Nandemonai

See my post above for my thoughts on the game's content (I am not desensitized to it at all). 1) Yeah, I'll agree with you on the reason Euphoria ends up being recommended. When I talked about Funbag Fantasy, I said more or less the same thing: Most of the time, porn doesn't have a decent plot attached to it because the people writing it know that's not what folks are after. It's why many monster girl games give really silly 'explanations' for why monster girls of all different races are in love with you, involving things like 'your sperm is super concentrated magical energy'. Much easier to just say that and move on to the orgies than to worldbuild a unique culture and backstory for each girl and actually tie them into the plot. So when you see a game that *does* bother, that makes it something special just because - writers don't bother. This was true of Funbag Fantasy and it's true of Euphoria. 2) This game is a serious test to my stance, but doesn't change it: Everybody has their own kink, and basically kink is harmless. Yes, it is true that some very small number of actual pedophiles are big into loli hentai, and likewise some rapists are big into depictions of sexual violence like Euphoria, and some school shooters were big into violent video games, and so on and so forth. But those people are messed up, and that's why they're into those kinks. Not the other way around. The vast majority of folks don't have (or cause) any such problems. I.e. - Euphoria is not for me, but that doesn't matter. It's ultimately still a work of fiction, and there's no sense looking down on it or on people who enjoy it, just because it happens to be about a thing I find queasy and unsettling. 3) I'll bet that most of the folks who praise Euphoria for the plot, but have very low tolerance for rape and the other stuff? They didn't actually go through the 30 h-scenes. They're like me, and used ctrl to skip all of that stuff. Because GAAAH! MY EYES!

If by "premium" you mean "charge the customary price", then yeah. $39.99 was a pretty standard price back in the old days, for games like Kango Shicyauzo or Come See Me Tonight. Sekai Project just gets hate because they give people discounts.

So hey, @novurdim - you must be psychic You totally called that 100% correctly.

I recently rediscovered that thread. Apparently, I'd commented on how ridiculous it was that a girl would see her pet climb into a hole in the wall - then get into the hole in the wall, despite there being three prior games in the series where this had happened before. Well, fool that I was, I hadn't accounted for the possibility that each game starred a different main character. That someone would take a threadbare premise like that... And release basically the same game four times. (Imouto Paradise, of course, is completely different. Never mind that it's basically the same game repeated three times. So far. Onii-chan.)

Well, ANN's coverage here seems to say some of the writers have returned: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-05-01/navel-makes-shuffle-episode-2-game/.146302 | Baria Ago is credited again with the original series draft, and Kōta Takeuchi, Jackson Oh (original Shuffle!), Higashinosuke, and Fumihiko Kuwabara are writing the scripts.

Very low. Because of a 'management change', Navel quit working with MangaGamer and Shuffle / Soul Link were discontinued. (If you want Tick Tack / Really Really, I would pick them up, by the way - eventually those contracts will come up for renewal and they probably won't get renewed). In other words, the people at Navel who supported working with MangaGamer left, and were replaced by new folks who weren't interested. He said 'let's go to Steam with the PS2 version' and it did have some new routes, but it wasn't Essence. There could've been another management change. The ones that came in a few years ago could say 'well that didn't work' and try again. But probably they'll just ignore the western market.

Didn't the original writer die?

If what you really mean is 'short VN', I'll recommend Saya no Uta. It's not technically a kinetic novel, but it's got like 2 choices and it's not a long game at all. Also can't believe nobody's mentioned Nekopara or Neko-nin yet. Sure, they're not the greatest, but a short mix-it-up game in between longer games doesn't have to be.

Oldie, but a goodie: Nocturnal Illusion still has one of the best soundtracks, period. VN, games in general, TV and movies, everything,..

If VNDB is to be believed, those aren't even real catgirls. They're normal girls wearing headbands.

Hey, you're right. In that case, yeah, it would make sense that they'd be announcing Imouto Paradise 3 relatively soon now.

Slight correction: Most games have a few sample pics on their official sites. What is illegal is ripping the entire CG set and posting it online for any reason, or downloading the entire CG set to keep if you don't own the game. Posting a few screenshots (even if they're not of the same CG that the developer posts to their site) is much murkier. if your screenshots are attached to a review, that's probably fine. Browsing a complete rip someone else illegally uploaded, in order to see if you want to buy the game, is murkier but probably also fine. Edit: If you were wondering 'what about what VNDB is doing' (by posting sample pictures for many games) - That is probably legal. They are a database, and it's beneficial for a database to be holding a few pictures of the game to give people a feel for what the game's CG looks like, mugshots of the characters in the 'characters' view, and a screenshot of the cover art. At least in the US, they are almost certainly covered by Fair Use. There is no way VNDB got permission from every game company whose software they host pictures of. For one, many of these companies no longer exist. But because VNDB is not directly competing with, or undermining the market for, the VN companies, what they're doing would likely be found to be legal.

I don't think you realize just how popular the Imouto Paradise franchise is. Imopara 1 released in 2014, and has been in their top 10 sellers ever since. It was #1 for 2014 despite releasing in August, #4 in 2015, and #3 in 2016 (yes, it went up). Then in 2017, Imouto Paradise 2 was released. Imopara 2 ranked #7, and Imopara 1 dropped to #8. In 2018, Imopara 2 was #3, but the original Imouto Paradise dropped to #10. It's pretty clear: Imouto Paradise 1 was buiilding steam in 2016. Then in 2017, the sequel came out, and it started sinking downwards. Sure, that's not definitive but it's pretty close. Imopara 2 will probably burn up the sales charts for MangaGamer this year. Even announcing Imopara 3's licensed might slow sales of Imopara 2 (and even the first game - which is still doing pretty well). As for the hints - I note the catgirl game has three catgirls. I'm not so sure that two of their hints would pertain to the same game, though. That does significantly raise the odds said I-can't-believe-it's-not-Nekopara game is coming over, but we might be getting two catgirl games, or the "three" hint might refer to something else.

I'm optimistic it might be Three Kingdoms related, but the reality is the odds are quite low. Imopara 3 is a better bet, but the biggest argument against it is that Imouto Paradise 3 will eat into the sales of Imopara 2. In other words, even though I consider Imopara 3 a no brainer that they're inevitably going to license - I'm much less sure they'll be announcing it this year.

None of the characters, including the MC, want to be there. As for the H, I found every scene in the game utterly repellent. Even the theoretically more vanilla scenes. I didn't read any of them. As for the story, it's interesting - it certainly kept me interested in finishing it. But after I was done, I ultimately found it unsatisfying. The story is at war with itself. The latter half makes the most interesting aspect of the first part into an ice cream koan - undermining it and making what was interesting about it basically irrelevant. The true ending makes very little sense. The explanation behind the first part doesn't make any sense, either. One character's personality and actions make sense only if you stop considering them a 'character' with believable motivations and recognize that they're a walking plot device. Considering how highly this title was praised by those who like the dark side (Nargrakhan, etc), the fact that I wasn't overly impressed with it has convinced me to be far more selective screening dark side titles. I'm just giving Maggot Baits a hard pass, for instance. Nope. Nuh-huh. Not happening.