MaggieROBOT

This. Super this. Damn, I used to pirate a lot of games back in the PS2 era, because while you could buy the console with ease around where I lived, good luck finding games that weren't sport sims and shooters for sale. I always was a RPG fan, but it was always a pain to get more after I played all the Final Fantasys available in the local shop. Then years go by and now we have the PSN store and holy shit it's so much easier and convenient to get what I want now. Sure, Konami and Ubisoft are hardly in the list of developers that deserves my money but still, buying their games for dirty cheap is still a much better alternative than find a random working torrent in the seven seas. Back to VNs. Now that Steam changed their polices and we have other sites like GOG (that's really good, imho) selling them, we're going towards a direction when it's easier and easier to get VNs. Of course, that'll never kill piracy for good, but like Texas said, it'll at least convert the ones that are willing to pay to get it legally.

Luka is the closest of "all three" for me

Yeah, I had no idea the points existed, and I always prefered Rin over Saber soooo... So I can attest, it's a easy ending to get if you keep favoring Rin, although you have to go back to day 9 to fix this shit for the true ending (it's salvageable after that, even if you didn't bothered before). After that trauma, I didn't even try to go UBW and HF blindly, I almost did advanced math with the guide to calculate all points for a minimum backtrack run. I do the same with other games known for their obnoxious flag/points system now. Meanwhile, it took me a while to get some normal endings in Code Realize, as I kept getting too many points with the heroes and it was locking me in the best endings. (I know about the scene selection, but my honor didn't let me get the easy way out wwww)

Nice to see someone that feels the same about choices as me! ^^ Walkthrough is useful for endings hunting and for getting those pesky 100% completion but it take all the fun out of the game. I love to experiment, to try, and pick what feels natural and to figure out how can I favor my best girl/boy. ...Although because of this refusal to look at walkthroughs my first ending on my first VN ever was the Bad Ending 13 of FSN (the one you get for insufficient points with Saber on the last day, you know?). The backtrack still haunts me to this day. Fun times.

Welcome to the forums~ Nice taste you have there, gay is forever Since people already beat me with (very good) yuri recommendations, here's some nice BL: Dream Daddy, Sweet Pool (it'll be released with an all ages version in December!), Gakuen Heaven 2, Well Met by Moonlight

It's English Visual Novel. As in, VNs whose original language is English, the western made ones.

Congrats, man! Fuwa would not be the same without you anymore! And damn, how can you even manage to keep your posts going even if you're busy??? I salute you, my man. Also thanks for filling my backlog with stuff, it's not like it was packed enough already aaaaaaaaaa

Winter for me. Cool air, nice clothes, that weak sun breaking through the gray clouds... And for the themes, I don't know, it brings to mind melancholy, looking for warmth and company, and in the end a more happy spring comes.

I never moved something up in my backlog faster. I love games that let you do something like that aaaaa

Make it 3 And I also super agree about the art bit. Something I love in those indie games is how stylish they can be. And since it is a visual novel, visuals are important!! And Marco and Shira are nice in the visual department.

I'm reading Tsukihime right now (I'm on the third route) and I can agree that it starts quite slow. But things does pick up after you met Arcueid in the hotel. You mentioned Naruto, so if you like fights and lots of powers, do wait until the hotel part. The plot also really starts going after that.

your commentary made Sugita-san embarrassed But yeah, let's all love Sugita-san~

sauce, pls?

This. Mine's 24/7 on japanese locale since 2015, no problems on my end.

