ChaosRaven

By oversaturation I mean there are too many companies for the existing market. If you look back to the early years of eroge when Fate and Clannad were released, there were much less companies at work that released products of adequate quality, so the few that did exist could sell a lot more titles.
I'm also not sure if the total number of companies is really getting smaller since there are also new companies joining the competition, and there's usually not a extra forum post when that happens. So the overall negative impression might be misleading.

I actually played Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi in Japanese from Feng and I kinda liked that. It's a pretty old title though and their shorter titles after that weren't particular impressing. I think I even tried Gakkou no Seiiki but dropped it pretty soon.
That's probably because the Japanese eroge market is highly oversaturated, which is holding back bigger productions like MuvLuv Alternative was to be realized. So while I wouldn't say that I'm happy that a rather average studio closes, I at least hope that this gives the more established (or even new) companies the chance to make better games. Though, for what its worth I consider the closing of Light a huge loss, since they were one of the only ones that still tried to make story rich titles (even if I wasn't the biggest fan of Dies Irae). Feng... not so much.
Though, it's not unlikely that the employers find a new job at other studios. At least their writer Nakahiro now seems to work for Purple Software with Realive - that's not the worst company you could end up with.

Hello everyone,
I'm back with another progress update ^^.
There are both good news and bad news this time, so let's get started with the bad news first.
Our image editor, glupak, has withdrawn from the team. He's too busy irl right now to continue helping us.
Glupak, thank you very much for everything you'd done/edited for us ^^.
On to the good news, I've finished translating all of the texts for the game! Yay!
I'll take another look at it though, in case I missed something. But other than that, I'll probably only be making the patch now, and maybe posting progress update here?
 
Now then, I guess it's time I answered the question some of you have been asking for quite a while now: Will I translate another Eushully VN?
And the answer is ... no, for now. I've spent a little too much time on this project, so I'll take a little break for now (I need some time to clean up my game backlog XD). After that, I'll probably find some other project to work on. I don't know when I'll start again, but if there is any VN you guys would like to have translated, Eushully or not, you can make a post in this thread. I'll take a look at them, and maybe work on them, that is, if I can get my hands on the VN and the tools to extract the text XD.
Another thing is with glupak gone, we have no image editor. Technically, Nylios is switching over to image editing, but even with what glupak has done, there are still a lot of images left. That's why I'll start recruiting for more image editors to help Nylios with the task.
If you or your friends are interested in helping us making this patch a reality, please post in this thread or send me a pm. Thank you ^^.
Well, I think that's about it for now... I wonder if I can say that after posting a wall of text zzzzz
But in any case, thank you for reading, and see you next time ^^.

https://www.patreon.com/vndb/overview 
List of features planned eventually:
https://vndb.org/d8#4 

I've been going at a pretty slow pace due to being busy with Code Vein, which released at the same time as Aokana, but I enjoy it a lot so far even though not much has happened yet. (I just reached chapter 6)

I absolutely love the amount of detail they've put into the backgrounds! I wish more VNs would take this approach, rather than use backgrounds devoid of people or ones where there just are a bunch of faceless blobs standing around.
Let's just take a moment to appreciate the lady sitting at the right edge of the screen, eating something with a blissful expression on her face.

Then you certainly didn't play much: Princess Evangile, Little Busters, Majikoi, Walkure Romanze, Flowers, 9-Nine series, Tsuriotsu, Shuffle, Akatsuki no Goei, Reminiscence, etc. just to name a few.
And I guess lots of Illyasviel fans would burn you on a stake for denying her main heroine status in Fate/Stay Night just because she doesn't have her own route - she *only* has several anime series for herself. And Inui Sana from Mashiro no Symphony got her own route after she won the official (!!!) character poll.
And just to put things clear, I personally will comment about ANY character of a VN that pleases me, even if he or she doesn't even have a sprite or a text line. If a side character gets mentioned a lot in a positive context, it means that the developers did a good job for the support cast so there's a definite meaning behind it. Naturally, the same also applies reversed for a negative context as well.

Seems like a bunch of people liked my previous video so here's the next one!

