Beato

The new Utawarerumono anime is not an alternative adaption but a sequel set between 15-20 years after the original. It is based on a VN called Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen which is a sequel to the original Utawarerumono VN. It only came out a month ago so it obviously doesn't have an english translation yet. A lot of people are saying that it's is completely unrelated to the original but this isn't true and they're probably just assuming it based on the first few episodes. While you probably could enjoy Itsuwari no Kamen without having either read the original VN or seen the original anime I do not reccomend doing so. Itsuwari no Kamen pretty much assumes that you've experienced the original Utawarerumono and therefore doesn't always explain things you'd already understand if you've done so.

Finally finished Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen and I can't really say anything but... wow. I wrote a big wall of text with my impressions here but for anyone who wants a tldr: Utaware2 turned out incredibly good and I recommend it even if you weren't super fond of the original (though it certainly adds to the experience if you were). I'd also encourage people who don't consider themselves good enough at japanese to read without a text hooker to challenge themselves and read it anyway. I had only read one japanese VN (Eustia) with the help of a text-hooker before reading Utawarerumono portable this summer and Itsuwari no Kamen is just my third VN in JP. The Utawarerumo series is probably one of the best examples to challenge oneself with as it's almost entirely voiced (even the narration). Just get an okayish phone dictionary (I use the free imiwa) and learn some basic stroke order so you can look up kanji using the SKIP method (radical search is awful for everything but very complicated kanji or kanji where you can't make out all the radicals) and you should be good to go. Big wall of text with impressions below.

I don't necessarily think everything should be available right away but I do think there should be a way to skip past stuff in single player games. A lot of games these days are completely bloated with content or have some parts that simply aren't fun to play or even badly made. I still haven't finished Batman Arkham Asylum because I got stuck on one of the boss fights, the problem wasn't just that it was difficult (though I admit I'm not terribly good at that game) but that it was tedious, HP sponge bosses where you have to repeat the same few actions in the exact same way over and over again simply aren't fun to me (they're pretty much extended quicktime events in a way as you have no choice in how to play) and is definitely not what most people are praising that game for. Why should I have to suffer trough parts that are tedious or annoying to play when I could spend the same time actually having fun?

I've been watching the anime, and soundly enjoying it. Mixed emotions, though - should I watch the anime or wait until I get a copy of the game (probably 1+ years). If you've seen any of the anime, how is it holding up to the game so far? I'm refraining from watching the anime until I'm done with the game so I can't say but I'm probably going to watch it later. I'm pretty curious on how they'll adapt it as it doesn't exactly have much of a story yet. And I'm also pretty sure that the game is including a plot point that was cut out from the original anime adaption so I'm not sure what they'll do there.

Reading Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen. It's pretty great so far. They've managed to keep pretty much all the good stuff from Utawarerumono like the fantastic atmosphere, good art and music and the fun slice of life scenes while also improving the stuff that weren't as good like the characters. In the original Utawarerumono the cast was fun and pretty likable but I only really cared about the Hakuoro/Eruruw/Aruruw trio who weren't exactly great characters either. This time I love the entire cast and they all play off each other really well. Compared to the first game which was a mix of slice of life and war/politics Itsuwari no Kamen is mostly slice of life and the battles are pretty much all stuff that would be side quests if this was a regular rpg. Most of the scenes are just the characters hanging out with each other and lots of eating and drinking (especially drinking). That it's not a harem (yet at least) also makes everyones interactions feel much more natural. I'm assuming that there will be plot and serious stuff later but I honestly wouldn't mind if it just continued like this to the end.

I have been reading VNs since 2008 yet for various reasons I've only read around 50 (I have 46 listed on my vndb but there are a couple more that I've never finished). That I shouldn't be considered a "true fan" or whatever of something that has been my hobby for 7 years purely because I haven't read "enough" content seems pretty silly to me.

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen Premium Edition for Vita

Just finished The Catcher in the Rye, I don't really know what to say about it honestly. I was pretty neutral during most of it but the ending tied it up pretty well so I guess that I ended up kinda liking it in the end. I think that the first two thirds could have been a bit shorter though (not that it's a long book) since it mostly just makes the same points all over. It's pretty easy to see how it came to be so influential at least. Probably going to read something in japanese next, I borrowed Nemuri by Haruki Murakami from the international library a while ago and it needs to be returned soon so I should probably get to that.

