is 'Deeply in love with Megan, but plays around with Melissa', then I really don't know what to say anymore. I think the plot arc with your buddy was the most consistent one, even if I found some of his escapades a bit too over the top lol. The actual acting lessons and 'Improv' in particular was a bit boring for my taste, but I liked when they were just hanging out with each other. H-scenes were poorly written with almost no text in them which is a serious issue considering it had quite a lot of them. Soundtrack could have been better and just like Depraved Awakening, it had spare sound effects and no voices. Overall, I think if you want slice of life and drama and don't care too much about the style, then you probably find a lot more and better stuff amongst Japanese VN's.
3D versus 2D:
Nevertheless, there are a few things that stand out in both VN's and I guess in render VN's in general. First and foremost, the art content is way higher than in tradional drawn VN's. I guess it's way easier to come up with lots of render images and even animations if you have a finished scene in your 3D-render program. Roughly estimated, traditional 2D VN's usually have around 100 - 200 CG's if you include backgrounds, but 3D ones have thousands of CG's. Though it has to be considered that 2D VN's usually create their scenes on the fly by adding sprites in different poses to a background. In 3D VN's those are all pre-rendered.
However, a common problem of the 3D VN's is still the somewhat synthetic look of render scenes and as nice as animations are, they often feel unnatural if you do them without motion capturing. Though both VN's made huge improvements in that regard through the chapters. On the other hand, rendering seems to be a good technique if you want to produce glamour girls with an emphasis on sex appeal. While the faces are still a bit of a problem, hot appealing bodies seem to be easy - there's certainly a lot of potential in 3D VN's with an emphasis on sex. It can't really compare with the 'cuteness' aspect of manga art though. If you want adorable characters there's nothing to see here.
Style differences:
Another point that stood out amongst both VN's is the unique western style of them. The age group of young women in the age of 20 - 30 almost doesn't exist in Japanese VN's. Judging by appearance it usually goes from 5 - 15... and then continues with 30+ in milf nukiges.  Furthermore, since there's fortunately no obsession with school life scenarios, the heroines are older and more mature (and slutty) and less childish than their Japanese counterparts. The pacing is also way faster - almost too fast sometimes. But I definitely appreciate that they don't stretch 5 minutes of story content to 50 hours of slice of life like Japanese VN's.
Overall ratings:
Acting Lessons: 6.5/10
Deprived Awakening: 7/10
But Acting Lessons had best waifu with Melissa...
I've also tried the first three chapters of the upcoming City of broken Dreamers, the successor of Depraced Awakening and I was quite impressed to be honest. It has a cool cyber punk scenario and is more plot focused than its predecessor. And the technical advancements in comparions to the last title are impressive. There's certainly a huge potential here for western developers to make their own thing. Think 'Resident Evil 2 - The Visual Novel' with Leon as protagonist, Claire as waifu and Sherry as walking hugging pillow. Well, I guess I can dream... 

Finished Baldr Sky yesterday, and sadly, it didn't live up to my expectations.
The final/true route managed to fall completely flat and made me uninterested to the point where I didn't really care about what happened to any of the characters. Quite an impressive feat, considering how much I enjoyed the other routes. (Well, I guess it's not that uncommon for Japanese works to start off interesting and then fail to deliver in the end due to going way over the top, adding too much nonsense and whatnot.)
I also have to say that this is one of the worst gaming experiences of my life. Every moment the story wasn't progressing was more or less just a pain in the ass. I didn't enjoy the combat one bit, and it didn't exactly help that the text skip function was more or less useless, so I was forced to wade through repeating content for hours on end as I progressed through the different routes. I probably had to spend at least 20-30 hours on manually going through stuff I'd already read, just because it wasn't properly flagged as such in subsequent routes. Not exactly my idea of fun.
Anyway, I'm done with that now and have started playing Evenicle. Does the story get interesting later on? I've only finished chapter 1, but so far it's just been some shallow plot mixed with rape and the protagonist going around calling girls cute every 10 seconds. (Perverted protagonists really aren't my cup of tea, and it's one of the main reasons I'm skeptical about delving into the Rance series.)
It's kinda annoying that there's no gamepad support, and I don't understand why there has to be unit bars covering 30% of the screen at all times. (It would have made sense if there were real-time battles or as a way to mask a 4:3 resolution while converting the game to 16:9, but that isn't the case.)

/end of whining

So, I finally decided to clean up my VN library and read all those VNs that I got on sales or in bundles ages ago and never played. As a result, I finally got to Alice in Dissonance titles. fault milestone one was one of the first VNs I bought on Steam, back in 2016, and while I liked the first 20 minutes of the game that I saw during my play test back then, but for some reason I never finished the game till now.
