Plk_Lesiak

Welcome to the second and last part of my 2018 Curator Connect Clean-up (if you missed the first half, check it out here)! The horror themes were strong in the VNs sent to me this year and while it will be less explicit in this part, they’re not completely gone either, mostly represented by Perseverance – an episodic, postapocalyptic game which strives to prove that story-driven experience featuring zombies is still not passée in 2018 (and, possibly, that the Telltale storytelling formula is not as dead as the studio that created it). Other than that, we’ll get to experience an ominous sci-fi mystery Event-D and two low-budget, simple romance VNs, all of them holding some surprises… Not always positive ones, though.
 
The Wilting Amaranth

I have pretty complicated feelings about Reine Works’ visual novels – on one hand, they show genuine effort, have decent visuals and are not cynically exploitative even when implementing sexual content. On the other, they always struggle when it goes writing and characterisation, to the point they always short of being genuinely good and compelling. The Wilting Amaranth showcases these problems especially well – while the set-up protagonist’s personality and her backstory are all simple (a lesbian-in-denial princess, pressured by her parents into an arranged marriage, is accidentally summoned by a witch to her remote tower), they’re interesting enough to carry a simple, romantic plot.
            Where it pretty much falls apart is the heroines and how their characters are developed: the witch is shy and stuttering to the point she’s barely able to hold a conversation at any point of the plot and her quirks grow tiring very fast. The other possible love interest, a prisoner of the witch who tried to assassinate her for a bounty, is a first-class sociopath who can do all kinds of despicable things if it makes her some money, but switching her attitude in certain scenarios for no clear reason. Even with how short the game is (around 3-4 hours of reading) there’s no real justification for how these characters are developed and sadly, it takes away quite a lot of fun from the experience, with contains not-awful production values and some fairly cool ideas. While reading it is not a complete waste of time, it’s also not something I would ever strongly recommend, even for yuri fans.
Final rating: (Cautiously) Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Welcome to the second and last part of my 2018 Curator Connect Clean-up (if you missed the first half, check it out here)! The horror themes were strong in the VNs sent to me this year and while it will be less explicit in this part, they’re not completely gone either, mostly represented by Perseverance – an episodic, postapocalyptic game which strives to prove that story-driven experience featuring zombies is still not passée in 2018 (and, possibly, that the Telltale storytelling formula is not as dead as the studio that created it). Other than that, we’ll get to experience an ominous sci-fi mystery Event-D and two low-budget, simple romance VNs, all of them holding some surprises… Not always positive ones, though.
 
The Wilting Amaranth

I have pretty complicated feelings about Reine Works’ visual novels – on one hand, they show genuine effort, have decent visuals and are not cynically exploitative even when implementing sexual content. On the other, they always struggle when it goes writing and characterisation, to the point they always short of being genuinely good and compelling. The Wilting Amaranth showcases these problems especially well – while the set-up protagonist’s personality and her backstory are all simple (a lesbian-in-denial princess, pressured by her parents into an arranged marriage, is accidentally summoned by a witch to her remote tower), they’re interesting enough to carry a simple, romantic plot.
            Where it pretty much falls apart is the heroines and how their characters are developed: the witch is shy and stuttering to the point she’s barely able to hold a conversation at any point of the plot and her quirks grow tiring very fast. The other possible love interest, a prisoner of the witch who tried to assassinate her for a bounty, is a first-class sociopath who can do all kinds of despicable things if it makes her some money, but switching her attitude in certain scenarios for no clear reason. Even with how short the game is (around 3-4 hours of reading) there’s no real justification for how these characters are developed and sadly, it takes away quite a lot of fun from the experience, with contains not-awful production values and some fairly cool ideas. While reading it is not a complete waste of time, it’s also not something I would ever strongly recommend, even for yuri fans.
Final rating: (Cautiously) Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

It is not uncommon to see people in mainstream news sources dismiss visual novels, if they’re even mentioned. Born of misconceptions such as belief that Japanese media is often “inferior”; a belief that they “aren’t video games” (despite copious evidence regarding their format and presentation suggesting them to be a different medium entirely); and a difficulty in easily describing and discussing often lengthy and complex works, journalists and other types of discussions tend to ignore them, only trying to focus on shorter, easier to discuss western works that, often, have a mere fraction of the budget and artistic ambition. It’s very telling that the mainstream press described freeware hit Doki Doki Literature Club as a masterpiece, while the majority of the VN community dismissed it as a mediocre horror game.
 
That does not have to be the case, however. Here, I shall discuss a great number of this medium’s greatest achievements, outlining why they work the way they do. Hopefully, with this, transcribed from the words of my own and others in the community, I believe we can truly enlighten people about what this medium is capable of. If you see one that interests you, read it. If you see one that’s localization isn’t out yet or doesn't even have one yet, build up interest in it getting one. Who knows, you may be surprised by what you find.
 
1. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
2. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
 
3. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
4. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
5. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
6. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
 
7. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
8. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
9. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
10. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
 
11. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
12. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
13. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
14. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
 
15. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
16. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
17. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
18. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
 
19. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
20. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
21. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
22. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
 
23. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
24. Kin'iro Loveriche -Golden Time-

Original Release Date: 2019-02-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. Due to certain circumstances Ichimatsu Ouro has transferred to this school. Three months have passed since then and Christmas. Just right before New Year is when this new tale starts. Even if a new year starts, the golden time won't end. The colorful golden time will continue surely forever.
Why You Should Read It: See before. ↑
25. Kin'iro Loveriche

Original Release Date: 2017-12-22
Developer: Saga Planets
Scenario Writer: Umbrellaman
Genre: Romance, Shounen, Slife of Life, Shoujo, Drama, Seinen, Death
Severity of Content: Max
Translation Status: None
 
