Daydreamer97

I never said that loli content should be banned. I said that we, as VN fans, shouldn't promote it. I consider this a moral issue, not just a reputation issue. Promoting that content (especially without adequate warnings) alienates actual, real life victims of child sexual abuse--this is why the Fuwa recommendation site (which I help out with) includes all loli/shota content under the "underage sexual content" warning, regardless of the characters' actual ages; someone who's upset by pictures of children in sexual situations is unlikely to be comforted by "oh, but she's actually 120, not 12!"
Comparing lolicon to LGBT+ content is totally ridiculous. What's the worst thing that could happen by someone discovering BL? They discover that they're gay? Oh no, the horror.

I'm mostly interested in the more niche otome genre but I'm really seeing a lot of potential there. However, most are really interested in F2P mobile games (see how popular Mystic Messenger is). Also, there are so many EVNs for PC which are mainly otome (and even Russian ones which get translated in English). On the PC side, there's a lot of growing interest with how successful Cinderella Phenomenon is. I think as the fanbase matures even more, there would be more interest in the paid stuff. I mean, several kickstarters were successful and expected to deliver. The quality in general is also becoming better with more interesting plots and characters. (They even feature LGBTQ+ love interests!) Especially since otome EVNS love their strong female characters.
 
What I'd also really love to see though is something like The House in Fata Morgana. Not otome but compelling narrative, strong visuals, and an absolutely beautiful and haunting soundtrack. I hope to see something like that as the audience grows.

I'm mostly interested in the more niche otome genre but I'm really seeing a lot of potential there. However, most are really interested in F2P mobile games (see how popular Mystic Messenger is). Also, there are so many EVNs for PC which are mainly otome (and even Russian ones which get translated in English). On the PC side, there's a lot of growing interest with how successful Cinderella Phenomenon is. I think as the fanbase matures even more, there would be more interest in the paid stuff. I mean, several kickstarters were successful and expected to deliver. The quality in general is also becoming better with more interesting plots and characters. (They even feature LGBTQ+ love interests!) Especially since otome EVNS love their strong female characters.
 
What I'd also really love to see though is something like The House in Fata Morgana. Not otome but compelling narrative, strong visuals, and an absolutely beautiful and haunting soundtrack. I hope to see something like that as the audience grows.

It's more of a choice. I would read it either way but I'm really busy with school. But I guess I can read it guilt-free.

Aksys Games announced
- 7'scarlet https://vndb.org/v18162 , murder mystery otome game.
-Kokuchou no Psychedelica https://vndb.org/v15771 and Haitaka no Psychedelica https://vndb.org/v18643 , Ghotic otome games
- a ps4 port of Code;Realize and its fandisc ( Bouquet of Rainbow )
we also have a date for Bad Apple Wars: september 29

And E2 gaming have disabled their facebook page. It probably had something to do with all the negative comments piling up on it  

TBH, the Taisho x Alice thing (and maybe even all the stuff on that Twitter thread from the last few years) doesn't look to me like a con so much as, like the person in that twitter thread suggested near the end, absolutely gross incompetence. I just can't help wondering how these guys got the job in the first place. I can understand that JP companies will have trouble finding competent people when they have to establish new contacts and whatnot, but it's not like there aren't well-known localizers of JP games. Even in the super specific niche of otome VN localizations, surely they would know about and try to work with Aksys, and failing that, at least some other known entity like MG or Sekai Project? I just can't imagine these clowns from E2Gaming coming off as trustworthy business partners. Guess there's no use speculating about it...
 
Edit: As for the dub, I thought this would be obvious, but just in case some people don't realize: the voice acting for Japanese games is usually licensed out for a specific purpose (i.e., a release in Japan) by the voice acting agency, not by the license holders for the rest of the game. The agency will retain rights for, say, an international release. Moreover, JP voice acting licensing is expensive. In the case of most VNs, it would probably literally be cheaper, or at least break even, and would possibly even be less of a hassle in some cases, to record a completely new, fairly competent dub by voice actors from the the standard anime voice acting talent pool Sentai/Funi/Aniplex employs, rather than to license the JP voice acting for an international release. The reason we get subs only, rather than dubs only, for all VNs isn't a matter of cost efficiency: it's because the companies doing the work aren't required to provide dubs for their fans (because we're all weebs and prefer the original VA anyway), and because organizationally speaking, they're better at doing licensing negotiations with JP companies than they are at organizing an English dub recording. But keep in mind there are a lot of these JP games that have historically not been released with dual audio (look at the somewhat-niche Atelier series, which for a long time was dub-only), which a lot of us weebs complain about: that's a cost-savings measure, make no mistake, and it can be a pretty huge savings, depending on the relative size of your audience.
Now, imagine you're not going to do a competent job with the dub: no professional studio, no professional actors, just you, grossly incompetent E2Gaming, on your home computer with a mic you bought off Amazon and Pro Tools. You're talking about saving many tens of thousands of dollars on voice acting at that point. They make money, Primula saves money, you cut one more licensing negotiation out of the picture. Everybody wins... except the people who have to listen to it.
The thing that's hard to understand is how E2Gaming sold Primula on this being a good idea, since Primula's people are the very ones who shell out so much money for good voice acting. Obviously they understand how important it is to their own customers. Maybe E2Gaming somehow spun it as "Well, Americans will obviously want English voice acting." Dunno. We probably never will find out.