Overall, the fault series was pretty different from what I expected judging by these first twenty minutes. If I had to describe this series in a few words, I'd say, it's an episodic fantasy with heavy focus on characters and drama. What I personally found rather impressive about these games is how well they use CGs and visual effects in certain scenes to make them look really dynamic. In my opinion, it's really impressive that a doujin VN manages to use its graphics a lot more consistently and more creatively than many high-profile titles. The quality of the art itself, however, is a bit inconsistent. Overall it's pretty standard anime-style drawings, and there are some minor characters who look a bit strange, but, overall, it's pretty detailed, and there are some pictures that look really beautiful. Also, the first game got a major graphics update in 2018, so now it's one of the few VNs in 4K resolution.
However, if we exclude the graphics, there are some minor flaws that I would expect from a doujin game. First of all, there are no voices. I personally don't consider it a major flaw and believe that some VNs actually work better without voices, but it may be crucial for some people. Secondly, while I personally didn't dislike the music, its usage in the game wasn't ideal. Some songs were looping with very small interval and it was very irritating. Also, there are some melodies that may sound well on their own, but, I believe, don't fit well in a visual novel because they distract from reading. Finally, it's not very important, but the opening song is kind of... meh, if you ask me.
As for the story, the first half of milestone one is mostly focused on introducing the setting and important characters. Which leads me to the biggest complaint I have with this game - the first half is basically just one massive infodump. I mean, I understand that it's necessary evil because of the episodic nature of the series, and they tried to include the infodumps more naturally in the dialogues, but I still can't help but think it could be done even more subtly. There were some occasional small details in the story that, I felt, either didn't make much sense or could be done a bit better. Other than that, I don't really have any complaints about the story at all. As it shifted from the worldbuilding more toward character drama in the second half of the game, it got a lot more interesting. The last quarter is especially cool. All the little details actually come together in the final reveal, and overall the conclusion felt pretty emotional to me, just like it was supposed to feel. Overall, I'd give this game a solid 7/10.
 
fault milestone two (side: above) is pretty similar to the first game that there's little to add. Still, many small details were definitely improved. There's no problems with the music. Actually, I can say that I liked the soundtrack in this VN. In my opinion, the general quality of writing also improved. There are no infodumps, and all the new information is introduced naturally in the story. The visual effects are used even better than in the first VN, especially since there's a bit more action (though it's still not the focus). The overall pacing of the story is also pretty great. Though, I suspect it may be a problem on my side, but I personally had some annoying stability issues in the second half of the VN. It really didn't help the emotional impact of the final scene that I had to replay the whole scene four or five times simply because it was constantly crashing. Still, I don't think I've seen anyone complain about having any similar problems with this VN, so most likely I just finally need to buy a proper desktop PC instead of my three-year-old laptop.
The only major complaint I have with the game is that, well, it's incomplete. As you can probably guess from the title, this game is something like a half of the second episode in the story rather than a proper episode. Excluding the overarching story that started in fms1 and will probably continue before the last episode assuming that we actually get to the last episode eventually, there are two major plot threads that started in this episode, and while one of these threads comes to the proper emotional conclusion, the other is completely left hanging. Well, it's a pretty obvious thing to expect from an episodic release. Still, I can't really give it anything higher than 7.5/10 for now. I will probably raise it after side: below is released. Though, it seems like they are going to release the prequel to the first game first, and, after massive delays, it will probably come out this year, so I'm not really expecting the continuation for another two or three years.
Just for the record, the trailer to fstp looks pretty amazing!
 

Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell is quite an interesting... experience. It's written more like a children's story book, though there is a bit of a twist in the last quarter of the VN. It's also fairly short: it took me just two hours to finish the whole VN. Overall, you can definitely read it even if you didn't read the main fault series since it's pretty standalone. Well, it's interesting example that VN format works even for something so vastly different from the usual galge and otomege. I gave it 8/10 on VNDB, but, honestly, due to the nature of this VN, I don't think like rating it even makes much sense.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the later fault titles. I can't really say this was the most impressive VN series I've read at this point, but it has good potential, and I still enjoyed it a lot.
~~~~
Now, let's see what Kindred Spirits of the Roof is about.
PS. Also, I stalled Baldr Sky for now. I don't know, I just can't make myself enjoy this VN for some reason. I'll return to it eventually and at least force myself to finish the first route, but I don't know when it will happen.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/897220/Summer_Pockets/
It's a bit later than they promised originally, but not by much.
So, enjoy your time playing this!