Guess it's time for some comments about a few VN's I played recently.
 
So I finished the first two parts of the 9-Nine series and so far I'm liking the direction Palette are going here. SakuSaku had charming heroines, but suffered heavily from 'boredom syndrome'. Here they added a bit of a murder mystery to spice things up and while it's certainly not a mind blowing plot, it's working good enough to keep things interesting. It also gives the main characters a nice team spirit when they have a common goal and enemy together. Each of the heroines also has some quirks that make them likable. Overall, so far it's a healthy mixture of slice of life, humour, thriller and even a bit of chuuni action thrown in. To connect the individual chapters, they had to throw in a bit of Stein's Gate which felt more clumsy than smart to be honest. I guess that's the price you have to pay if you want an ongoing plot through several heroine routes.
Quality of the art was pretty high - it had even (well) animated H-scenes. Music could have been better though, I listened mostly to the OST of Fatal Twelve instead.
Heroine ranking: Haruka > Sora > Myako > Noa
I'd rate both chapters a 7/10 so far, but since I don't have the big picture yet, it's definitely possible that I upvote (or downvote) the whole series again if it's finished.

Next of the list is The Eden of Grisaia, the last part of the trilogy. For me this was the weakest part so far, although people who appreciate Grisaia's comedy more than I do would probably like it much more, since the first half of the VN resembles more a slap-stick circus campaign of the Grisaia girls. During that half, Yuuji himself had also so few appearances that he barely justified as a side character. Even if it got better in the second half, my hope for an interesting back and forth duel between Yuuji and Oslo wasn't fullfilled. Instead I just got a final over the top chuuni crusade to hunt Oslo down.
The VN still gets some bonus points for bringing back Kazuki again. I really liked her cynical interactions with the other characters. Her comment about Sachi was just priceless: "You're all smart and a nice diligent girl - but something if off about you." (don't remember the first half of the phrase exactly, but it was something like that).
Overall, I'll give if it a 6.5/10, though I would have rated it even lower if it wouldn't be for Kazuki.

And the last on the list is Bishoujo Mangekyou -Norowareshi Densetsu no Shoujo-. This is a very unusual VN for me since it's a nukige centered on a loli girl. Usually I skip loli routes and a nukige about one is usual the last thing I'd want to read. But well, this is one of the rare exceptions from the rule for several reasons. I always had a thing for vampires and especially vampire love stories (not so much Twilight, more Bram Stokers and Interview with a Vampire). Despite being a vampire, the main heroine is an angelic white haired beauty and I have a bit of a crush for those. Others would be Suigintou from Rozen Maiden or Sion from Eden. Furthermore, the VN has a very artistic drawing style that fits the gothic theme perfectly.
And it was indeed a very unusual nukige. While most most nukges are more about the 'physical' merits, this one also has a very unusual emphasis on the emotional part. Shigehiko, the protagonist, is a rather handsome and likable guy (which is in itself already very unusual) and he falls deeply in love with Kirie, who turns out to be a 300 years old vampire princess. And this isn't just a cheap saying, Shigehiko would DIE for her in the most literal sense. Kirie herself, despite being an unapproachable tsundere, feels rather lonely for quite some time now.
She's also the more provocative character of the two, approaching a sexual relationship with all the suppressed passion of a lonely vampire. That's not to say Kirie would be slutty, she's actually quite the ice queen, but Shigehiko is probably the first person she really trusts and can fullfill her desire for physical and - probably even more - emotional closeness. So even if they play sometimes even rapey domination games with each other, there's also this umbrella of overwhelming trust that Shigehiko would never hurt her.
Although the many H-scenes were definitely a bit much for me, I definitely enjoyed the rest. It's actually the first nukige that had me in tears at the end because it was so touching. Production values are almost over the top. High quality art works for backgrounds and characters, animated H-scenes and a very atmospheric soundtrack. It's also one of the rare nukiges I'd also recommend for female readers.
I'll give it 'only' a 7.5/10 since I would have preferred it less ero heavy and with a higher emphasis on an interesting plot around the romance, but for loli fans this could be an easy 10/10 as well.