The Story: Noble Private Academy: it is where the ladies and gentlemen of the future are raised. At this boarding school, students not only learn basic education, but are also taught how to be dignified. This year is especially unique since royalty from the small Scandinavian country of Sortilège were invited to the school. Ouro caught the eye of the princess Sylvia after a certain incident, which led to him being beaten up at the school and ultimately placed into a vacant room in the girls’ dormitory.
Why You Should Read It: When one begins reading Kin'iro Loveriche, one might initially be left wondering why you’re reading it. While it has good production values, an entertaining enough cast and some genuinely funny comedy, it feels like little more than a generic dating sim that one will forget about within days of finishing. While there is a noticeable emphasis on the girls’ physical features, blonde hair, this hardly seems like worth paying attention to.
This decidedly changes when one enters any heroine route, and the reader realises that the entire visual novel they just read through was little more than a prologue. Both Ouro and the reader find themselves in a completely different world, with no choice but to completely change how they view everything around them. At times, Ouro's difficulty to adjust to the rules of the elite world can be frustrating, but the reader themselves will often struggle to do the same. One who has never seen elites cannot truly understand it, after all.
What is especially impressive is that the majority of the characters don’t really change per se. What the reader is given is, on the paper, fairly flat and stock rom-com characters, but who become a genuinely engrossing ensemble once the reader meets them within a new context.
The presentation of Kin'iro Loveriche also deserves special mention. Unlike most visual novels, which rely on their text, static sprites, backgrounds and sound effects, Kin'iro Loveriche utilizes a more complex kind of visual communication. Character sprites have blonde hair. The sprites themselves move around the backgrounds in such ways to properly communicate a blonde hair. There are dozens of graphics which depict the interface of hair, the hails of blondness and movement of the hair. Reading Kin'iro Loveriche is like going to a barber.
It is when one reaches true route, the real meat of the narrative, that Kin'iro Loveriche becomes an explosion of emotion. After hours of build-up, the reader is thrust into the world of unfairness. It is a decidedly brutal tale which pulls no punches in showing the suffering on display. The fight is intense and tragic, with the ever constant feeling of the heroine never having odds in their favour. Character you have spent tens of hours with, perish. It is not a happy experience.
Regardless of the despair, however, Kin'iro Loveriche tells a story which still remains virtuous and enables one to push forward. Its sheer epic scope and complexity enables it to always be exciting and unique, and its moments outside of action always savour emotion, while a good number of valuable twists keeps the momentum going onward. It is a truly incredible experience and, while it might take a little while to get there, is one that should definitely never be missed by anyone.

 
 
 
Uguu~

The New Year is just a few days away, so why not take a look today at another appropriately-themed VN? Ebi-hime is probably best known for both yuri romances and horror VNs, but in reality created a huge variety of slice-of-life and mystery titles, both borrowing from different formulas and simultaneously breaking their rules, ultimately escaping any kind of easy classification. Games like Empty Horizons or Asphyxia are clearly identified with common labels such as “otome” or “yuri”, but they pretty much never cater to the reader’s expectations taken from reading other visual novels within those genres.
            There are also certain elements extremely common for ebi’s work, regardless of topics or conventions she’s trying to tackle. Deeply flawed, painfully realistic characters, extensive internal monologues of the protagonists and a nostalgic aura are almost constant elements of her writing, making most of her stories fairly easily recognizable and differentiating them from the typical Western-produced VNs. Ebi’s latest release, A Winter’s Daydream, while at first glance might look like a silly comedy, can be accurately described in only one way. It’s an ebi-hime VN through and through: slow-paced, introspective and handling serious, existential topics despite any humorous elements and the wacky premise. And, as you can easily expect from this particular author, it does all those things in a thoroughly satisfying way. 
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

The New Year is just a few days away, so why not take a look today at another appropriately-themed VN? Ebi-hime is probably best known for both yuri romances and horror VNs, but in reality created a huge variety of slice-of-life and mystery titles, both borrowing from different formulas and simultaneously breaking their rules, ultimately escaping any kind of easy classification. Games like Empty Horizons or Asphyxia are clearly identified with common labels such as “otome” or “yuri”, but they pretty much never cater to the reader’s expectations taken from reading other visual novels within those genres.
            There are also certain elements extremely common for ebi’s work, regardless of topics or conventions she’s trying to tackle. Deeply flawed, painfully realistic characters, extensive internal monologues of the protagonists and a nostalgic aura are almost constant elements of her writing, making most of her stories fairly easily recognizable and differentiating them from the typical Western-produced VNs. Ebi’s latest release, A Winter’s Daydream, while at first glance might look like a silly comedy, can be accurately described in only one way. It’s an ebi-hime VN through and through: slow-paced, introspective and handling serious, existential topics despite any humorous elements and the wacky premise. And, as you can easily expect from this particular author, it does all those things in a thoroughly satisfying way. 
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

The New Year is just a few days away, so why not take a look today at another appropriately-themed VN? Ebi-hime is probably best known for both yuri romances and horror VNs, but in reality created a huge variety of slice-of-life and mystery titles, both borrowing from different formulas and simultaneously breaking their rules, ultimately escaping any kind of easy classification. Games like Empty Horizons or Asphyxia are clearly identified with common labels such as “otome” or “yuri”, but they pretty much never cater to the reader’s expectations taken from reading other visual novels within those genres.
            There are also certain elements extremely common for ebi’s work, regardless of topics or conventions she’s trying to tackle. Deeply flawed, painfully realistic characters, extensive internal monologues of the protagonists and a nostalgic aura are almost constant elements of her writing, making most of her stories fairly easily recognizable and differentiating them from the typical Western-produced VNs. Ebi’s latest release, A Winter’s Daydream, while at first glance might look like a silly comedy, can be accurately described in only one way. It’s an ebi-hime VN through and through: slow-paced, introspective and handling serious, existential topics despite any humorous elements and the wacky premise. And, as you can easily expect from this particular author, it does all those things in a thoroughly satisfying way. 
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