Hello everyone,
I'm back with a small update ^^.
The crash in Mistoria's Normal Ending has been fixed. Accordingly, I've updated the partial patch to v1.2 to reflect this. You can find the link to the updated patch in the op.
I'm sorry for the trouble and thank you very much for your patience ^^.
This wouldn't have been possible without @littleshogun, who provided the save for Lavirie's Normal Ending, and @Kelebek1, who helped me fix the crash.
Thank you very much for your help ^^. I really appreciated it.
As for the edited images, they haven't been added to this patch yet. I'll try to add them in the next update.
Well, that's about it for now.
Thank you for reading, and see you next time ^^.

https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/senren-banka-release-date-new-announcements-and-other-news
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/part-2-kinkoi-ixshe-and
Senren Banka: As stated in title, releases on the 14th of next month
Making Lovers  is done with translating and editing and Hello Lady is close as well.
Fureraba is also getting a switch port.
NEW TITLES
First off DracuRiot has also been picked up by them from Sekai so the TL stuff is all done.
Another new Yuzusoft title announced which apparently has their CEO’s waifu in it which is Riddle Jokers
The other announcements are:
Kinkoi: Golden Loveriche from SAGAPLANETS which looks like all blonde heroines
Clover Days from Alcot, there was a fanTL being worked on of this for a long time afaik(never finished)
IxShe Tell by Hooksoft which they picked up replacing Melty Moment for now, looks decent, never heard of it.
Looks like its gonna be a solid year from them, hope to get Making Lovers soon ;D

Time for my first topic in 2020, and yeah you didn't read the title wrong because it's what's really happened. Here's the tweet from Nekonyan for the proof.
I think we should look forward to this, because we've been teased for Dracu Riot full patch here several times. As for me, while I still think that it's a redundant release I agree that some other people may interested to get it with proper edited text here, so yeah you may wait until Nekonyan released Dracu Riot if you didn't like the current translation. With this it mean that Sekai must say goodbye to another license because their license is taken again, and perhaps it's only a matter of time to have Tenshin Ranman taken over by Nekonyan as well. For Riddle Joker, well not surprised seeing that they've been shown the SD CG for that in their twitter, but more Yuzusoft VN is always good especially it's quite recent (And apparently relationship between Nekonyan and Yuzusoft is quite good). With this Nekonyan already have four Yuzusoft VNs, and I wonder if we can get Amairo later.
PS - May as well compile all of their announcements here below, and before you wonder all of their new projects are their secret projects.
Secret Project 1 - Dracu Riot

The story begins with Mutsura Yuuto accompanying his friend on a holiday to Aqua Eden, an artificial island city where gambling and the sex industry are legal.

However, his holiday plans are laid to waste after he gets involved in a kidnapping; to make matters worse, he ends up getting turned into a vampire.

As a vampire, he can no longer leave Aqua Eden; so with nowhere else to go, he decides to enroll in a special school for vampires on the island — and thus, his new night life begins!
Secret Project 2 - Riddle Joker

People used to call such unfathomable abilities "superpowers".
Through the discovery of a certain particle during the end of the 20th century, however, the mystery surrounding these powers was solved, with them and their users now being referred to as "Astral abilities" and "Astral users", repsectively.

Arihara Satoru is an ordinary person living in this extraordinary world.

However, that is but a facade.
Hidden beneath the surface, Arihara Satoru is actually an Astral user working as an agent under a secret organization!

His newest mission:

"Infiltrate this school geared towards Astral users as one of its students!"

Along with his little sister, Arihara Nanami, he succeeds in the infiltration and blends in with the students there without a hitch, building a rapport with fellow classmates Mitsukasa Ayase and Nijouin Hazuki as well as upperclassman Shikibe Mayu along the way.

Having not drawn even the tiniest bit of suspicion, his mission continues according to plan.

--Or so he had hoped. Due to an unforeseen event, his true identity was revealed to Mitsukasa Ayase!
But the revelations didn't stop there; Ayase's own big secret was also revealed:

What do you know! Her chest was padded!

The two now held each other's unspeakable secrets within them.
And with that one encounter, their fate would be forever changed--
Secret Project 3 - Kirikoi

Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Secret Project 4 - Clover Day's

It was a buried memory.
It was an eternal oath.
It was a wish from the heart.
It was a regret kept for eternity.

And a childhood promise—

Yuuto was raised in an orphanage in England. He was taken to Japan after being adopted by Takakura Yoshiomi, an executive of his business.

