ChaosRaven

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.

Hello everyone.

Before going into the project, here's some information regarding the game:
- Kami no Rhapsody (https://vndb.org/v16341) is a VN/SRPG hybrid by the company Eushully, the same company that made Kamidori Alchemy Meister.
- Sypnosis (taken from VNDB, with some changes made to go with our translation patch):

Translation team: Rhapsody Translation
Team Members:
 - Translator: FlamePaladin
 - Translation Checker: Danywar, Dark_Gamer
 - Editor: Vuken, Yuuko Shionji
 - Image Editor: Nylios, hubb2001, Bilbael, pegg
We have a full team atm, but if you want to join us, please send me a message or post in this thread. Thank you ^^.

Special thanks:
- Huang Yin Ling and maefdomn for their very useful threads.
- binaryfail for helping me find the tools to work on this patch.
- SaintLouisX, asmodean and Aroduc for their tools.
- Special thanks to Kirashi for motivating me to work on this patch, and for the feedback. I really appreciate it.
- Special thanks to Mr Poltroon for your work as an editor in this project. Though it was short, I really appreciate your help ^^.
- Special thanks to Danywar. Thank you very much for joining the team as the Translation Checker. I'll be counting on you a lot from now on .
- Special thanks to glupak. Thank you very much for everything you've done for the project. I really appreciate it ^^.
- Special thanks to Vuken. Thank you very much for joining as our Editor. Tbh, I don't even know if you're in this forums lol. In any case, I'll be counting on you to make our patch readable XD.
- Special thanks to nylios. Thank you very much for joining the team. I'll be counting on you for a lot of things, so prepare yourself .
- Special thanks to hubb2001. Thank you very much for joining us as our image editor. I'll be counting on you for the images XD.
- Special thanks to pegg and Bilbael. Thank you very much for joining us as our image editors. Let's do our best to make the complete patch a reality! XD
- Special thanks to Yuuko Shionji and Dark_Gamer. Thank you for joining as our TLC-er and editor. Let's make this patch the best it can be XD.

Finally, here's the link to the full patch:
MEGA link: https://mega.nz/#F!MstRHI6S!bQVaRTSLnwQPNjYuCJKfpw
The full patch has been released. However, there are still some minor texts that I couldn't find, so they're still untranslated. With that said, they're just some minor texts and won't impact your experience with the game.
Do note that our patch does not include any of the game updates, so you'll have to update them separately. All of the game's updates and appends are translated in our patch though.
Now, with the release of this patch, we won't be focusing on KnR anymore. The patch also won't get update unless there are some game-breaking bugs. Instead, we'll now focus on our other projects.
With that said, please contact us if you encounter crash or any other problem. We'll try to fix it as soon as possible (and if it's related to our patch XD).

This is everything from me for now. If you took your time to read that wall of text, thank you very much. Even if you didn't, thank you for showing enough interest to click on the thread.

See you!

I feel for the poor bastard on the other end, expecting a porn game but having to jerk off watching a bag of potato chips.

Alright, which one of you jokers replaced my potato chips with a weird cartoon porn game?

Every eroge reader should know that the disclaimer saying that every character is over 18 years old, is just a meme that's only there to guarantee you that all characters are minors.
Beware of reading a VN without that disclaimer - you might see a character that's actually 18 or even older! 

As there are some games where heroines are literally kindergartners, it is safe to say that the Japanese heroines must be over 18 in high school, or even in middle school, because they graduate from kindergarten after they are 18.

Uploaded a new video of my Visual Novel Monthly Recap if people wanna see a summary of VN-related news announced during last month. 

From what I read they decided to stop making VNs and moved on to other things, so they never needed to declare bankruptcy or anything like that and of course never run out of money. It's anyone's guess how profitable Aokana was, but the curios things is if I remember correctly they sold their IP when they left the VN scene and said back then " that it is not possible to "revive" the company", maybe that was a misunderstanding or the situation has changed since then.
Here is a link to a news article from back then:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-02-11/aokana-game-maker-sprite-halts-operations-at-end-of-march/.143245
 
I wonder if it is conceited to think that the success(?) of the western release has anything to do with this development?