https://twitter.com/i/moments/862501282099191808
I'll just leave this here

Has anyone heard of what happened with Taisho Alice's localization? It was a mess- English dub by this one guy, the translation's all over the place and the Hiragana/Katakana Alice/Arisu thing. Otome fans were really disrespected by this company. It was shady from the start but I didn't expect it to be this much of a train wreck. 
Please check out this thread detailing how bad it was. I believe several translators also commented on the issue.
 
 

Has anyone heard of what happened with Taisho Alice's localization? It was a mess- English dub by this one guy, the translation's all over the place and the Hiragana/Katakana Alice/Arisu thing. Otome fans were really disrespected by this company. It was shady from the start but I didn't expect it to be this much of a train wreck. 
Please check out this thread detailing how bad it was. I believe several translators also commented on the issue.
 
 

What makes me wonder is...does Primula care or know about this? How did these....or....this....guy manage to get their agreement for a localization in the first place...

I cant believe i am saying this, but thank you bank account for not being able to afford this game. I probably would have bought it if i had the funds lol. It looked really promising as well. This reminds me of the sao hollow fragment trash translation for the vita lol.
EDIT: That voice acting though.. are they trying to create another arc rise fantasia?
 
 

That's what everyone's wondering honestly. Taisho Alice really seems like a good game and it's a shame this guy got the license instead of Mangagamer/Sekai Project/Aksys. I want to see how Primula would react to this.

Has anyone heard of what happened with Taisho Alice's localization? It was a mess- English dub by this one guy, the translation's all over the place and the Hiragana/Katakana Alice/Arisu thing. Otome fans were really disrespected by this company. It was shady from the start but I didn't expect it to be this much of a train wreck. 
Please check out this thread detailing how bad it was. I believe several translators also commented on the issue.
 
 

That's what everyone's wondering honestly. Taisho Alice really seems like a good game and it's a shame this guy got the license instead of Mangagamer/Sekai Project/Aksys. I want to see how Primula would react to this.

That's what everyone's wondering honestly. Taisho Alice really seems like a good game and it's a shame this guy got the license instead of Mangagamer/Sekai Project/Aksys. I want to see how Primula would react to this.

That's what everyone's wondering honestly. Taisho Alice really seems like a good game and it's a shame this guy got the license instead of Mangagamer/Sekai Project/Aksys. I want to see how Primula would react to this.

Has anyone heard of what happened with Taisho Alice's localization? It was a mess- English dub by this one guy, the translation's all over the place and the Hiragana/Katakana Alice/Arisu thing. Otome fans were really disrespected by this company. It was shady from the start but I didn't expect it to be this much of a train wreck. 
Please check out this thread detailing how bad it was. I believe several translators also commented on the issue.
 
 

I'm not sure about otome games on PS Vita (if you have one) but Code:Realize is highly recommended. It's a steampunk story-focuses otome game with real-life and literary characters (Arsene Lupin, Victor Frankenstein, etc.)
 
Steam has a variety of otome games. Amnesia: Memories, Nightshade, and Ozmafia are the best Japanese localized otome games. 
Amnesia: Memories A heroine with Amnesia who tries to regain her memories. It's kinda slice of life-ish but it can get really weird. It also has a lot of bad ends.
Nightshade: I really recommend this one because the MC is really amazing. She's basically a shinobi princess but other than that, anyrhing else counts as spoilers.
Ozmafia: Grimm's fairytale characters reimagined as Mafia members.
A Korean company, Cheritz also has a couple of localized ones- Nameless and Dandelion. Both are also well-regarded. Both are fully voiced in Korean.
There are also OELVNs that are quite good.  Backstage Pass is fully voiced in English. It has stats-raising though. Games without voices that are good are X-Note, Area-X, The Royal Trap, and Mystic Destinies. 
There's a pretty notable free game on Steam too. Cinderella Phenomenon is free, has an interesting story and has maybe 25+ hours of content. Itch.io and the lemmasoft forums have a lot of free EVN otomes like Asagao Academy, Airis, and Lads in Distress.

I'm not sure about otome games on PS Vita (if you have one) but Code:Realize is highly recommended. It's a steampunk story-focuses otome game with real-life and literary characters (Arsene Lupin, Victor Frankenstein, etc.)
 