Yuuto, who couldn’t speak Japanese, was supported by his twin sister-in-laws, the bright and shy Anzu, and the cool and reliable Anri, along with the innocent and gentle Tsubame, and the showy and devious Izumi.

The young boys and girls were unaware of love. They laughed and they cried, nurturing irreplaceable bonds.

And 10 years later—

The local scenery had changed so much, and so did Yuuto and the others.

–But there are also things that remained the same.

“Do you remember… the promise we made that day?”

Yuuto's other childhood friends, Hekiru and Hikaru, moved overseas ten years ago.
They are together with Yuuto again, and their memories from ten years ago return with them.

Clover Day's starts during those rich and fulfilling days.
Secret Project 5 - IxSHE Tell

Hajime is the school students' representative and the student council president thanks to whom the rule banning romantic relationships in school was lifted. Although now he's a hero who gave allowed everyone freedom of love, he himself now has no time to enjoy it himself! If any problem arises, the whole success will be for naught and the rule might be brought back...

At such time, he is confessed to by Kasumi, a transfer student who is also his childhood friend. Furthermore, on the next days he was confessed to by the sister school's charismatic student council president Yui and by the school idol who won miss contest twice in a row - Ayaka!

However, one of the few students who is against romance - the "anti-romance faction leader" and the vice president of the student council Yoshino has declared "Come on, let's enter a relationship and cause problems and bring back the ban on romance!".

Hajime was happy to be loved by so many people, but decided that first he should get to know everyone better.

As if waiting for him to say it, his other childhood friend Shiori, a perfect yamato nadeshiko has confessed to him while saying she knows him best of all.

Right after the ban on love has been lifted, the protagonist finds himself incredibly popular with several girls approaching him aggressively and from all directions. His love story begins abruptly...

I'd say not liking characters is a valid reason not to get romantically involved with them. 
Not sure if you're joking about the special ending. 
 
For what it's worth Rika was surprisingly second best girl after Misaki for me. Her route doesn't have many scenes to blow you out of the water, but it feels really genuine.
For me it felt like Misaki was the center of the VN, she had the backstory, she had all the impactful moments, she even had a fangirl to make things even more about her, so the competition was kinda rigged from the beginning.

I meant more in the sense that she starts out completely useless but is able to overcome all obstacles through the power of friendship and plot devices.

You might actually have a point with that. Rika really surprised me at the start, when she criticised Masaya regarding the bad timing of their practice event. That takes courage and I didn't expect that much bite from her. I also think that her flying style did fit her personality, which is something I definitely can't say about Asuka.
Truth to be told, I didn't really like her character design and voice and I'm not a big friend of dere heroines anyway. And that makes it pretty hard to warm up for a romance route. I'd lie if I'd say that appearance wouldn't matter for me. 
Asuka's an ultra pacifist dere-dere. She's certainly the last heroine I'd call a battle shounen type. lol

So, I've finally finished this VN. Though, I've only finished Misaki's and Asuka's routes, Rika didn't interest me and Mashiro, despite being adorable, was a bit too loli for me for a romance route.
Overall, this was certainly a well made VN, where a lot of effort was put into it by the creators. Not only in terms of art, but also the whole flying circus scenario was well-developed. Regarding the art, the VN doesn't only convince with its detailed backgounds that even include background characters, but also with its massive CG count. There are well over hundred of them and the flight scenes aren't even included in those. The flying circus scenario also lifts this above your average school life moege. Although some descriptions and diagrams didn't really make sense, the sport itself was well-thought out with specific rules, equipment, tactics and the whole media spectacle around it.
The quality of the side characters also deserves praise. Aoi was a convincing mentor, Saki an impressive opponent that really had a special aura around her, Madoka was just hilarious and Satouin not being a main heroine was almost a crime. But not only the female side characters did impress, Shirase was a pretty cool dude I could really imagine to hang around with and Shindou... honestly, he should have been the protagonist.
Which brings us to some of the not so glowing aspects of the VN. First and foremost, the protagonist. While he wasn't bad personality-wise, the VN clearly set itself a goal to bring Masaya back to flying, and to be frank, the VN completly failed in that regard, at least in the routes I played. The whole thing wouldn't have been so bad if they wouldn't rub it in your face the whole time. Everyone is literally worshipping him for his apparent greatness in the past, Irina even considering 'him' the only true opponent worthy to face Saki and everyone else being pretty much just small fry. You also see Shindou being a real team with Satouin and Rika and not just the lazy coward on the ground. I think I was still fine with it in the common route, but in the heroine routes it started to get really on my nerves.
