PhleBuster

A translator will just have to translate however he/she wants. A translator will never be able to satisfy everyone. Half wants a translation that's directly translated from its source language and the other half wants it tailored towards not only their language but their culture as well (which to me is incomprehensible, but that's my opinion).

G-senjou no Maou I like to hate on this VN because it's a little bit plot holed, but it is a strong mix of thriller and emotion, the main route is quite the ride, and something about the ending.
It was nice reading your comments on your VNDB list. I mostly play untranslated games, so it's hard for me to pick... you've played many of the quality, intriguing games with a translation.
Since you've read quite a few experimental works, perhaps SeaBed? It is a sort of unique work, is a lot about the mundane living and coming to terms with the past. It seems to be have been cherished by many who have read it.

Thank you all for the wonderful recommendations! I'll read as many as I can. 
I have been wondering if I should read these for a long time. I guess that the time has come.
I dropped G-senjou no Maou a while ago, but I was probably in the wrong mood at the time, so I'll give it a second chance.
I'm glad that someone liked my comments on the list.
I'll play SeaBed.
I'll take the gamble.

Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning and SeaBed are some of my favourites.

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I definitely wish that Shirokoi would be more popular, although maybe it wouldn't count here seeing that it's still new. So in this case my answer would be Shibuya Scramble, Flowers Summer, Seabed, Enigma, and Pygmalion.

Trap Shrine: why the fuck did i pick this? i knew it was going to be stupid. have i become so wanton that i cannot repress myself in the face of crossdressers? has my wokeness fallen to such an abysm?
SeaBed: heard it was a strong representation of the monotony of depression, which i'm familiar with. i'm still in the early parts, but i think it's okay so far.
Sakura no Uta: still playing Abend, but i like the direction it's taking
Corpse Party Blood Covered: chapter 2, that ghost kid, that fucking ghost kid, that FUCKING GHOST KID MY GOD...

Awards is one thing, really anyone can hand those out, but if you're thinking of a big public event then it gets trickier.

Welcome! This is definitely one of the nicest visual novel communities you can find :3

Hi!
Since I've been reading VNs for some time now I figured that it would be nice to finally join y'all. (I-i-its not like I've been browsing walkthroughs pretty often OK?!? D-don't get the wrong ideas.)
My first VN would be Katawa Shoujo (that's probably the case for quite some people) and I absolutely fell in love with the medium ^^
Anyways! Please, take good care of me!
 

I am watching the Oscars right now, and like the grammy's, the VGA, do you think at some point in the future we will have a visual novel awards?
One can dream, right?

I played about 15 VNs this year and finished 9, which is actually quite a lot for me. At the same time, none of the VNs I finished this year are that long. Overall, this year I regained some of my original interest for VNs, which I was slowly losing ever since I finished MLA in 2015.
Though they probably deserve to be somewhere in this list, I'm omitting Dies Irae and Seabed since I didn't get that far into these VNs, and there's a good chance that my impression will change later on.
1. Fata Morgana - Requiem for Innocence. Even being a fandisk, this one clearly became my number one, without any real competition. It's not only a nice addition to the original story, but also a very good story in itself that will work perfectly well on its own.
2. Aselia the Eternal. I'm reading this right now, and I've only finished one route so far, but this game is pretty linear, so I think the other parts of the game will be the same. Well, I didn't really expect much from the game when I just started it, but overall this was a nice surprise. Well, I know that this game isn't perfect. There are a lot of very noticeable plot holes, and they definitely could structure the story a lot better. At the same time, the combination of interesting characters, nice ideas, and engaging gameplay makes the experience worth it.
2.5. I guess, Seabed should be here.
3. Chuusotsu. A cute short story that tries to touch some really important themes about an individual's place in society.
4. The Labirinth of Grisaia. The after stories are mostly forgettable, but Yuuji's backstory makes a pretty nice read.
5. Cinderella Phenomenon. Not the best story I've ever read, but still pretty nice.
As for the biggest disappointments this year, this title will go to Phenomeno and Grisaia no Rakuen.

Yeah, thanks to the fan translators from back in the day that helped me discover this pretty cool sub genre of entertainment. I probably wouldn't have found it if I hadn't sought out the translation of Galaxy Angel. So yeah I hope you guys can actually finish all those projects that you started so that I can either play them or leave them languishing in my to play folder till the end of time.