Well, I guess you somehow made me somewhat interested in a nukige, which is pretty rare.
I personally quite liked the comedy in Kajitsu, but I found the humor in Rakuen kind of dry and repetitive. And it doesn't help that after I learned the girls' backstories some jokes actually started feeling a lot less funny, especially the constant bullying of Michiru.
And I definitely agree that it's the weakest part of the trilogy. I guess, I liked it even less than you since I'm personally not a fan of Kazuki myself. To me personally the only parts I actually enjoyed were the ending to Angelic Howl and the Prologue side story. Really a shame after how good the grand route in Meikyuu was.

Guess it's time for some comments about a few VN's I played recently.
 
So I finished the first two parts of the 9-Nine series and so far I'm liking the direction Palette are going here. SakuSaku had charming heroines, but suffered heavily from 'boredom syndrome'. Here they added a bit of a murder mystery to spice things up and while it's certainly not a mind blowing plot, it's working good enough to keep things interesting. It also gives the main characters a nice team spirit when they have a common goal and enemy together. Each of the heroines also has some quirks that make them likable. Overall, so far it's a healthy mixture of slice of life, humour, thriller and even a bit of chuuni action thrown in. To connect the individual chapters, they had to throw in a bit of Stein's Gate which felt more clumsy than smart to be honest. I guess that's the price you have to pay if you want an ongoing plot through several heroine routes.
Quality of the art was pretty high - it had even (well) animated H-scenes. Music could have been better though, I listened mostly to the OST of Fatal Twelve instead.
Heroine ranking: Haruka > Sora > Myako > Noa
I'd rate both chapters a 7/10 so far, but since I don't have the big picture yet, it's definitely possible that I upvote (or downvote) the whole series again if it's finished.

Next of the list is The Eden of Grisaia, the last part of the trilogy. For me this was the weakest part so far, although people who appreciate Grisaia's comedy more than I do would probably like it much more, since the first half of the VN resembles more a slap-stick circus campaign of the Grisaia girls. During that half, Yuuji himself had also so few appearances that he barely justified as a side character. Even if it got better in the second half, my hope for an interesting back and forth duel between Yuuji and Oslo wasn't fullfilled. Instead I just got a final over the top chuuni crusade to hunt Oslo down.
The VN still gets some bonus points for bringing back Kazuki again. I really liked her cynical interactions with the other characters. Her comment about Sachi was just priceless: "You're all smart and a nice diligent girl - but something if off about you." (don't remember the first half of the phrase exactly, but it was something like that).
Overall, I'll give if it a 6.5/10, though I would have rated it even lower if it wouldn't be for Kazuki.

And the last on the list is Bishoujo Mangekyou -Norowareshi Densetsu no Shoujo-. This is a very unusual VN for me since it's a nukige centered on a loli girl. Usually I skip loli routes and a nukige about one is usual the last thing I'd want to read. But well, this is one of the rare exceptions from the rule for several reasons. I always had a thing for vampires and especially vampire love stories (not so much Twilight, more Bram Stokers and Interview with a Vampire). Despite being a vampire, the main heroine is an angelic white haired beauty and I have a bit of a crush for those. Others would be Suigintou from Rozen Maiden or Sion from Eden. Furthermore, the VN has a very artistic drawing style that fits the gothic theme perfectly.
And it was indeed a very unusual nukige. While most most nukges are more about the 'physical' merits, this one also has a very unusual emphasis on the emotional part. Shigehiko, the protagonist, is a rather handsome and likable guy (which is in itself already very unusual) and he falls deeply in love with Kirie, who turns out to be a 300 years old vampire princess. And this isn't just a cheap saying, Shigehiko would DIE for her in the most literal sense. Kirie herself, despite being an unapproachable tsundere, feels rather lonely for quite some time now.
She's also the more provocative character of the two, approaching a sexual relationship with all the suppressed passion of a lonely vampire. That's not to say Kirie would be slutty, she's actually quite the ice queen, but Shigehiko is probably the first person she really trusts and can fullfill her desire for physical and - probably even more - emotional closeness. So even if they play sometimes even rapey domination games with each other, there's also this umbrella of overwhelming trust that Shigehiko would never hurt her.
Although the many H-scenes were definitely a bit much for me, I definitely enjoyed the rest. It's actually the first nukige that had me in tears at the end because it was so touching. Production values are almost over the top. High quality art works for backgrounds and characters, animated H-scenes and a very atmospheric soundtrack. It's also one of the rare nukiges I'd also recommend for female readers.
I'll give it 'only' a 7.5/10 since I would have preferred it less ero heavy and with a higher emphasis on an interesting plot around the romance, but for loli fans this could be an easy 10/10 as well.