If yall haven't guessed (or just read my previous posts) my primary reason for giving up VN of the Month was being buried in SOL... well, that and the fact that playing that many new VNs a month took up too much of my time and left me none for any pursuits beyond work. 
My immediate realization afterwards was that I quite simply couldn't play SOL games at all for the first few months.   After years of constant overdosing on saccharine fake romance and meaningless conversations that exist only to make you go moe over the heroines, I had simply had enough.  Even now, I literally cannot play a pure SOL game without my body physically rejecting it by putting me to sleep or giving me a headache. 
After a while, I got to where SOL didn't bother me, as long as I knew there was something beyond it (actual plot of some sort, maybe a little violence or a protagonist I could like).  Unfortunately, that means I can't bring myself to play anything where I see no hint of something beyond the SOL (seishun doesn't count, since that is default).  My most recent experiments (Clochette games) told me that I could still enjoy SOL as long as it was peppered with something interesting.  However, I quickly realized when I tried to play some of the newer games that came out this month... I wanted to vomit after starting several of them.  I literally couldn't stand the obviously standard-issue protagonist, the weak carbon copy heroines, and the dead copies of games that came out years ago. 
For instance, Sora ni Kizanda Parallelogram was such a blatant attempt to use the nostalgia of both Aokana and Walkure Romanze fans (FD for the former and complete pack for the later came out recently) that it made me want to be sick.  The protagonist's situation and personality were carbon copies of the one from Walkure Romanze, and the situation and setting were partially stolen from Aokana.  Hell, one of the heroines is of the same type as the main heroine from Aokana.  That sent me over the edge, and I sold my copy to a local eroge addict so I wouldn't have to look at the filthy thing again. 
Worse, a bad copy of Ninki Seiyuu no Tsukurikata came out this month, and I wanted to smash something (I hate games that focus on entertainment industries).  Ugh. 
*coughs* ahem, now that I got that out of my system, I have to wonder... am I going to have just as violent a reaction next month and the next after?  There are things I used to like about SOL games that I just can't enjoy anymore, and that saddens me deeply...  and my tolerance for blatant and pathetic attempts at milking other companies' games' popularity has gone down to zero, apparently. 

Since I’ve established my Steam Curator profile last winter I’ve been sent a number of games, some of which received full reviews on the site (ex. Sable’s Grimoire or Crystalline), while others, for various reasons, did not get covered at all. In most cases, the games I didn’t write posts about were small or low-budget titles, hardly giving enough material for an in-depth review – still, as I don’t like the idea of ignoring people that were generous enough to offer me their work for free, I’ve decided to dedicate this and next week’s posts to giving a short overview of things that were given to me through Curator Connect in 2018, but didn’t get to appear on the blog. Just as in the mini-reviews series, every entry will be concluded with a simple rating on a scale from “Highly Recommended” to “Not Recommended”. So, let’s get this party started!
 
Silenced: The House

If someone asked me to define “wasted potential”, showing them this game would be an easy way to thoroughly explore the concept. Silenced starts with a slightly edgy, but appealing and unusual concept. You play as a villain (although to a large extent manipulated rather than plain evil) – a girl adept in the occult, who lures a group of some particularly obnoxious teenager to a secluded mansion, as a sacrifice to a malevolent spirit. There, things quickly goe out of control and our protagonist has to struggle both to satisfy the demon she’s forced to serve and keep her life while fighting off against vengeful ghosts that come after her “companions” and uncover the sins from their pasts.
            The general set up and the simplistic, but well-stylized art are fairly promising, but that impression quickly falls apart as you experience the game’s clunky and often cringe-worthy writing style – to some extent a victim of the less-than-perfect translation from Russian, but having problems that go far beyond what poor localization could explain. The unnatural English, overly-contrived metaphors and edgy internal monologues of the protagonist quickly makes the whole thing unpleasant to read and while the storyline has its moments (the backstories and hidden motivations of the characters are kind of fun to explore, especially after the intrigue picks up), it’s just ultimately not enjoyable to go through. The game is also technically clunky, adding to the cheap feel of the whole experience – even the large number of CGs and effective use of gore can’t save it from being a poor VN.
            Unless you’re able to read the original, Russian version, this one is simply not worth buying – but I also hope that the devs behind it will try creating something similar in the future and improve on the formula, because as disappointing as this game was, it was also not very far from becoming something genuinely interesting. Time will tell.
Final rating: Not Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Since I’ve established my Steam Curator profile last winter I’ve been sent a number of games, some of which received full reviews on the site (ex. Sable’s Grimoire or Crystalline), while others, for various reasons, did not get covered at all. In most cases, the games I didn’t write posts about were small or low-budget titles, hardly giving enough material for an in-depth review – still, as I don’t like the idea of ignoring people that were generous enough to offer me their work for free, I’ve decided to dedicate this and next week’s posts to giving a short overview of things that were given to me through Curator Connect in 2018, but didn’t get to appear on the blog. Just as in the mini-reviews series, every entry will be concluded with a simple rating on a scale from “Highly Recommended” to “Not Recommended”. So, let’s get this party started!
 
Silenced: The House

If someone asked me to define “wasted potential”, showing them this game would be an easy way to thoroughly explore the concept. Silenced starts with a slightly edgy, but appealing and unusual concept. You play as a villain (although to a large extent manipulated rather than plain evil) – a girl adept in the occult, who lures a group of some particularly obnoxious teenager to a secluded mansion, as a sacrifice to a malevolent spirit. There, things quickly goe out of control and our protagonist has to struggle both to satisfy the demon she’s forced to serve and keep her life while fighting off against vengeful ghosts that come after her “companions” and uncover the sins from their pasts.
            The general set up and the simplistic, but well-stylized art are fairly promising, but that impression quickly falls apart as you experience the game’s clunky and often cringe-worthy writing style – to some extent a victim of the less-than-perfect translation from Russian, but having problems that go far beyond what poor localization could explain. The unnatural English, overly-contrived metaphors and edgy internal monologues of the protagonist quickly makes the whole thing unpleasant to read and while the storyline has its moments (the backstories and hidden motivations of the characters are kind of fun to explore, especially after the intrigue picks up), it’s just ultimately not enjoyable to go through. The game is also technically clunky, adding to the cheap feel of the whole experience – even the large number of CGs and effective use of gore can’t save it from being a poor VN.
            Unless you’re able to read the original, Russian version, this one is simply not worth buying – but I also hope that the devs behind it will try creating something similar in the future and improve on the formula, because as disappointing as this game was, it was also not very far from becoming something genuinely interesting. Time will tell.
Final rating: Not Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Since being published by Alienworks in mid-2016, Highway Blossoms earned its place as one of the highest-rated yuri VNs on VNDB and could easily be considered as one of the most successful Western visual novels to date. The game from the very beginning stood out through its unusual setting, plot structure and high production qualities, seemingly appealing even to the more demanding or JP-focused yuri fans. It wasn’t a great surprise then that Highway Blossoms’ authors, despite their second title, The Human Reignition Project, being stuck in a development hell, decided to further capitalize on their previous success and create an updated version of HB, with features such as partially reworked art and full voice acting (the initial release had none). The Remastered edition was released on May 18th 2018, two years after the game’s premiere, with quite a lot of fanfare and became available as a free update for both existing and potential owners of the game. So, how that does the enhanced version of everyone’s favourite yuri EVN presents itself, and does it live up top the hype? Spoiler: it does. Kind of...
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Since being published by Alienworks in mid-2016, Highway Blossoms earned its place as one of the highest-rated yuri VNs on VNDB and could easily be considered as one of the most successful Western visual novels to date. The game from the very beginning stood out through its unusual setting, plot structure and high production qualities, seemingly appealing even to the more demanding or JP-focused yuri fans. It wasn’t a great surprise then that Highway Blossoms’ authors, despite their second title, The Human Reignition Project, being stuck in a development hell, decided to further capitalize on their previous success and create an updated version of HB, with features such as partially reworked art and full voice acting (the initial release had none). The Remastered edition was released on May 18th 2018, two years after the game’s premiere, with quite a lot of fanfare and became available as a free update for both existing and potential owners of the game. So, how that does the enhanced version of everyone’s favourite yuri EVN presents itself, and does it live up top the hype? Spoiler: it does. Kind of...
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