Steam has a variety of otome games. Amnesia: Memories, Nightshade, and Ozmafia are the best Japanese localized otome games. 
Amnesia: Memories A heroine with Amnesia who tries to regain her memories. It's kinda slice of life-ish but it can get really weird. It also has a lot of bad ends.
Nightshade: I really recommend this one because the MC is really amazing. She's basically a shinobi princess but other than that, anyrhing else counts as spoilers.
Ozmafia: Grimm's fairytale characters reimagined as Mafia members.
A Korean company, Cheritz also has a couple of localized ones- Nameless and Dandelion. Both are also well-regarded. Both are fully voiced in Korean.
There are also OELVNs that are quite good.  Backstage Pass is fully voiced in English. It has stats-raising though. Games without voices that are good are X-Note, Area-X, The Royal Trap, and Mystic Destinies. 
There's a pretty notable free game on Steam too. Cinderella Phenomenon is free, has an interesting story and has maybe 25+ hours of content. Itch.io and the lemmasoft forums have a lot of free EVN otomes like Asagao Academy, Airis, and Lads in Distress.

I'm not sure about otome games on PS Vita (if you have one) but Code:Realize is highly recommended. It's a steampunk story-focuses otome game with real-life and literary characters (Arsene Lupin, Victor Frankenstein, etc.)
 
Steam has a variety of otome games. Amnesia: Memories, Nightshade, and Ozmafia are the best Japanese localized otome games. 
Amnesia: Memories A heroine with Amnesia who tries to regain her memories. It's kinda slice of life-ish but it can get really weird. It also has a lot of bad ends.
Nightshade: I really recommend this one because the MC is really amazing. She's basically a shinobi princess but other than that, anyrhing else counts as spoilers.
Ozmafia: Grimm's fairytale characters reimagined as Mafia members.
A Korean company, Cheritz also has a couple of localized ones- Nameless and Dandelion. Both are also well-regarded. Both are fully voiced in Korean.
There are also OELVNs that are quite good.  Backstage Pass is fully voiced in English. It has stats-raising though. Games without voices that are good are X-Note, Area-X, The Royal Trap, and Mystic Destinies. 
There's a pretty notable free game on Steam too. Cinderella Phenomenon is free, has an interesting story and has maybe 25+ hours of content. Itch.io and the lemmasoft forums have a lot of free EVN otomes like Asagao Academy, Airis, and Lads in Distress.

Curently reading Tokyo Babel. I finished Raziel's route and while it's good, I personally couldn't feel the 'romance'. It feels forced to be honest, like they shoehorned it at the last minute. I couldn't see any reason they would fall in love- it just happened. I do like the story even though I find myself rolling my eyes at parts. 
I'm personally impressed by the amount of research that went in the lore and worldbuilding. I like the references made to Judeo-Christian mythology and even apocryphal books. I have an interest in apocrypha so I really liked those elements in this VN. I loved how they incorporated all those elements in this VN and it ended up that I'm more excited about exposition than the action scenes. I'm a practicing Catholic so some parts did make me uncomfortable. I just reminded myself that it's all fictional but it's definitely not something I'd recommend to my more conservative religious friends haha.
I have high hopes for this VN. I hope Sorami's and Lilith's routes are better because as good as Raziel's route is, it's lacking. Sorami and Setsuna so far seems to have more chemistry than Raziel and Setsuna so I'm definitely getting my hopes up.
Edit: Just to add, Adam and Setsuna's interactions feel more romantic than his and Raziel's. I was halfway inclined to ship them instead.

Curently reading Tokyo Babel. I finished Raziel's route and while it's good, I personally couldn't feel the 'romance'. It feels forced to be honest, like they shoehorned it at the last minute. I couldn't see any reason they would fall in love- it just happened. I do like the story even though I find myself rolling my eyes at parts. 
I'm personally impressed by the amount of research that went in the lore and worldbuilding. I like the references made to Judeo-Christian mythology and even apocryphal books. I have an interest in apocrypha so I really liked those elements in this VN. I loved how they incorporated all those elements in this VN and it ended up that I'm more excited about exposition than the action scenes. I'm a practicing Catholic so some parts did make me uncomfortable. I just reminded myself that it's all fictional but it's definitely not something I'd recommend to my more conservative religious friends haha.
I have high hopes for this VN. I hope Sorami's and Lilith's routes are better because as good as Raziel's route is, it's lacking. Sorami and Setsuna so far seems to have more chemistry than Raziel and Setsuna so I'm definitely getting my hopes up.
Edit: Just to add, Adam and Setsuna's interactions feel more romantic than his and Raziel's. I was halfway inclined to ship them instead.

I just finished Nightshade and I'll have to say this is one of the best otomes available on Steam. The art, the music, and the voice acting is great. The story is decent and it really depends on the person whether or not they'll like it. The heroine, Enju (default name is voiced) makes for a great heroine. She can be a really badass shinobi in certain routes. The guys are also pretty great and I liked the cast overall. All in all, I really recommend it if you like otome. Otherwise, it serves as a great introduction to otome games.

I just finished Nightshade and I'll have to say this is one of the best otomes available on Steam. The art, the music, and the voice acting is great. The story is decent and it really depends on the person whether or not they'll like it. The heroine, Enju (default name is voiced) makes for a great heroine. She can be a really badass shinobi in certain routes. The guys are also pretty great and I liked the cast overall. All in all, I really recommend it if you like otome. Otherwise, it serves as a great introduction to otome games.