Then you certainly didn't play much: Princess Evangile, Little Busters, Majikoi, Walkure Romanze, Flowers, 9-Nine series, Tsuriotsu, Shuffle, Akatsuki no Goei, Reminiscence, etc. just to name a few.
And I guess lots of Illyasviel fans would burn you on a stake for denying her main heroine status in Fate/Stay Night just because she doesn't have her own route - she *only* has several anime series for herself. And Inui Sana from Mashiro no Symphony got her own route after she won the official (!!!) character poll.
And just to put things clear, I personally will comment about ANY character of a VN that pleases me, even if he or she doesn't even have a sprite or a text line. If a side character gets mentioned a lot in a positive context, it means that the developers did a good job for the support cast so there's a definite meaning behind it. Naturally, the same also applies reversed for a negative context as well.

Then you certainly didn't play much: Princess Evangile, Little Busters, Majikoi, Walkure Romanze, Flowers, 9-Nine series, Tsuriotsu, Shuffle, Akatsuki no Goei, Reminiscence, etc. just to name a few.
And I guess lots of Illyasviel fans would burn you on a stake for denying her main heroine status in Fate/Stay Night just because she doesn't have her own route - she *only* has several anime series for herself. And Inui Sana from Mashiro no Symphony got her own route after she won the official (!!!) character poll.
And just to put things clear, I personally will comment about ANY character of a VN that pleases me, even if he or she doesn't even have a sprite or a text line. If a side character gets mentioned a lot in a positive context, it means that the developers did a good job for the support cast so there's a definite meaning behind it. Naturally, the same also applies reversed for a negative context as well.

Then you certainly didn't play much: Princess Evangile, Little Busters, Majikoi, Walkure Romanze, Flowers, 9-Nine series, Tsuriotsu, Shuffle, Akatsuki no Goei, Reminiscence, etc. just to name a few.
And I guess lots of Illyasviel fans would burn you on a stake for denying her main heroine status in Fate/Stay Night just because she doesn't have her own route - she *only* has several anime series for herself. And Inui Sana from Mashiro no Symphony got her own route after she won the official (!!!) character poll.
And just to put things clear, I personally will comment about ANY character of a VN that pleases me, even if he or she doesn't even have a sprite or a text line. If a side character gets mentioned a lot in a positive context, it means that the developers did a good job for the support cast so there's a definite meaning behind it. Naturally, the same also applies reversed for a negative context as well.

Well, Aoi is probably less about her appearance and more because she's more mature and I don't have the feeling of talking to a 5 year old kid in conversations with her like the others. XD
But I'm not a big fan of Sprite's character designs anyway, so none of them makes my heart throb. Backgrounds are great though, especially since they also have background characters.
Why should it not be allowed to mention side heroines? It's not unusual that side heroines overshadow main heroines. Lots of VN's even have fan discs where side heroines ascend to main heroines.

I am very poorly experienced in otome sub-genre but one title was quite memorable, cause of it's opening (it basicly bought me with it years ago)
Amnesia: Memories
It's very, very, cheap on Steam during sales also it's from Otomate. Nothing else comes to my mind. I have titles that you mentioned on my wishlist btw.
Hope it helps.

Bought it! Not sure if all the hype is justified, but since I always had a thing for sports and fighting competitions, it should be something I'd like.
It's also fairly moderately priced with just around 25€, especially compared to Haretaka.