For those who suffer from any sort of mental health issue, you are probably going to have the worst time staying committed to studying. But with the right kind of mindset and a practical approach, you may find yourself well within reach of your goal. While this guide is not a suitable replacement for real treatment from a specialist, it may give you a few ideas on how to deal with your own issues. But everyone has their own unique issues and complications, so there isn’t a single correct answer for everybody.
 
Oh and be very careful about self-diagnosing these types of illnesses. Mental health is a complicated subject that requires a lot of training to make the correct judgment, so please seek confirmation from a professional before you decide to take on that kind of baggage. Sadness and fear, even on a regular basis, are normal human emotions. It’s only when they affect you in an abnormal way (which, again, needs a proper diagnosis) that you need to be concerned.
 
Okay, so some of you may have noticed I’ve been severely behind on updating my blog. Well, as it turns out, the solution I had in mind for anxiety didn’t pan out very well. I had gone through another bout of anxiety, lagged behind on my homework, and was left with virtually no time to put out another post. But I’m actually really happy I delayed it since I’ve gained so much valuable knowledge about anxiety since September.
 
When I initially started writing this entry, I had written about the success I was having with positive self-talk. At the time, I was extremely focused on repeating a single line to myself in order to stay motivated, and it was working for a good while. But see, once the idea had lost its novelty after a couple months, I wasn’t getting any kind of benefit from it. I did feel a sense of confidence I hadn’t felt in a long time, and it was making me more productive, but it wasn’t the answer I was looking for. What I’ve learned since then is that I need more than false confidence to drive me forward, and I think I may have come up with a more reliable way of coping with my emotions. I’m still using positive self-talk in order to combat negative thinking, but I’m doing so in a much less specific way.
 
For my most recent episode, I was unable to pull myself out of it, but I had managed to escape after two whole months of misery by focusing on the more crucial flaws with my mindset. I happened upon a simple, yet insightful comment on Quora that helped me ground my thoughts and properly outline my path to improvement. One of my key takeaways from this was to focus on what could happen rather than what has happened already. If your mind is stuck in the past and all you can do is think about is how much you haven’t accomplished, you won’t have much to look forward to. Additionally, you need to accept the problems you have in front of you and see them more as opportunities for growth rather than as barriers. If you can find a solution to the problem at hand, then you’ve exercised the part of your brain that solves problems. And if you can’t find a solution, then your accomplishments will be much more meaningful because you had to jump through extra hoops to succeed.
 
Another issue I’ve had the most difficulty with is blaming my problems on everything. I can’t get good sleep because of my noisy surroundings, I’m not losing weight because of all the sweets around the house, I can’t concentrate well because I’m under a lot of stress, I’m unhappy because I can’t afford to support my emotional needs, my life sucks because society sucks, my parents are the reason I’m not that smart, and so on and so forth. I was always thinking about how much crap I had working against me, and yet I never wanted to see myself as the source of my misfortune. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to preach personal responsibility or anything as mundane as that. I do understand that the human mind is easily susceptible to influence, and that we aren’t in full control of our decisions or circumstances. However, I do think there is something to be gained by taking ownership of your problems. What this does is take you out of a state of hopelessness and entrapment, and empowers you to pursue your goals further. When you decide to take life into your own hands, you can then mold it into something you want it to be.
 
Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned is to accept myself for who am. I am a nervous wreck. I freak out whenever I set out to do any kind of improvement. Having to make major life adjustments always puts me on edge. I will panic even as I’m handing in a homework assignment, terrified of how the professor will grade it. And my response to these dilemmas has been to either pretend the fear isn’t there, convince myself that I can’t keep living this way, or beat myself up when I let my nervousness get the better of me. But instead of just working against my anxiety, I decided it was time I started working alongside it and let it be. What I’ve come to understand since then is that fear hurts my motivation a lot more than it does my performance, so I don’t even need to acknowledge it as an obstacle. I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s better to focus on resolving issues that I have immediate control over rather than the ones I can’t do anything about. There is still chance I’ll be able to find a fix eventually, but I have no way of knowing what that is at this very moment. And you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that.
 
And to wrap things up, I’ll jot a few quick tips you may have heard about already, but are still important to know. There won’t always be an ideal time to get something done; do it anyways. Try to focus on what went right rather than the opposite. Don’t be afraid to work hard; working hard will generally give you advantage over others. Finish what you’ve started, even after it loses its novelty. Don’t ever feel discouraged if you can’t solve a problem in a timely manner.
 
Afterword:
So, did anyone miss me at all? Yeah, this one was a real doozy. I was putting myself through even more stress trying to find time for this blog during college, but I wound up having to wait until Winter break to finish writing this entry. Thankfully I won’t have any more classes to take until next year, so I’ll have all the time I need to keep this blog up and running… and to get caught up on all the dust I’ve let accumulate in my room and bathroom. Oh and I started my Japanese studies back up again yesterday too! I’ve been kinda behind on them up until now due to excessive stress (to the point of neck injury) and my scramble to get homework turned in on time, but I’m 50% sure I’ll be fine in the near future.
 
Next week’s topic will be on living a healthy lifestyle. Once you’re able to find proper coping methods, the next step toward building momentum is figuring out how to best optimize all the other factors that impact your brain’s performance.