Another negative aspect were some of the main heroines. I think Misaki and Mashiro were fine overall, and I really liked their funny interactions. But I have no clue why Rika was a main heroine. She's a rather bland character, not part of Masaya's team and doesn't even have a lot of screen time in the common route.
And there's Asuka, the supposedly main heroine. But even if she grows on you after a while, there are some aspects about her that just didn't add up. On the one hand she's introduced as being super-clumsy and on the other hand she's supposed to be the next super-genius. As a result you get some akward display of clumsiness with a Deus Ex Machina thrown in every now and then, like 'accidentally' making a back-flip out of full sprint. And it got even worse in her route when the duels with Saki develop more and more into over-the-top chuuni battles with glowing halos, teleporting and what not. And Asuka never really looked like the sporty type anyway. Her true and most admirable strength was her positive attitude and never-give-up mentality. They should have focused more on that and let her win against the odds instead of coming up with that whole Deus Ex Machina bogus. Misaki was a lot more convincing as genius girl hold back by lazy attitude.
Heroine ranking: Satouin > Misaki > Mashiro = Madoka > Saki >> Asuka > Rika
Overall rating: 7/10
During the common route I had the VN still mostly rated at a 7.5, but the routes itself were a bit underwhelming, mainly because of the protagonist and the VN's obsession to make Asuka someone she really isn't. Nevertheless, this is certainly a good moege well-worth checking out, even if it doesn't reach 'very good' level in my book.

So, I've finally finished this VN. Though, I've only finished Misaki's and Asuka's routes, Rika didn't interest me and Mashiro, despite being adorable, was a bit too loli for me for a romance route.
Overall, this was certainly a well made VN, where a lot of effort was put into it by the creators. Not only in terms of art, but also the whole flying circus scenario was well-developed. Regarding the art, the VN doesn't only convince with its detailed backgounds that even include background characters, but also with its massive CG count. There are well over hundred of them and the flight scenes aren't even included in those. The flying circus scenario also lifts this above your average school life moege. Although some descriptions and diagrams didn't really make sense, the sport itself was well-thought out with specific rules, equipment, tactics and the whole media spectacle around it.
The quality of the side characters also deserves praise. Aoi was a convincing mentor, Saki an impressive opponent that really had a special aura around her, Madoka was just hilarious and Satouin not being a main heroine was almost a crime. But not only the female side characters did impress, Shirase was a pretty cool dude I could really imagine to hang around with and Shindou... honestly, he should have been the protagonist.
Which brings us to some of the not so glowing aspects of the VN. First and foremost, the protagonist. While he wasn't bad personality-wise, the VN clearly set itself a goal to bring Masaya back to flying, and to be frank, the VN completly failed in that regard, at least in the routes I played. The whole thing wouldn't have been so bad if they wouldn't rub it in your face the whole time. Everyone is literally worshipping him for his apparent greatness in the past, Irina even considering 'him' the only true opponent worthy to face Saki and everyone else being pretty much just small fry. You also see Shindou being a real team with Satouin and Rika and not just the lazy coward on the ground. I think I was still fine with it in the common route, but in the heroine routes it started to get really on my nerves.
Another negative aspect were some of the main heroines. I think Misaki and Mashiro were fine overall, and I really liked their funny interactions. But I have no clue why Rika was a main heroine. She's a rather bland character, not part of Masaya's team and doesn't even have a lot of screen time in the common route.
And there's Asuka, the supposedly main heroine. But even if she grows on you after a while, there are some aspects about her that just didn't add up. On the one hand she's introduced as being super-clumsy and on the other hand she's supposed to be the next super-genius. As a result you get some akward display of clumsiness with a Deus Ex Machina thrown in every now and then, like 'accidentally' making a back-flip out of full sprint. And it got even worse in her route when the duels with Saki develop more and more into over-the-top chuuni battles with glowing halos, teleporting and what not. And Asuka never really looked like the sporty type anyway. Her true and most admirable strength was her positive attitude and never-give-up mentality. They should have focused more on that and let her win against the odds instead of coming up with that whole Deus Ex Machina bogus. Misaki was a lot more convincing as genius girl hold back by lazy attitude.
Heroine ranking: Satouin > Misaki > Mashiro = Madoka > Saki >> Asuka > Rika
Overall rating: 7/10
During the common route I had the VN still mostly rated at a 7.5, but the routes itself were a bit underwhelming, mainly because of the protagonist and the VN's obsession to make Asuka someone she really isn't. Nevertheless, this is certainly a good moege well-worth checking out, even if it doesn't reach 'very good' level in my book.