Yeah we already have exact release date for Aokana, and it'll be at 27th later according to their newest KS update so I figure that it would be the good time to open the discussion. As for Aokana, what I can see for now is that the overall reception would be quite a positive one so much that Joyjason gave it 8. As for now, well we can only wait and hope that it'll go smoothly. Aokana will be available in the seven shops (NekoNyan store, Denpasoft, Fakku, JAST, Mangagamer, Nutaku, and Steam), so feel free to get it from whichever shop that you prefer. I'll add more info on the heroines later.
Edit - Now that the time for the release is come, I'll decided to add the review here seeing that there's quite a number of the review although before I'm going to give the link here I can say that more or less Aokana here is quite well received. Those reviews are from the aforementioned Joyjason (He gave score 8 which to say was quite high of him despite he rate the MC as average one here, and that he expect that the MC should fight very hard which may understandable for some people), MDZ (Koiresort translator, and apparently he did delete his site for some reason), Bananashiki (His review point the lack of Music Mode in original version), Warum (He also point the lack of music mode), ThatGuyWhoReadVNs (Yeah that's his nickname and he posted that at Amino, also he like Misaki very much), and VNMusing. Keep in mind that the reviews will have some spoiler to a degree, and that some of those might be quite subjective so hopefully you'll read it open mindedly if you interested to read it first before to play Aokana here.
For the heroines, compared to Koichoco in here we only have four heroines here. Let's see what I can write about them here.
1. Kurashina Asuka

I think it's pretty obvious that people will remember Chisato if they saw the design first, although in Asuka's case she's not a tsundere though. Also unlike Chisato her initial setting is not a easily jealous childhood, but instead Asuka here is a girl that Masaya (The MC) coincidentally met when he went to the school and that she show some potential in Flying Circus. She's still similar to Chisato though, in that Asuka here is Aokana's main heroine. Other than that, she's quite polite to anyone else that she met, and he'll always give it all whenever she achieve a certain goal. Her VA is Fukuen Misato in that her roles are Hoshizora Miyuki/Cure Happy from Smile PreCure (SmPC) anime, Nikaidou Shinku from Irotoridori, Eve from Black Cat and To Love Ru (Both are anime), Fujishiro Noeri from Dal Segno, Himiko Touga from Boku no Hero Academia anime, Natsume Ai from Sakura no Uta, Leonne from Futagohime anime, and Kujo Miyako from Nine.
2. Tobisawa Misaki

If Asuka's design here is resembled Chisato, then Misaki's design here is resembled Satsuki. Although her VA here is not Asakawa Yuu though, but rather Misaki's VA is Asakura Azumi in which her roles are Oosachi Asuka from Hakuai, Tsyuri Kumin from Chuunibyo anime, Hinomiya Ayari from Witch's Garden, Asia Argento from High School DxD anime, Fujimiya Sakuya from Daitoshokan Shippo Days, Shiina May from Lilycle, Kamata Mariko from Idol Death Game TV, and Hagiwara Yukiho from Idolmaster. As for her setting, she's Masaya's classmate who is quite airhead and that she like to eat a lot. Also she love her grandmother very much, and she like to sleep whenever she get the chance seeing that she got low blood pressure and all.
3. Arisaka Mahiro

The heroine with the most obvious animal motive, in this case cat so perhaps Michiru would be the closest comparison here (Especially seeing that Michiru's hair is like cat ear). Masaya's underclassman that like to play the game very much, and more importantly like Misaki very much so much that Mashiro like to following Misaki whenever she got the chance. Her fondness of Misaki here also causing Mahiro sometimes getting jealous of Masaya whenever Masaya getting close to Misaki, but of course Masaya here can have Mashiro to be fall in love with him. Mashiro's VA here is Yamamoto Nozomi in which her roles are Jougasaki Rika from Idolmaster Cinderella Girl, Murasame from Senren Banka, Houjo Cosmo from Pripara, Misono Senri from Daitoshokan, Ouige Chika from Genshinken, Shitaka Iroi from Love Cube, Yuri from Uchi trilogy, and Nosuri from Utawarerumono 2.
4. Ichinose Rika