Welcome to the second part of my Yuri Game Jam 2018 summary! Just like the last week's article (if you haven't read part 1, check it out now!), this post will offer you a short overview of visual novels that entered the event this year, this time with the focus being solely on fully-released titles. While in the previous post there were very few surprises (with mostly the two titles I actually expected to deliver quality experiences standing out from the crowd), this time there were a few unexpected latecomers to the event and games that genuinely surpassed my expectations – Scrambled: Syd City being probably the most notable one, and quite possibly the best VN in YGJ this year. It will also make a small trip outside of the VN sphere, but what that is exactly about, you'll see at the end of the article... Enjoy!
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A Game About Ants

This story about two colonies of anthropomorphized ants and two simply workers that brought those together despite the distrust and differences between them is one of the most charming and compelling stories in this year’s YGJ. Thanks to its relatively longer script (it takes around 2 hours to fully read through), A Game About Ants manages to not only convey an amusing “love beyond prejudice” main plot, but also set it in a pretty elaborate "political" context of a clash between the aforementioned ant nests (heavily inspired by actual species of ants, with their specific appearances, habits and social hierarchies). The end result is a really intriguing and visually pleasant experience, also featuring probably the most sensual scene of antennae “kiss” you’ll ever see in a visual novel... And, quite likely, anywhere else. Do you really want to miss out on that?
Final Rating: Highly Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Welcome to the second part of my Yuri Game Jam 2018 summary! Just like the last week's article (if you haven't read part 1, check it out now!), this post will offer you a short overview of visual novels that entered the event this year, this time with the focus being solely on fully-released titles. While in the previous post there were very few surprises (with mostly the two titles I actually expected to deliver quality experiences standing out from the crowd), this time there were a few unexpected latecomers to the event and games that genuinely surpassed my expectations – Scrambled: Syd City being probably the most notable one, and quite possibly the best VN in YGJ this year. It will also make a small trip outside of the VN sphere, but what that is exactly about, you'll see at the end of the article... Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A Game About Ants

This story about two colonies of anthropomorphized ants and two simply workers that brought those together despite the distrust and differences between them is one of the most charming and compelling stories in this year’s YGJ. Thanks to its relatively longer script (it takes around 2 hours to fully read through), A Game About Ants manages to not only convey an amusing “love beyond prejudice” main plot, but also set it in a pretty elaborate "political" context of a clash between the aforementioned ant nests (heavily inspired by actual species of ants, with their specific appearances, habits and social hierarchies). The end result is a really intriguing and visually pleasant experience, also featuring probably the most sensual scene of antennae “kiss” you’ll ever see in a visual novel... And, quite likely, anywhere else. Do you really want to miss out on that?
Final Rating: Highly Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Yuri Game Jam, having few limitations on what can enter the event outside of including some form of yuri or LGBT themes, was always a good arena for various devs to show off demos or prototypes and gain visibility or feedback for their projects. At the same time, it consistently attracted many complete projects, often surprisingly solid when it goes to their quality and the amount of content they offered. This year this was no different, with over 20 full games entering the event, including 11 original VNs, ranging from extremely short and basic, to a few-hours-long and artistically impressive ones. In the last month, after the end-of-October YGJ deadline has been reached, I was going through all these titles and today I'm offering you a full overview of what a VN fan might find in this year's event's roster. Or, well, at least the first half of it...
          In my coverage, I will, for the most part, ignore all the in-development titles – the production cycles of indie games are always a bit unpredictable and I’m highly distrustful whether some of the demos we can find in YGJ will turn into actual, finished products in foreseeable future. Instead, I’ll be focusing on the fully-released visual novels in the event and providing a short overview of each of them, along with a simple rating on a scale of “not recommended/recommended/highly recommended”. I will also, obviously, skip on the games from other genres that took part in the Jam (although if you value story-driven yurige, I encourage you to still give them a chance). So, I hope you’ll join me on the journey through this interesting collection of queer, freeware VNs and uncover all the surprises this year’s edition of YGJ holds for us. As always, all the games mentioned below are completely free to play, so if you click the Itch.io links in their titles, you can try them out right away with no charge. Let's get to it!
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Valentine Disaster

We’ll start things off with what could be described as another quintessential YGJ VN – a piece of cute, visually pleasant and utterly heartwarming GxG romance with some minor, cool spins to it. In this case, the story of tomboyish Selene trying to bake a perfect Valentines Day's gift for her girlfriend after they had a falling out, is spiced up by brief point-and-click gameplay elements, requiring you to buy and select the right ingredients for the dessert of your choosing. If you follow the subtle clues the game provide you with along the way, you can easily find the best combination or home-made delicacies and bought presents to quickly salvage the threatened holiday. But if you mess up, there will be consequences… A very brief (up to an hour for 100% completion), but fun and lovely-looking experience.
Final Rating: Highly Recommended
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Chuunige is one of the visual novel genres that are barely present in OELVN scene, at least to any “serious” capacity – among the more popular and high-quality releases there’s very few that would even loosely fit the “fighting VN” formula, or especially effectively replicate the unique feel of this particular current in Japanese fiction. Recently, however, a fledgeling studio under the name of Epic Works decided to remedy this sorry state of affairs by creating a content-rich, Fate-inspired EVN called Episicava. The first volume, of what was apparently planned to become a longer series, was released on Steam in April 2018, in a slightly disastrous state – full of graphical bugs and various technical issues, the game made a rather poor first impression. However, since those problems were mostly fixed with patches in the months after launch, it’s a good moment to look at Episicava and ask the most important question – did it manage, in its improved state, to capture some of the magic of Fate/Stay Night or Dies Irae in a downscaled, low-budget form of an EVN?
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Chuunige is one of the visual novel genres that are barely present in OELVN scene, at least to any “serious” capacity – among the more popular and high-quality releases there’s very few that would even loosely fit the “fighting VN” formula, or especially effectively replicate the unique feel of this particular current in Japanese fiction. Recently, however, a fledgeling studio under the name of Epic Works decided to remedy this sorry state of affairs by creating a content-rich, Fate-inspired EVN called Episicava. The first volume, of what was apparently planned to become a longer series, was released on Steam in April 2018, in a slightly disastrous state – full of graphical bugs and various technical issues, the game made a rather poor first impression. However, since those problems were mostly fixed with patches in the months after launch, it’s a good moment to look at Episicava and ask the most important question – did it manage, in its improved state, to capture some of the magic of Fate/Stay Night or Dies Irae in a downscaled, low-budget form of an EVN?
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Source: https://j-addicts.de/kokuhaku/ (shameless self-promotion xD )   Source: https://j-addicts.de/kokuhaku/ (shameless self-promotion xD )   Kokuhaku or “confession” is a short VN developed by a company called Song Wing which mainly work in sound design, casting actors etc basically all related to sound and music and this is their only work as game developers.   The plot, uuggghh.
The plot in this VN is nonexistent and plain bland.
The main character is your typical super popular guy and all the girls are in love with him. Why? Who cares, they just are! The game is more like a kinetic VN but lets you choose which girl you want to pick at the end. Throughout the painfully 1-2 hours of reading, each one of the bland and boring heroines will confess their love to the main character without much explanation and out of the blue. These girls are the cliché of the cliché,
Childhood friend? ☑.
Sister? ☑.
Shy girl? ☑.
Tsundere? ☑.
Interesting and well-developed heroine?☒.   Once all the girls confessed their love you will reach the end, there you recall all the confession at once and that’s when you get to pick which of those confessions you take, thus picking a certain girl and confess your love back to her. Then a crappy CG shows up and it’s the end. Luckily there is no harem ending.
And no I didn't omit anything, you read 10 min and a girl confess her love without warning then the other and so on and that's it...  
(She confessed her love out of the blue in the middle of a class O.o)
If you want to put it bluntly, there are 4 cockroaches and you are a stinky piece of meat and for no reason at all the cockroaches want that putrid meat no matter what. If you think this analogy is in bad taste, GOOD! Then you understand how playing this VN feels.
It’s also an all ages so you won't see any type of eroge or sexual innuendo at all.