Chaos;Child sits quite high on vndb and got quite a few glowing reviews, so I didn't really expect it to be an experience bordering on so-bad-it's good. It's incredibly entertaining, but at least in the second half for all the wrong reasons. Its setup was promising enough, but at some point the story just took the worst and most convoluted turn imaginable every time. It felt like the creators had five different clashing ideas about where they wanted to take the story and what themes they wanted to explore and just decided to do them all at the same time anyway.  I finished the VN about 11 months ago and still catch myself thinking about how stupid it was, so at least I can't say it didn't leave an impression on me. 

TL here.
Glad to see people care about this project. It makes it even more worthwhile.
Things slowed down a bit over the holidays as I dealt with family obligations and all that jazz but the pace should be picking up again shortly. As for the progress, I'll leave specific updates to the team lead but rest assured that things are still progressing well.

In Hapymaher's case, the protagonist's and antagonist's perceptions (conscious, subconscious and otherwise) defined the setting at any given time, with some interaction from the heroines.
In that sense, the world was fluid, but vagueness about how much was reality and how much was dream was deliberately orchestrated the way it was, to give the impression of the lines being blurred between the two.  World-building isn't just something like Dir Lifyna's grand setting, but also the more immediate setting.  In that sense, Hapymaher does an excellent job.  Moreover, even characters can be considered world-building elements, depending on their roles.  I honestly consider Maia to be one of the single most powerful living world-building elements I've ever seen in a VN, lol.
Edit:  I'm going to go ahead and clarify my viewpoint on what I consider to be world-building.  
First, world-building is an aspect of creating the setting.  The difference between the creation of a setting and world-building primarily lies in unique lore or aspects that require you to step beyond what can be called 'common sense' or 'things you should know as a matter of course'.  As such, the creation of a high school setting in a charage wouldn't be considered world-building.  However, the creation of a unique aspect of such a school - such as the election system in Primal Hearts - would be considered world-building, as this aspect does not exist as a base template of what a high school is.
Similarly, merely placing a story in a typical fantasy setting is not an act of world-building.  However, adding unique cultural elements, filling in details of daily life for the average person, etc are world-building elements.
In the end, world-building is an extension of establishing the setting, where the writer fills in the gaps left by the template he/she is working from.  Do you have elves?  An elf is a template.  What kind of culture do the elves have?  That is world building (if you aren't working from an obvious template, lol).  

So, I guess I'll also pick my favorites from last year. Though I don't really care if it was released last year, I'll just choose from the ones I played.
Best story VN:
 
I think Fata morgana no Yakata from Novectacle is a clear winner here. There was certainly nothing else that came close to this one in terms of story telling. But my runner-up is surprisingly an OELVN, Heart of the Woods from Studio Élan. I think that's the way to go for the English VN scene.
Best moege:
 
Shin Koihime † Musou -Kakumei- Son Go no Ketsumyaku from BaseSon gets first place for me. I was actually pretty close to pick that in the story VN section due to its strong plot, but in general I see the Koihime franchise still as a moege series because of the all-girls cast and the emphasis on fan-service. And Haruru Minamo ni! from Clochette is my runner-up in this section. I played both titles in Japanese, but if I would have to pick an English favorite as well, I'd probably choose the two first 9 -Nine- episodes from Palette.
Best nukige: (NSFW)
So Mamagoto ~Mama to Naisho no Ecchi Shimasho~ from Atelier Kaguya Team Bare & Bunny gets first place from me. And I decided to pick Bishoujo Mangekyou -Norowareshi Densetsu no Shoujo- despite its loli heroine for second place, because of its surprisingly strong emotional impact. It's probably the only nukige I've read where I had tears in my eyes at the end. And Kyonyuu Fantasy Gaiden gets an honorable mention from me for its surprisingly strong plot.
Best otome:
 
Ah and I almost forgot, Hakuouki ~Shinsengumi Kitan~ gets first place for me for otome, followed by Nightshade. Actually, both would have been strong contenders in the story section as well.

So, I guess I'll also pick my favorites from last year. Though I don't really care if it was released last year, I'll just choose from the ones I played.
Best story VN:
 
I think Fata morgana no Yakata from Novectacle is a clear winner here. There was certainly nothing else that came close to this one in terms of story telling. But my runner-up is surprisingly an OELVN, Heart of the Woods from Studio Élan. I think that's the way to go for the English VN scene.