Hey there! I'm definitely not the best person out there to answer that, as I don't have the same problem as you, but I do relate with your reading time. In my case, I'm a pretty slow reader (and my speed goes even further slower when I'm reading something that's not in my native language, that's 100% of the time when it comes to VN) and since I'm quite busy irl lately, I can afford maybe one hour each day to read. I finished DMMD in the beginning of the year and it certainly took me a bit more than a month to finish. But I don't think that should make you unmotivated! It took me several months to finish my favorite VN and it was very worth the ride, long as it was. Take the time you need and try to think in tackling these VNs one route at a time, for example. The goal will feel a lot closer that way. FSN can be quite infodump and long winded at times, but it does a decent job at making you remember stuff with short (okay, some not that short) explanations from one route to the other. Plus, it have a "status screen" that list a lot of character's powers that can be accessed at any time in case you forget something. And you can also take notes. Like, every time a scene ends, or you stop reading for the day, try to write down/type in a notepad file (create it inside your VN folder) what happened with a single or a few sentences. You can oversimplify the events, pick the most vital part and putting it in all caps, crack a few jokes in your explanations, anything that you think it can be fun to do and easy to associate with the whole scene, so it can "trigger" your memory of the rest of scene without you having to read it again. If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed to start a very long VN, you can always try a shorter one first until you're confident enough with a method to help you remember the story. Sorry for the wall of text and best of luck!~

BLESS! Although, I'm a Kaito, Tachibana Makoto and Togami Byakuya fan myself. よろしく~

Hakuisei Aijou Izonshou / Nurse Love Addiction

I wonder where in that scale the GHS translation of Cross Channel fits, that add nuances in an almost fanfic level...

Hidoi desu yoooooooooo Anyway, I noticed I only snarked and didn't even answer the thread question But I can read really anything that have a good MC, interesting ideas, and it's not too violent/extreme/philosophical if I'm in the right mood for it, be it plotge, charage or nukige.

The only thing this segregation does is for people to pick one of those and trash all the others and whoever likes them.

I think most of the rage is directed to MTL, that is a thing that any one of us here can easily do for free, just get the script and throw it in any translator site you want. Now forming a team, calling themselves a "translation project" and sadly sometimes even charging for this job that any of us not suited for doing it could have done, it's really not hard to see why people get pissed.

Gracefully kyas back

No one is allowed to doubt your honor. Anyone that dont shy away of admitting a purchase of Sakura Swim Club deserves all respect. Cough but really cool collection there.

I never really stop to actually look to the release dates, but I think the time period you mentioned it's the one the genre really grew a lot, started to look prettier in HD and started to deviate a little from the basic formula of dating sims. And if you look at it, it was right around the time the PSVita was released. Older title tended to be either PC or PS2 games, like Kin'iro no Corda (2003). And the most popular ones, like Heart no Kuni no Alice (2007), later got ported to PSP. Maybe they grew along the mobile market? Otome fans surely love their mobiles, huh? So much that if you take only a tiny peak at google store you probably find several otome VNs and gachas. Hell, the Uta no Prince-sama VN (2010) and its sequels was never localized (because it's for the old dead PSP and it was never ported to Vita? No one would try to localize PS2 or PSP games in this day and age) but its gacha was (and it have a considerable fanbase of anime only secondaries, myself included, please don't judge >.<). And do you know Illusion's VR Kanojo? Yeah, they're planning an otome version VR Kareshi for mobiles only (at least for now). Of course, you could argue that more games and mobile trash would lower the quality of the releases as a whole. As if. The competition seemed to got even fiercer. So much that QuinRose, an otome developer that made a lot of games during 2006~2010, suspended all business. And Rejet (of Diabolik Lovers fame) is not doing so well lately, after some generic gacha they tried to make failed. We may not look like it, but we're a picky bunch, we'll not buy any crap. Usually. Outside of this range, we can't not speak about Hakuoki (2008). Probably part of the reason Otomate, that later made Code Realize, Collar x Malice and other great quality otome games, grew a looooooot. And I do agree that VNDB is not exactly the best source to gauge popularity, because a) as Dreamysyu said the translated works are severely favored there because it's what is available to the majority; b) from what I see, the otome fandom is not as present or vocal as the galge one in VNDB. IIRC the JOPs really like Shinigami to Shoujo, and it DOES manage to have a good rate even on VNDB, so maybe our opinions aren't thaaat different (unlike say BL games, that most of the translated games have almost 2 points less in Japan). And for an ending note, F*** me Royally looks terribad since it have absolutely nothing of what I like in otome games and I honestly think that it was made for a male audience to fap instead of a female one interested in 18+ games. But to each their own.

Hey people, I changed the title of the thread for it to be used for discussions and such and to be clear what da hell this topic is about. Go nuts.