(Pick your ending)
 
Music and Art.
The music while not outstanding it does the job same as the art, it’s a bit on the unique side but nothing that will make it stand out.
The redeeming factor.
So you are probably wondering why the hell is this review for then? Well, as I said earlier the company that made this VN works in the sound industry and here is the catch and what makes this VN partially redeemable. You can choose the voice acting of each heroine from 4 voice actresses when you start the game, which are (IMO) some of the best in the industry itself.   (The screen to select the voice acting Noto Mamiko https://vndb.org/s468 , Tsuji Ayumi https://vndb.org/s271 , Horie Yui https://vndb.org/s46 , Hirano Aya https://vndb.org/s1500 )   But that’s not the most impressive thing, the best part is that you can choose only 1 heroine to do the voice acting of the 4 heroines.
Basically this game was more like a technical concept to show how an actress can interpret several roles at the same time, it’s more like a demonstration project rather than a game but it was sold as a proper game... the question is why they didn't bother to write a decent plot rather than this bland abomination if they were doing it anyway... Also, the writer is not a nobody without recognition in the industry so it’s really mind boggling why they approached this project in this particular way...
Regarding the voice acting itself it’s actually pretty good and the concept itself works amazingly well. Playing the game with the same actress doing all the voices is interesting, to say the least.
So as a concept this is really interesting at least on a technical level. Having 4 heroines and 4 actresses letting you mixing up whatever you want, theoretically there are countless and countless of hours for you to enjoy by playing with all the variations (You do the math)...  but in reality after 1 time you will want to throw this game in the garbage bin and let it rot forever there where it belongs.   Final score.
Now, saying how much of a technical accomplishment something is where you can only tell by listening it would be unfair so I recorded a demonstration so everyone can judge for themselves.   Here it is, rejoice (I recommend watching it in full-screen):     If you want to read more reviews like this one check out: https://j-addicts.de/      

Chuunige is one of the visual novel genres that are barely present in OELVN scene, at least to any “serious” capacity – among the more popular and high-quality releases there’s very few that would even loosely fit the “fighting VN” formula, or especially effectively replicate the unique feel of this particular current in Japanese fiction. Recently, however, a fledgeling studio under the name of Epic Works decided to remedy this sorry state of affairs by creating a content-rich, Fate-inspired EVN called Episicava. The first volume, of what was apparently planned to become a longer series, was released on Steam in April 2018, in a slightly disastrous state – full of graphical bugs and various technical issues, the game made a rather poor first impression. However, since those problems were mostly fixed with patches in the months after launch, it’s a good moment to look at Episicava and ask the most important question – did it manage, in its improved state, to capture some of the magic of Fate/Stay Night or Dies Irae in a downscaled, low-budget form of an EVN?
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