Best moege:
 
Shin Koihime † Musou -Kakumei- Son Go no Ketsumyaku from BaseSon gets first place for me. I was actually pretty close to pick that in the story VN section due to its strong plot, but in general I see the Koihime franchise still as a moege series because of the all-girls cast and the emphasis on fan-service. And Haruru Minamo ni! from Clochette is my runner-up in this section. I played both titles in Japanese, but if I would have to pick an English favorite as well, I'd probably choose the two first 9 -Nine- episodes from Palette.
Best nukige: (NSFW)
So Mamagoto ~Mama to Naisho no Ecchi Shimasho~ from Atelier Kaguya Team Bare & Bunny gets first place from me. And I decided to pick Bishoujo Mangekyou -Norowareshi Densetsu no Shoujo- despite its loli heroine for second place, because of its surprisingly strong emotional impact. It's probably the only nukige I've read where I had tears in my eyes at the end. And Kyonyuu Fantasy Gaiden gets an honorable mention from me for its surprisingly strong plot.
Best otome:
 
Ah and I almost forgot, Hakuouki ~Shinsengumi Kitan~ gets first place for me for otome, followed by Nightshade. Actually, both would have been strong contenders in the story section as well.

Okay, finished Acting Lessons (completed all the routes and got all major endings. Didn't bother to uncover every single of little ending variations)
It was really good. In addition to what I have already said, I agree that they did the protagonist's male friend thing really well.
After hitting bad ending on the first playthrough, the good one was all the more satisfying.
This VN surprised me a few times, made me shed some tears, and had some nice comedic bits as well. With 3D EVNs it's really hit and miss, since many of them are just plain nukiges, sex sims etc, but this one is really one of the gems.
8/10

I see. I think I'll give it a try - it's pretty cheap anyway and apparently not too long either. It'll be interesting to see how much the 3D-EVN scene has evolved in the meantime. 

That was pretty much my exact reaction when I found it. At first, I thought the high rating might be because of the joke/meme reviews that commonly plague Steam, but I decided to give it a go anyways since it was pretty cheap. Long story short, I think it deserves the praise it has received. At its core, it's basically just a slice of life drama (like you said), but it's presented in such a brilliant and impactful way that I played through the entire VN, all routes included, in a single sitting (totaling maybe 10 hours), simply because I couldn't manage to put it down.
I honestly can't think of any Japanese VNs to compare it to off the top of my head, because this felt much more real to me than those usually do; probably in part due to the fact that some of stuff is based on the developer's personal experiences, and coincides with my own on several occasions.

I've recently finished Kyonyuu Fantasy and its Gaiden fan disc (aka Funbag and Sideboob). Those were some real oddballs. Originally I tried the first one in Japanese years ago, but didn't like it and dropped it. When it got translated I gave it a new chance and read a bit occasionally. Still wasn't really convinced by the routes and was close to drop it again. Then I progressed a bit further and noticed that the real meat of the story is actually hidden in the harem route. That was rather unexpected since in most eroges (and not only nukiges) the harem routes are crap. I then continued right afterwards with Gaiden and finished that almost in one go. Having played both now I think I have a better picture of the series to accurately comment about it.
The Kyonyuu Fantasy series is pretty much a fantasy parody around a very 'potent' looser protagonist who goes from zero to hero. While this isn't an unusual setting, there's an unusual heavy focus on story and character development. The fantasy world is surprisingly rich even for non-nukige standards and represents a medieval Europe setting with fantasy elements. There are several factions, with each having their own representative key characters and soldiers, and all of them drawn and voiced. This also includes an unusual high amount of male characters, with several of them even playing key roles in the story. And not just as villains, the world is surprisingly grey here. Many characters have their own beliefs, strengths and weaknesses and some might even start out as enemies and then turn into friends later on.
There are frequently multiple interwoven intrigues going on. The similarities to medieval Europe are also striking, there's 'Fronce' which is clearly France, Spain is also mentioned as Iberia (?!) I think and even the Vatican plays an important role. Edellant itself seems to be a splinter state of the Holy Roman Empire, although the HRE probably doesn't exist as such in the game.
That said, while the series definitely has some commendable merits, it also has its fair share of weaknesses. First and foremost, the titles have a strong B-movie feeling that can be a real turn-off. All the characters are voiced, but certainly not by the best voice actors the scene has to offer. All characters have sprites, but they've usually just one pose and some look akward or even painfullly bad. The music isn't bad but some tracks are heavily overused and get very repetitive and annoying after a while.
The whole parody theme is also a bit of a double-edged sword. While it might make it easier to overlook some weaknesses, some characters and plot resolutions are also too silly and cheap and do more harm than good to the overall experience. Some characters also change too drastically during the story. The heroines in particular can go from literal hate and scorn towards the protagonist to almost worshipping him, appearing as if they would have been brainwashed.