I don't really think that the visuals are the biggest problem. A CG can add texture to a sex scene just like any other scene in a visual novel, how the character look at each other and how they touch, and what expressions they make can add things to the narrative. The problem with the sex scenes in visual novels is that they are usually so inconsequential that you could just replace them with a black screen that says "and then we had sex" without losing anything. And this goes for both the text and images.

Most fan-translations certainly aren't well done and even if they were there's still no guarantee that we'd have Seinarukana now. I get the frustration with companies picking up almost finished fan-tls (though I personally think official releases are good) but this wasn't the case with Seinarukana. Seinarukana started as a fan-tl back in 2010. The translator was a guy named nighteye. Sometime between october 2010 and april 2011 nighteye disappeared. He was replaced by a guy named Renkosuke. Later the same year, in July 2011 JAST announced that they had licensed Seinarukana, the project was currently 30% translated, far from a completed translation. However sometime during 2012 Renkosuke also disappeared. In february 2013 it was announced that a guy called Inskipp had been called in to replace him. It had also been decided that the old translation was going to be scrapped because of issues with the quality (nighteye's parts in particuliar were apparently pretty bad) and to improve the consistency. A short time afterwards Inskipp is replaced by Aroduc for some unspecified reason. Aroduc finishes his initial rough translation in august 2013. After that there was qc, editing and programming that needed to be done which would've taken a fair bit of time no matter what. This isn't to say that Jast have handled this project well, they haven't and it almost certainly would have been released by now if say, Mangagamer was doing it. But there are actually tons of fan-tls that were way more finished than Seinarukana was when Jast picked it up that still were dropped or stalled. We have no idea if Aroduc would have picked up Seinarukana if he hadn't been hired by Jast. It probably would still have been sitting there, half-finished without a translator just like dozens of other fan-tls.

Honestly most of the examples in this thread would probably make her laugh even more as "sex under necessity" typically just justifies the porn existing (or adding more of it) it still doesn't make it not porn. I think convincing your friend is going to be pretty hard friend since she is partially right, most popular Visual Novels with sexual content are stories that include porn. Obviously these visual novels aren't just porn, but the sex scenes themselves absolutely are. There's a pretty huge difference between visual novels where the fact that the characters have sex with each other is necessary/important and visual novels where the sex scenes themselves are necessary/important. There is a huge amount of VNs that fit the first example but those that fit the second example are incredibly rare. Nearly all VNs that I see people praise as having sex scenes for the story and not just for porn only fit the first example. I mean there's nothing wrong with liking porn but I wish we would stop pretending that most sex scenes in visual novels are there for any other reason. I mean in most Visual Novels when you reach a h-scene the story just....stops. The protagonist might be incredibly interesting, full of interesting monologues and funny remarks. Yet as soon as the H-scene comes this is all replaced by things like "I rub her breasts" or "It feels like I'm about to explode". And no matter the heroine's personality she'll turn incredibly meek and docile when the time comes. Unless it's a femdom scene, but even then her personality will be just as stereotypical, completely changed into exactly the sort of person the scene requires. She'll be incredibly embarrassed or even ignorant about sex but then suddenly become incredibly assertive if it's needed. A pretty good litmus test: Could this scene be replaced by a fade to black without losing anything of the story? If you can then it probably isn't necessary. A lot of VNs with medium-to-high sexual content will actually pass this, because even if a lot of the scenes fit my earlier issues with narrative stops and personality changes they still contribute something to the VN as a whole (especially the atmosphere) and removing them would change things quite a lot. A lot of HRPGs for example probably wouldn't be the same without sexual content, even if I'm personally not fond of said content. I mean these scenes are typically still porn but they don't detract from the general experience. The main offenders are the VNs with low sexual content, the stuff people usually talk about when discussing VNs. People will defend them saying that the scenes are important to the story, and sex is an important part of life right? And yeah it is an important part of life but these VNs sure doesn't treat it with the same gravity as it might treat other content. Instead of spending 20 minutes on moans and descriptions of various fluids they could use them to actually add something to the overall narrative. You could use the opportunity to explore the characters at their most vulnerable, in what ways they are the same and in what ways they are different. What do they feel about sex? What does it mean to them and their relationship? There are tons of stuff you could explore yet it is incredibly rare to see this in a visual novel. The only Visual Novels I've read that manage to do this Inganock and Sharnoth as they at least attempt to use the opportunity to reveal some of the characters feeling we might not see in other situations. I wrote a bit of a mini-essay here, but I think the potential uses of sexual content in VN is pretty interesting.