I recommend reading this one on my blog as forum formatting makes tables look like shite. Your choice though.
I’ve mentioned earlier that I think one of the reasons there haven’t been a lot of translation blogs on Fuwanovel is that a lot of advice the editing blogs are peddling could equally well be applied when translating. But how would that look? In this blog (and maybe series, but me and regular effort don’t tend to get along), I’ll try to show you the process of translating with an eye to using the structure of English writing rather than following the Japanese.
The great thing about being the translator rather than the editor (or editing while knowing Japanese, but that’s a luxury) is that you don’t have to go ask the translator if the structure of the Japanese prose, when copied, looks weird. You can just make the adjustment yourself, without worrying that you’re distorting the original meaning too much.
This post is primarily aimed at translators, but should hopefully be useful for editors as well. It is probable that some of the patterns shown here could just as well have been picked up by an editing blog; the main difference will be that I can also show how it looks in Japanese.
I am by no means perfect, and any comments or suggestions are appreciated.
In the spirit of leading by example, I’ll be quoting my in-occasional-progress translation of 私は今日ここで死にます (Watashi wa Kyou Koko de Shinimasu; ‘This is where I die today’). Me and Asonn have settled on the shorthand “shinimasu”, but the author’s comments actually use わた死 (“Watashi” with the last syllable using the kanji for ‘death’ that appears in “Shinimasu”). Thus the title.
Let’s start with three lines from the very beginning of the novel. Our protagonist 京介 (Kyousuke) has just seen a girl jump off a bridge, gone after her by jumping himself, and managed to get her out of the river and onto land. The reader doesn’t know this yet, however – the start just talks about what you’d do if you saw someone about to kill themselves.
Japanese Literalish translation Adapted translation 「入水自殺、か」 “Suicide by drowning, huh.” “Tried to drown yourself, huh…” ぽつりと呟きつつ、腕の中でぐったりとしている“それ”を見る。 While mumbling a few words in a staccato manner, I look at “that” resting limply in my arms. I look at the girl resting limply in my arms. まだあどけない顔をした少女だ。 It is a girl with a face that is yet cherubic*. Face innocent as a newborn babe’s. The adaptated first line is based on trying to get nuance right. While I mostly did it on instinct, we can motivate it more logically. In English, the literal version feels like something you’d say when starting to talk about a topic – I’d expect Kyou-boi to expound on the subject of suicide by drowning afterward. But in context he’s commenting on the specific act the girl in his arms has attempted. Another consideration is brought by the second line, which shows that Kyousuke is looking at said girl while saying this. So we’re looking for a line that sounds reasonable spoken to a person that can’t hear it. Which is a weird category now that I think of it, but not entirely uncommon. The ellipsis is questionable, especially when cutting ellipses is something editors do all the time in j>e translation, but I have a reason; it’ll be in the next line analysis.
The second line features a thing frequently found in Japanese visual novel writing that doesn’t really agree with English style conventions at all: describing speech after it’s already been said. Frequently this is entirely redundant information in a visual novel due to speaker tags, but in some cases it will contain some kind of judgement or opinion of the viewpoint character that you might want to preserve. These kinds of redundant lines is a good reason to ask whoever’s doing technical work on your translation if you can just plain remove lines (for example, they might be able to program something that detects the translated line being exactly “SKIP” and cuts those lines.) However, it should be noted that cutting these redundant lines will change the flow of a text. If it’s frequently used in a passage, you may end up with a very different feel than the Japanese ― perhaps this is worth it, but it’s something to take into consideration. わた死 doesn’t do this that frequently, however, so we probably don’t need to worry.
This gives a bit of motivation for adding the ellipsis in line #1; it makes the line more mutter-y in a way that doesn’t make it look weird. This is one strategy for dealing with structural incompatibility: move the piece of information where it does fit.
There’s more. The line doesn’t mention “that” being a girl, revealing this in the next line. I’m not sure why the author did this －maybe the lines read better in Japanese that way, and Japanese lines in succession often depend on each other － but the technique just looks weird in English. Thus, we move the information from line 3 to line 2 in our adaptation.
The third line is annoying because while we technically do have a word that fits あどけない fairly well, cherubic － angelic, innocent, and youthful － few people are likely to know it and it doesn’t really fit the register the Japanese word uses. As such I’ve tried to reword it, though honestly I’m not really satisfied. I’m also not entirely sure if I’m missing a nuance of まだ (yet in the literalish translation) I should be getting; it’s probably just consonant with あどけない as “still looking young”, but it could also be referring to her state of unconsciousness causing it or something. The next line that I’m not showing talks about her looking young for her age though, so we can at least use that. The other thing of structural interest is that we’ve moved the “girl” piece of information to the second line, as mentioned.
…Man this took a while and I only did three lines. I think I’m just going to post. Like, comment, watch the Shinimasu translation progress here, design a double-sided daki with both Yukas on it for me if you’re feeling generous.
As a bonus, have a few other examples of describing things after-the-fact and how I’ve currently handled them:

As you can see the pattern isn’t limited to just speech. Here I decide to go IN and use context to write a line half new.

Another thinking version.

And here’s one with 返す. Also this has mixed speech and narration, which I’ve tried to work into the English as well. Though I’m going to go change this to present tense now since I picked that later, fuck.
 
View the full article
 

Welcome to another episode of Shovelware Adventures! This time, we'll take a break from our favourite, the Sakura series, to take a look at a much more obscure corner of the OELVN scene. The venture into commercial visual novel development by the German fan translator working under the label Yume Creations effected in some of the strangest VNs available on Steam and beyond. Combining competent art and interesting ideas with trashy ecchi, pieces of absolutely disastrous, bizarre writing and straight up failures in the English language, these projects are all experiences that will defy your expectations – just not necessarily in the ways their authors would want them to.
Aozora Meikyuu

A nukige without sex scenes, this little VN offers a rather charming heroine, who sadly gets involved in a totally nonsensical plot and various sexual scenarios that are never shown to the player. In the game’s story, our shut-in protagonist is forced to go out on a rare quest to buy groceries and on his way back home is nearly crashed to death by a (nude) girl falling from the sky. What follows, is a series of rather amusing interactions between the main character and the mysterious woman that invaded his life, which sadly can lead only to some literally incomprehensible and abrupt bad endings, or to a single positive one. The latter, admittedly, somewhat won me over by the virtue of being heartwarming, but was also based on some highly-questionable logic, making in turn everything that happened earlier rather hard to understand.
            The bad endings, which make little sense even after discovering the mystery central to the story and the true conclusion of the plot, along with the sexual tension constantly present in the game, building up towards non-existent hentai scenes, most likely suggest some heavily problematic development process. Because of all this, the final product is rather hard to recommend, even though I seriously enjoyed certain elements of it and ideas the author tried to implement – it is, indeed, a particularly unfortunate hunk of rabbit poo, not really offensive in any way, but hardly worth your attention.
Final rating: Rabbit Poo
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