This being tagged as a nukige is also a bit ironic, because it's arguably its weakest point. The whole boob-fetish of the VN is more often than not just akward or even gross instead of arousing. The art isn't the best and certainly one of the main reasons I've never seen those titles amongst the top sellers on Getchu. The backgrounds are decent, but the character art is very hit and miss. Luceria is probably one of the most ugly heroines I've ever seen in a VN while Gladys looks almost two art generations more refined. While the later titles do show some slight improvements in the art department, I think Kyonyuu Fantasy 3 (Athena) and Gaiden 2 After (Irina) are the first ones where they appear more significant. H-scenes also often appear randomly thrown in instead of being developped, especially harem scenes.
Heroine ranking: Gladys > Aphrodia = Emeralia > Isis >= Shamsiel > Nellis >> Roxanne >>> Luceria
Overall rating: 6.5/10 (KF) and 7/10 (Gaiden)
In general, I'm a bit irritated why Waffle insists to recreate pretty much the same title over and over again. They've good plot ideas and a very efficient usage of art - why aren't they striving for more? I'm sure that if they'd go for something more serious, they could reach a bigger audience.

I've recently finished Kyonyuu Fantasy and its Gaiden fan disc (aka Funbag and Sideboob). Those were some real oddballs. Originally I tried the first one in Japanese years ago, but didn't like it and dropped it. When it got translated I gave it a new chance and read a bit occasionally. Still wasn't really convinced by the routes and was close to drop it again. Then I progressed a bit further and noticed that the real meat of the story is actually hidden in the harem route. That was rather unexpected since in most eroges (and not only nukiges) the harem routes are crap. I then continued right afterwards with Gaiden and finished that almost in one go. Having played both now I think I have a better picture of the series to accurately comment about it.
The Kyonyuu Fantasy series is pretty much a fantasy parody around a very 'potent' looser protagonist who goes from zero to hero. While this isn't an unusual setting, there's an unusual heavy focus on story and character development. The fantasy world is surprisingly rich even for non-nukige standards and represents a medieval Europe setting with fantasy elements. There are several factions, with each having their own representative key characters and soldiers, and all of them drawn and voiced. This also includes an unusual high amount of male characters, with several of them even playing key roles in the story. And not just as villains, the world is surprisingly grey here. Many characters have their own beliefs, strengths and weaknesses and some might even start out as enemies and then turn into friends later on.
There are frequently multiple interwoven intrigues going on. The similarities to medieval Europe are also striking, there's 'Fronce' which is clearly France, Spain is also mentioned as Iberia (?!) I think and even the Vatican plays an important role. Edellant itself seems to be a splinter state of the Holy Roman Empire, although the HRE probably doesn't exist as such in the game.
That said, while the series definitely has some commendable merits, it also has its fair share of weaknesses. First and foremost, the titles have a strong B-movie feeling that can be a real turn-off. All the characters are voiced, but certainly not by the best voice actors the scene has to offer. All characters have sprites, but they've usually just one pose and some look akward or even painfullly bad. The music isn't bad but some tracks are heavily overused and get very repetitive and annoying after a while.
The whole parody theme is also a bit of a double-edged sword. While it might make it easier to overlook some weaknesses, some characters and plot resolutions are also too silly and cheap and do more harm than good to the overall experience. Some characters also change too drastically during the story. The heroines in particular can go from literal hate and scorn towards the protagonist to almost worshipping him, appearing as if they would have been brainwashed.
This being tagged as a nukige is also a bit ironic, because it's arguably its weakest point. The whole boob-fetish of the VN is more often than not just akward or even gross instead of arousing. The art isn't the best and certainly one of the main reasons I've never seen those titles amongst the top sellers on Getchu. The backgrounds are decent, but the character art is very hit and miss. Luceria is probably one of the most ugly heroines I've ever seen in a VN while Gladys looks almost two art generations more refined. While the later titles do show some slight improvements in the art department, I think Kyonyuu Fantasy 3 (Athena) and Gaiden 2 After (Irina) are the first ones where they appear more significant. H-scenes also often appear randomly thrown in instead of being developped, especially harem scenes.
Heroine ranking: Gladys > Aphrodia = Emeralia > Isis >= Shamsiel > Nellis >> Roxanne >>> Luceria
Overall rating: 6.5/10 (KF) and 7/10 (Gaiden)
In general, I'm a bit irritated why Waffle insists to recreate pretty much the same title over and over again. They've good plot ideas and a very efficient usage of art - why aren't they striving for more? I'm sure that if they'd go for something more serious, they could reach a bigger audience.