Masaya's neighbor in that she's quite hostile toward him because Masaya accidentally enter her room whenever she change her outfit quite often, and that she'd attend different school from him and the rest of the three heroines. That alone cause her to be quite distant from the rest of the group, and moreso when Masaya's school and her school have a rivalry in regard of Flying Circus. Her VA is Yonezawa Madoka in which her roles are Ogiso Setsuna from White Album 2, Jounochi Serena from Pretty Rythm Aurora Dream anime, Shirasaki Tsugumi from Daitoshokan, Hirasawa Ui from K-ON anime, Ichinose Miyu from Saku Saku, Sugisaki Ringo from Setokai no Ichizon anime, Hoshino Iroha from Pure Song Garden, and Sasano Momoko from Sukitte Ii na yo.
I guess that's all for the heroines info, and for additional info like Koichoco the heroines VA will sang their respective ending song which is a nice touch.

This is a new solo video series I'm starting to recap Major News each month related to Visual Novel Releases, Announcements, Major Project Updates, and the Community.
For the first video, I wanted to include July since it was a pretty big month with all the Anime Expo announcements.
Feel free to leave any feedback, positive or negative. Constructive preferred.

I heard good things about Code: Realize and Collar x Malice is even higher rated. Both are Otomate and therefore reek of quality. Too bad they are not available on PC. Though, considering Otomate doesn't seem to hate the PC as much as they used to be, there might still be hope.
Hmm, not really sure what to think of this one. The art is kinda weird and while its tagged as mystery, it looks more like slice of life.
I think this nails my taste: Medieval fantasy, gothic romance and strong protagonist - what's not to like?! It's tagged as utsuge though, which makes me a bit worried. Nothing against bad endings, but I hope it has good ones as well. Art style is a bit unusual, but I'll certainly check this out. It's an Otomate VN available on Steam - there aren't that much of that kind. 
Not really sure what to make of this one, but it reminds me a bit of... the Fruits Basket anime?! 
An original korean visual novel - how unique!? It looks pretty decent, although the backgrounds are a bit rough. I'm a bit troubled by the whole highschool theme though - I wanted to avoid exactly that.
This looks and sounds pretty good. It's an OELVN - how unexpected! And it's even higher rated than Heart of the Woods. I think I'll keep an eye on that one. Definitely looks like something for me.
Hmmmmmmmmmm...
I don't know, something about that art style ticks me off. 
Yeah, it certainly looks interesting. It's unfortunate that it's not available on PC.
Yes, I had my eyes on this one already. It looks interesting, but Dreamysyu wasn't so fond of it apparently. It's higher rated than MangaGamers previous title Ozmafia though. I think I might pick it up if it's reduced in their upcoming sale.
Thanks all for the suggestions. 

Sanzen Sekai Yuugi is literally a chuuni otomege. With ero. I'm not sure if there's anything else like it.
Probably nobody will ever translate it officially because expensive voices or whatever, but who knows, maybe I'll do it by 2030 or so.

I initially had a poor impression of the characters and interactions. That issue was resolved the longer I played.
That said, I believe the strength of this title is how much it explores the setting. Instead of telling us a single story, it lets us explore 30 different ways things could've gone. On this aspect, I can think of few games similar on this scale (Cinderella Phenomenon, also quite good, is one of them).

Code: Realize
Collar x Malice
Ayakashi Gohan (translation is a little unpolished though)
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk (has references to Black Butterfly, but they're fairly separate from each other)
If you ever change your mind and try untranslated ones, Chou no Doku Hana no Kusari

Outside of the Japanese stuff Onorub mentioned I think the stuff but Cheritz (Korean company) and some EVNs are worth mentioning. Primarily:
Dandelion
Nameless
Cinderella Phenomenon
(Arguably) Cinders
Mystic Messanger is a mobile game by Cheritz, but one that is widely considered very interesting structurally and not particularly scummy when it goes to its business model.

Steam Prison. I enjoyed this one thoroughly.

Oh, I'll take a guess!  MangaGamer will start developing games using minori's IPs, and minori will sell them!  With the power of friendship, they'll do together what they failed to do alone!