I think you're good to read it now, actually. I contacted NekoNyan a while back regarding how the Perfect Edition content would be accessed in-game and got this as a reply:
"The plan for the extra Misaki scenes is that they will be accessible via the main menu."

So I'm sure most of you have realized by now that I've finished translating the main story . Never had I translated something faster than any other parts of the story, also because I knew that I was at the last stretch at least for the main story.
So now, all that's left is translating the side stories/appendix stories. I will be translating the side stories while the rest of my team handle the editing and QC of the main story, so chances are, I might finish translating the side stories as well before they finished their editing and QC of the main story.
My original plan was to release another partial patch covering just Saint Irene's chapter and fixes for Eris' chapter, but seeing that I'm done translating the main story, I might hold out until we're done with everything, including the side stories.
But yeah, either way, milestone achieved! Yay!

First of all, watch your language, that's the second time you've done this in this thread. If you want to actually explain your point, go ahead, but if you're just here to insult people, you might as well just refrain from posting.
To reiterate my point, Harukaze wanting to create an all-ages brand does not change what they have already released in the past under their current label. So, them releasing an old IP, Noratoto, in the west 18+ would not change anything. It's exactly the same game, and anyone actually googling the game will find the 18+ content anyways. It's an eroge, after all. In other words, their all-ages re-brand and their release of Noratoto could absolutely have been separate things, done under the two different brands. And since it has already been stated directly by their partners that the reason for the censored release was voice license costs, it's very obvious that this was just a move done to save money, not specifically a move done tactically along with this re-branding.

The decision to throw out the H-scenes here is really irritating. I mean they offer the title dirt cheap for about 15 bucks and people will still be unhappy because of it. If they would have included the H-scenes they could easily sell it for 2 - 3 times as much and probably still sell more copies of it.
But I guess it's the same problem like in Moenovels's case: they hired a translation studio that doesn't do adult scenes. Couldn't they just hire a freelance translator instead of Frognation Ltd.?! The title would have certainly sold good enough to offer the translator a fair payment. And considering the apparently not exactly tremendous salaries the competition seems to offer, it shouldn't have been difficult to find one. Not to mention that I doubt that Frognation Ltd. was such a cheap alternative.
Can't they just a hire a freelance translator for an H-scene DLC?! They could at least offer a compromise and say that if the title sells good enough, they'll consider it.

That's exactly the reason why I'm so irritated that they're selling the game so cheap. I'm pretty sure that they could sell more copies for even 2 - 3 times that price if they'd just have included the H-scenes. I mean, how expensive are those voice royalties just for the H-scenses? Greater than the whole rest of the voices + the entire translation + the whole management cost to localize the title? Seriously?! I mean, do they have the British queen doing an H-scene or what? 

Nah, I read it but I just don't buy it. Harukaze itself obviously doesn't care about all ages at all and I don't really get why their rebrand Tokyotoon should, except for the translation studio not willing to deal with adult content. Besides that, they can always do the same like Sekai Project and stay 'totally' all ages by cheating in the porn through another brand.