English titles I buy physical when it's possible. Japanese titles, though, I buy digital except for collectors editions to save on shipping. I have a 8 GB card for english releases that I got with the Vita, though I'm going to buy a 32 GB card when I run out of space, and a 32 GB card for my japanese games.

Pretty exiting. I wonder if if they'll use the cast from Dual Destinies or if they'll cast new VAs (or use the movie cast like they did in Layton VS AA but I doubt that).

Hmm now to decide between the 70$ or 150$ tier... :/

Either you have changed the text speed or you have enabled the option to display a whole page at a time. The text speed is controlled by pressing 1,2 or 3 on your keyboard. If you have switched to one page display mode you can switch back to normal mode or from normal mode to full page mode by pressing O. These are the default shortcuts to onscripter so if Umineko uses custom ones it won't work but I'm pretty sure it uses the default.

While Aaeru for some reason put all the BL and Otome in the same section on our site (probably because they're both targeted at women) they actually mean different things. Otome-game is only used for games where you play a female characters with male love interests. BL is not a sub-part of otome, it's a different category entirely. Also most Otome with sex scenes are generally regarded as pretty bad. There are a couple of titles that are supposed to be good though like Koezaru wa Akai Hana and Chou no Doku Hana no Kusari, none of them are translated however.

Liarsoft games don't make much money so they are done pretty cheaply, their cg count is usally low and they're usally partially voiced (which Yurirei is). The Steampunk Series is their flagship series so it gets better treatment with full voice and a bit more cg (the next Steampunk series game isn't being published by Liarsoft so I wonder if Sakurai owns all the rights or if she has som agreement with Liar).

Yes, *cough* non-porny *cough*. Not to mention Inganock depicts a relationship between an adult man and an underaged girl in it's purest form. I think you're going a little bit overboard on what might, and might not happen. If anything, there's a chance for the Steampunk Collection, but don't expect any of the original 18+ games on Steam anytime soon. Oh I didn't mean that they were not porny at all, it's just that if Gahkthun could get in the others (Celenaria excepted), should be able to get in too. I personally believe that Gahkthun probably wouldn't get in, actually. Which is sad because I don't think it's going to sell that well and steam exposure would help a lot. Inganock would most likely need to be slightly censored but there isn't any sex or a romantic relationship between Gii and Kia, so only a couple of cgs would be affected, the text itself should be fine unless I remember the scene wrong.

If Gahkthun can get on steam it's pretty much a guarantee that it'll do decently as Mangagamer has hinted that even their worst selling steam titles (like Dengeki Stryker) do better than most of their non steam titles. In which case we'll almost definitely get the rest of the steampunk series considering that all of them except Celenaria (which has regular mosaic:ed genitals) has h-scenes that are way less porny than Gahkthuns (and Sona-Nyl even has a console version). The only thing to worry about is that Gahkthun's scenes might be deemed too porny for steam because of the giant breasts.

Stay Safe!

The reason the database is not currently being updated is not due to a lack of enthusiasm but because of the upcoming redesign of the site. With the removal of the torrents there is no reason for us to to refrain from adding licensed titles to the site as well, this mean that a ton of new VNs need to be added to the site. The problem is that the upcoming site will very likely change the size of several image resources which means that the current ones won't be able to be reused. Considering how many VNs are missing from the database adding them all right now might very well involve creating hundreds of images that will have to be thrown away once the new redesign finally arrives. I could obviously update the entries that already existed on the site before we decided on the redesign (such as majikoi S), but honestly it feels very strange to only update existing entries without adding any new ones so that's why I have refrained from doing so until now.

Are we getting the Xtend edition though?

And it would probably need licensing for the voices and music and stuff as well, it's not Jam Project but that still can't be cheap.

Isn't Kiminozo like just as long as Extra/Unlimited + Alternative? Who is going to translate this? And if they intend to raise enough money to translate a title that is just as long as the Muv-Luv series why can't they use that money to fund a retranslation of Muv-luv instead?

I don't even care if the original route is also preserved. Having several routes is both tonally and thematically inconsistent with MLA and tampering with it 10 years after like that feels pretty gross. And why are they using terms like "more immersion" like it's fucking skyrim?