You are one of the reasons people are reluctant to translate. "Constructive criticism".. yes, i've heard that term tossed around tl threads, but it has been almost nothing but shit talk and borderline harassment. It takes reading half your post to see you're the type as well, with your somewhat arrogant attitude and all. Do take this as constructive criticism and see how easy it is.
 

I know it’s hard being a fan translator because for one you might get cease and desisted if the company finds out you’re translating their intellectual property, two it could be such an arduous task, third people will shit all over your translation for being “too literal”, “ bad prose” etc. I sincerely want to thank you all for helping the medium grow to this level. So, if you’re struggling right now with a translation:
Please. Don’t. Give. Up.
Because learning Japanese isn’t like picking up Spanish or French, it’s such a huge learning curve and nobody aside from the most dedicated of fans are willing to learn it just to read JVNs. I became a fan of this medium the moment I read Fate/Stay Night by the God and Goddesses of Mirror Moon. After that, I read Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. That wouldn’t have been possible without you guys. While there’re companies that will localize VNs, they have to localize only the ones they can make a profit off of or have permission to do so. Which is very limiting. There’s so many God-Tier JVNs like Mahoyo that remain untouched or the fan translation group gave up. You guys translate visual novels out of the kindness of your heart. I couldn’t be any more grateful. If I met any of you in person, in real-life, I would buy you a beer and give you hug. It’s the least I could do, because people forget how small this community really is. We’re extraordinarily niche. There’s many otaku who have no idea what a visual novel is and they might never even heard of it unless there’s an anime adaptation of said visual novel. But they wouldn’t be able to read it, unless it was translated. Such as the case with Fate/Stay Night and many other visual novels that were adapted into anime. 
 
If you’re working on translating a visual novel, please finish it, you may not know, but there could be someone out there who will read your translation and join this amazing community. I am proof of that, and everyone else here who cannot read Japanese is proof of that. I want you all to know that. I want you all to know how important each of you are. Especially, when elitists are quick to belittle all your efforts. Keep going. Keep pressing forward. 
 
Fan translators are the unsung heroes of the visual novel medium. You sacrifice time, effort, and many other things to put something out there without any pay. Translating has been such a thankless job, so I will extend my thanks and I hope many others will do the same. Especially since Fuwanovel is home to fan translations. There wouldn’t be a EVN renaissance without you. Hell. There wouldn’t be a fandom or a community here, since you guys literally make visual novels popular in the west. 

Quite surprising that Sol Press already opened their Steam store for this with the release date is very near (At 15th later), so I should give them some praise here. Anyway, while I did say that I'm not interested with this now that I look at it again perhaps it wasn't so bad there. That said, my word still the same though that this is the combination of Aokana (Fictional sport with detail rules), Haretaka (Four girls that could be romanced form the club alongside MC), and Konosora (Obviously the plane making). Here's the page to the Steam store, and I hope that Steam wouldn't banned this despite there's a risk of that because recently Steam being indecisive.
Hitotsuba Steam store

Maybe I should have stressed the Slice of Life elements of SeaBed more when I recommended it...
 

For me SeaBed is very special because how mundane and noncommittal it is. Slice of Life to it's logical extreme. It's sometimes boring and nothing happens, because life is like that. There's lots of random flashbacks to old vacations and other events, because remembering fun times of past helps to forget the what ails you at the moment. Many of the conversations are pointless, because that's what conversations usually are and people still like to talk to each other. And like I've said before, there is hardly any explicit drama, because no-one wants to make a huge show of themselves. It's easier to suffer inside, downplay own problems, smile and assure to people around you that you are fine. Isn't that what most people do in their lives?