Finished Nanairo Reincarnation about a week ago or so. Overall, it was a bit of a so so experience with both, strong highs and lows.
Let's start with the strengths of the title, since it certainly has them. The slice of life and comedy parts are for the most part rather well written, and to a lesser degree the nakige parts too, even though there weren't too many of them. Iyo the nerdy zashiki-warashi house spirit in particular was just brilliant. On the one hand she could be absolutely hilarious and shap-tongued, on the other hand she could also switch to a much more serious tone in the blink of an eye. You could even say she was the true master of the house - nobody knows more than she does.
They also got the overall family-feeling of togetherness rather well through with Iyo, Kotori, Aoi and Fuyou being the solid heart of the cast. The nakige parts were also well done, even though there weren't too many of them and most of them related to Kotori, who was without any doubt the main heroine.
Now to the not so good parts of the VN - and unfortunately there weren't just a few of them. First, the handling of the H-scenes was just awful - for the sake of the story I can just suggest to play without the adult patch. Pretty much all the H-scenes related to the demon characters were enforced and unrelated to any routes. The reasoning for those was also pretty silly and more what you'd expect from a nukige. But even story-wise, there would have been plausible reasons to give you a choice, but for reasons unknown you didn't get that. Especially annoying were the scenes for Iris, a sub-loli character that was so obviously just included as pedo-bait. My personal 'highlight' was the scene that could be labeled as 'dangerous pedophile forces 8 - 10 year old girl into sex against her will' - there wasn't even a 'reason' for that scene.
Next problem were the routes. Technically there were four - for Kotori, Iyo, Yumi and Azusa -, but only the one of Kotori really deserved to be called a route (admittedly, I didn't play Iyo's). But the ones of Yumi and Azusa did only bombard you with H-scenes out of the blue, then break up, continue with Kotori's route and reunite with a final H-scene at the end. I've actually no clue why Yumi and Azusa even got a route - they barely qualified as side characters. The characters that should have had routes are Aoi and Fuyou. My only reasonable explanation for this whole route and H-scene mess is that they ran out of time and budget and tried to shoehorn at least the H-scenes in. It's also a bit odd if a heroine gets a better ending in the route of another heroine than in her own.
And that's unfortunately not all - the plot itself also had some glaring issues. Although the VN had a clear focus on slice of life and comedy with some nakige elements, they got the glorious idea to include some grim-dark murder case in the second half, you'd usually expect from Innocent Grey. I'd be totally fine with that if they'd actually commit to that. However, they somehow tried to mix it up with some of their comedy, making the plot sections in the best case ridiculous and in the worst case tasteless. It already says a lot that they didn't even take the effort to draw a sprite for their main antagonist. But naturally, the resources were there for pervert-san - a minor character that was only included for the lulz. The police was also presented as completely retarded and their little spook-shows to scare the antagonist just embarassing. Pretty much only Kotori managed to give that plot-arc some dignity. 'That' scene did hit home - I give them that.
They should have sticked to what they are good at - slice of life, comedy and light drama - and not dabble in Innocent Grey territory. Imho, the 9-nine series got the slice of life and comedy with plot better done.
Heroine ranking: Iyo > Kotori > Fuyou = Kikyou = Aoi > Yumi = Asuza >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Iris
Overall rating: 6.5/10
If they'd focused more on their strengths, they could have easily gotten a 7+ rating from me. But this was just to uneven for that.

Made my Monthly Visual Novels New Recap for October 2019! Lots to talk about including important releases on Steam, a whole bunch of crowdfunding related announcements, the bombshell of announcements related to Muv-Luv and more localization industry controversy.
 
 
 

Just saw this announcement trailer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York and it looks pretty interesting.
Apparently it'll be a VN/RPG hybrid which will also have some additional game play mechanics like quests, hunger, feeding, disciplines and time progress. It's definitely it's own thing and not your typical OELVN that tries to emulate Japanese anime tropes, and I'm rather curious how this will work out. Will it get more attention from people who aren't into anime art or just miss the mark? I'm also a bit worried if they go too far with the game mechanics and hurt the narrative with it.
Regarding the trailer itself, the backgrounds and atmosphere are great but the characters look a bit wishy-washy to be honest and they don't seem to have different expressions.
But I'll definitely keep an eye on that title since I'm a big vampire fan and of White Wolf in particular (Bloodlines is one of my all-time favorite RPG's).

Just saw this announcement trailer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York and it looks pretty interesting.
Apparently it'll be a VN/RPG hybrid which will also have some additional game play mechanics like quests, hunger, feeding, disciplines and time progress. It's definitely it's own thing and not your typical OELVN that tries to emulate Japanese anime tropes, and I'm rather curious how this will work out. Will it get more attention from people who aren't into anime art or just miss the mark? I'm also a bit worried if they go too far with the game mechanics and hurt the narrative with it.
Regarding the trailer itself, the backgrounds and atmosphere are great but the characters look a bit wishy-washy to be honest and they don't seem to have different expressions.
But I'll definitely keep an eye on that title since I'm a big vampire fan and of White Wolf in particular (Bloodlines is one of my all-time favorite RPG's).