But I can understand that for many people this might feel like a betrayal, or why they would find it hopelessly uninteresting. Even the narration is passive, dry, and lacks emotion, and while that can be attributed to Sachiko's mental state, it doesn't make it very exiting. SeaBed challenges many of the traditional rules storytelling and writing, so it's no wonder that everyone doesn't like. But criticising it for not fitting with your expectations or usual norms, is kind of besides the point. SeaBed wants portray the lives of the characters in all their mundaneness (what else would life be?), and I think it does that effectively and well, even if it's not what is normally expected. Not that this is going to make the story any less boring for someone who already finds it so, but I think it is important to understand. 
I feel it's really encouraging to have a touching story about loss and living with your problems to be so mundane. Why does every story have to be exciting? Are you not allowed to grieve without being dramatic about it? Even something like character development is questioned. No-one is going to stay exactly the same, but the changes are often subtle, ambiguous. Traumatic event doesn't mean you have to change as person. It's okay to be you.
"Mystery being not the point", is maybe too strongly worded, but SeaBed isn't interested in taking delight in plot-twist or grand conclusions, like mysteries usually are. For the most the characters aren't even really interested in solving or chasing it either. The mystery is more like a basic framework for the story to function. There's still interesting revelations, subtle hints and foreshadowing if look closely enough (I'm pretty sure I missed some), but on a grand scale of things the mystery is not what matters.
But that doesn't mean the story of Sachiko's silent anguish, Takako struggling with losing her memories, and Narasaki's tragic burden is less meaningful. On the contrary, I think SeaBed is effective and important because of it's life-likeness, for better or worse.
 
Anyways, that's just how I feel. If you have questions about unanswered mysteries, I can try to help.

This video does a pretty good job of explaining why people, namely yuri fans, like SeaBed. 

Late to the party here considering that you already gathered 80% of the funds, but still there's should be no deadline to say good luck in regard of the KS there. I'll gonna keep my eyes on this, so hopefully the release will going to be successful later.
As for why they made the heroines suffer, I would like to say that it's obviously to form some attachment between the player and the heroines (And thus the player would be immerse themselves in heroines plight), and thus by making the heroines dead at the end it mean that they'll try to made the player cry. Or in other word, I think the developer was tried to develop the nakige there with using the crowdfund (Yes Seven Days funding here was mostly came from crowdfunding in Japan).

Added the kickstarter link to my list of physical english releases of VNs

I don't want to say too much about the story, but it's a topical question.
Those are their physical ages at death. Their mental ages are older because they have been inside Chiyako for years.

Ah right, guess you can't see those numbers before it's live. The $60 Collector's Edition + early bird is currently limited to 500 copies and Special Edition + early bird to 200 copies, since those are the print numbers we're working with.
Although it's possible to change the limitations if demand for them is higher, so maybe we should just remove that from the non-Early Bird tiers. I'll have to discuss that.
Thank you!

Will this edition feature CGs that were previously exclusive to the Campfire edition of 7days or will this have those + all the new Vita edition CGs too?
 
 

Seven Days With You: The Most Precious Memory in Our Lives (aka Seven Days) by LIFE0 is getting a collector's edition ahead of its release this winter!

We're running a Kickstarter campaign for it that launches this Friday (September 14, 10:00 PST), looking for feedback to polish it as best we can until then.
Seven Days features art by Miko and voices by top industry seiyuus (full cast: Uesaka Sumire, Kiritani Choucho, Fujita Masayo, Aranami Kazusa, Shimizu Ai,
Shimizu Ayaka, Toda Megumi, Oohashi Ayuru, Maruyama Miki and Urata Wataru), and comes in full HD (1920x1080).
The Kickstarter has 2 collector's editions on offer, one including a dakimakura and one without, and stretch goals include localizing an audio drama and adding new CGs to the game.

It's been translated by Conjueror and is currently being edited by Tyabann.
You can check out the game's opening video with theme song by Rita here:
Hope to hear your feedback!

Whole Steampunk series is very artsy and poetic, and in very good way. Sakurai Hikaru, the writer behind the series, has a very unique writing style that you could describe as poetic and a bit theatrical. Definitely not for everyone, but if the style clicks these VNs can be most beautiful experiences. Plus the "Steampunk/Alt-history/Cosmic horror"-setting of the series is super interesting and intricate. Gahtkhun of the Golden Lightning is probably the best place to start.
SeaBed is other worthwhile option, bit unusual and potentially really thought-provoking VN too. SeaBed ditches most of dramatic elements you would expect from a mystery, or just any story in general, and delivers a hypnotic story with dreamy, diary-like narration about coping with loss and living with your problems.