Just saw this announcement trailer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York and it looks pretty interesting.
Apparently it'll be a VN/RPG hybrid which will also have some additional game play mechanics like quests, hunger, feeding, disciplines and time progress. It's definitely it's own thing and not your typical OELVN that tries to emulate Japanese anime tropes, and I'm rather curious how this will work out. Will it get more attention from people who aren't into anime art or just miss the mark? I'm also a bit worried if they go too far with the game mechanics and hurt the narrative with it.
Regarding the trailer itself, the backgrounds and atmosphere are great but the characters look a bit wishy-washy to be honest and they don't seem to have different expressions.
But I'll definitely keep an eye on that title since I'm a big vampire fan and of White Wolf in particular (Bloodlines is one of my all-time favorite RPG's).

Just saw this announcement trailer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York and it looks pretty interesting.
Apparently it'll be a VN/RPG hybrid which will also have some additional game play mechanics like quests, hunger, feeding, disciplines and time progress. It's definitely it's own thing and not your typical OELVN that tries to emulate Japanese anime tropes, and I'm rather curious how this will work out. Will it get more attention from people who aren't into anime art or just miss the mark? I'm also a bit worried if they go too far with the game mechanics and hurt the narrative with it.
Regarding the trailer itself, the backgrounds and atmosphere are great but the characters look a bit wishy-washy to be honest and they don't seem to have different expressions.
But I'll definitely keep an eye on that title since I'm a big vampire fan and of White Wolf in particular (Bloodlines is one of my all-time favorite RPG's).

Just saw this announcement trailer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York and it looks pretty interesting.
Apparently it'll be a VN/RPG hybrid which will also have some additional game play mechanics like quests, hunger, feeding, disciplines and time progress. It's definitely it's own thing and not your typical OELVN that tries to emulate Japanese anime tropes, and I'm rather curious how this will work out. Will it get more attention from people who aren't into anime art or just miss the mark? I'm also a bit worried if they go too far with the game mechanics and hurt the narrative with it.
Regarding the trailer itself, the backgrounds and atmosphere are great but the characters look a bit wishy-washy to be honest and they don't seem to have different expressions.
But I'll definitely keep an eye on that title since I'm a big vampire fan and of White Wolf in particular (Bloodlines is one of my all-time favorite RPG's).

Today âge hold their 20th anniversary event  called "Still Breathing".
During which they announced a few things:
- Muv-Luv Alternative Sequel

Called Muv-Luv Integrate
Release TBD

Here is a link to an article on Twinfinite:
https://twinfinite.net/2019/10/muv-luv-integrate/
 
- Muv-Luv Action Game for PC and Smartphones
Code Named: “Project Mikhail”
to be released on Steam in Japanese, English and Chinese in 2020 or 2021
No gacha, but possibly a subscription or battlepass
Here is a link to an article on Twinfinite:
https://twinfinite.net/2019/10/new-muv-luv-action-game-code-named-project-mikhail-announced-for-pc-and-mobile/
 
- Kimi ga Nomzomu Eien Reboot
Scope is still undecided

Here is a link to an article on Twinfinite:
https://twinfinite.net/2019/10/kimi-ga-nozomu-eien-rumbling-hearts-reboot/
 
- Muv-Luv Alternative Anime
No more Details just a teaser.
 
- They are also working on a mobile version of Muv-Luv and are still planning to release Muv-Luv Unlimited The Day After Episode 04.
Here is a link to an article on Twinfinite:
https://twinfinite.net/2019/10/muv-luv-mobile-unlimited-day-after-4/
 
The full livestream (including an english tranlstaion) can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIPDPs3eAv4
Here is also a good summary if you don't want to wtach the whole thing:
https://aaltomies.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/short-synopsis-on-ages-20th-anniversary-stream-2019-10-22/
 

Haha, seriously? I'm not that far along yet, but that sounds like some really lousy prioritizing! I'd actually been thinking that it feels like a pretty high budget production so far, but it seems they went wrong somewhere down the line then.

Minori VN's are usually very heavy on drama, I'd therefore recommend eden. And if you'd still be willing to give highschool theme a try, then I'd suggest ef - A Fairytale of the Two which is also from Minori. It's the only VN I ever had to stop reading, because it managed to throw me in a serious depression.
And Fata Morgana no Yakata is probably one of the best drama VN's ever written - I highly recommend it.