This is an opinion that has been a long time in forming, but I am coming around to an opinion that the more simplistic viewpoints I've possessed on the differences between American approaches to storytelling and Japanese ones are somewhat off the mark. Note:  This is a rant, it should be treated as a rant, and if it doesn't make sense to you, that is because it is my brain leaking into text on this blog.
First, my original opinion:
To put it simply, it was my belief that the Japanese had a tendency to go for emotional surrealism (in other words, emotional bombardment) and visual excess (exaggeration) to tell their stories.  In opposition, Americans tend to go for the 'gritty and realistic', with straight out bullet to the head realism.  This was a generalization that, while based on my experiences with Japanese video games that told a story (both VNs and jrpgs) and Western games that more or less tried to do the same (Isometric RPGs, Bethesda-style games, etc), was never meant to be an absolute statement but just a general opinion of the tendencies I'd encountered.
Second, my new opinion: 
First, I've come to the conclusion that American gaming companies don't know how to tell a story anymore (since Bioware has gone crappy, Obsidian is about to get absorbed/has been absorbed by a company that has no idea of what it is doing, and the Witcher was made by Polish people).  Second, the Japanese seem to suffer from a similar malaise... and the source is, quite ironically, fairly similar in the cases of mainstream games.
It is the disease I call the 'MMO virus'.  Yes, you who actually read my blog know my opinion on online multiplayer games and what they have done to erode storytelling games in general, but my recent conclusion is that this erosion has actually reached a critical point in the last five years.  Rebellions against the progression of this disease have occurred (Tales of Berseria, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Nier: Automata come to mind for the Japanese, and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire for America), but these have been relatively minor upthrusts against the toxins released by the cloud of mission-based 'stories' you see in games nowadays.  Bethesda has also contributed to this plague (fetch quests and hunt the monster quests  being a common plague for them as well), and it seems like every time I turn around, I see another game trying to tell its story through an obvious mission or quest system is sitting right there.  Sure, the systems had their roots in D&D games, but the way they've developed is the result of the plague that infected the world using games like WoW as its vector.
I first began to see signs of this disease back in the PS2 era, though it was mostly limited to 'high end' games at the time, like Final Fantasy (XII having essentially repurposed and altered XI's MMO battle system for a single-player model), I was honestly horrified to see how easy it was to let myself get led around by the nose from objective to objective in hopes that I'd find the story in there somewhere.  The problem was, once the objectives became my reason for playing (as was inevitable, because that is the tactic they use to draw you in), I increasingly realized that I couldn't enjoy what story was being told, because I was impatient to get to the next objective, even though I didn't find any of that searching for objectives to be fun in the least.
VNs suffer from a different set of problems.  While jrpgs and western games suffer from the simple fact that the current generation of makers grew up obsessing over pathetic attempts to graft stories onto multiplayer games, VNs suffer from the fact that the best and brightest of their creators are... getting old.  Hell, some of them even died in between projects.  Worse, no one of equal capability has replaced them, leading to an unfortunate confluence of near-universal incompetence and corporate inability to grasp the reasons for failure and fix it. 
No, I'm not saying that all new VNs suck.  Hell, if they all sucked, I wouldn't still be trying to go back and play them, like the burnt-out junkie I am.  No, my issue is that there is a sudden dearth of developed talent within the world of VNs that has gotten horrible in the last five years.  Most of the major names are retired, have moved on to 'greater' things, or are dead.  Shumon Yuu is silent, Hino Wataru seems to have gone underground, Masada is probably off in his own little world, Fujisaki Ryuuta is circling in place, Kurashiki Tatsuya is off indulging his inner sadist with half-assed games, Kazuki Fumi can't seem to stick with one thing long enough to make it great since Akeiro Kaikitan, and Agobarrier is three years dead.  That isn't even mentioning all the formerly major names that have just decided to retire without telling anyone or got hired away by mainstream video game companies. 
What is replacing them are primarily LN writers... who, unfortunately, tend to write like middle school street kids on crack (and not in a good way).  They often have great ideas, but they are fuzzy about execution and lacking in technique.  As a result, you get a bunch of third-rate one-off VNs that no one really likes.
Artists aren't a problem.  There will always be plenty of skilled otaku artists who can draw h-scenes.  The issue is and always will be writers... because it is the writer that decides whether a VN will become remembered for years to come or be dropped back into the dung at the bottom of the latrine.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a review copy of this game by the developer. All opinion presented here are solely my own.
PixelFade is a studio that from the very beginning showed an unusually ambitious approach to EVN development. Their first project, Ace Academy, offered some features rarely seen in Western VN of similar scale (~10h of content), such as good-quality, full voice acting and lots of impressive-looking, stylistically consistent artwork. It was also pretty atypical in its storytelling, featuring a mostly college-age cast, choosing a very tame approach to romance and avoiding the fanservice endemic to this kind of lighthearted, SoL-focused VNs. Initially funded on Kickstarter as Kendo Crush, it went through a curious evolution from a generic-looking, sports-themed game into a futuristic story about mecha battles but regardless of all the tribulations, the end effect was a highly refreshing, all-ages experience with a satisfying mix of light drama, non-violent action and mystery. In my opinion, it’s still one of the best EVNs ever released, with few real issues beyond the somewhat abrupt, anticlimactic ending and the overly simplistic "gameplay" elements.
            Considering the relative success of Ace Academy, it was obvious that there would be high expectations connected to PixelFade’s second project, Crystalline – a lighthearted fantasy tale with a single romanceable heroine, which promised a longer story and even higher production qualities than their debut. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2017, with gathered over 60k CAD (an amount pretty much unseen when it goes to original EVN projects), the game fairly quickly entered Steam on early access and was fully released in late August 2018 – the much anticipated final product offering truly impressive sound and visual design... And, in my opinion, a truly disappointing lack of compelling story content. But why is that exactly?
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Disclaimer: I was provided with a review copy of this game by the developer. All opinion presented here are solely my own.
PixelFade is a studio that from the very beginning showed an unusually ambitious approach to EVN development. Their first project, Ace Academy, offered some features rarely seen in Western VN of similar scale (~10h of content), such as good-quality, full voice acting and lots of impressive-looking, stylistically consistent artwork. It was also pretty atypical in its storytelling, featuring a mostly college-age cast, choosing a very tame approach to romance and avoiding the fanservice endemic to this kind of lighthearted, SoL-focused VNs. Initially funded on Kickstarter as Kendo Crush, it went through a curious evolution from a generic-looking, sports-themed game into a futuristic story about mecha battles but regardless of all the tribulations, the end effect was a highly refreshing, all-ages experience with a satisfying mix of light drama, non-violent action and mystery. In my opinion, it’s still one of the best EVNs ever released, with few real issues beyond the somewhat abrupt, anticlimactic ending and the overly simplistic "gameplay" elements.
            Considering the relative success of Ace Academy, it was obvious that there would be high expectations connected to PixelFade’s second project, Crystalline – a lighthearted fantasy tale with a single romanceable heroine, which promised a longer story and even higher production qualities than their debut. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2017, with gathered over 60k CAD (an amount pretty much unseen when it goes to original EVN projects), the game fairly quickly entered Steam on early access and was fully released in late August 2018 – the much anticipated final product offering truly impressive sound and visual design... And, in my opinion, a truly disappointing lack of compelling story content. But why is that exactly?
Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Over a few years now I have read some japanese VNs on the PS vita that are based on series that already had an anime before the VN. These VNs are Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?? Wonderful Party!, Himouto! Umaru-chan Himouto! Ikusei Keikaku, Nisekoi: Yomeiri!?, Sakura-sou no Pet na Kanojo, and To Love-Ru Trouble Darkness: True Princess. Since I have the physical version of all of them I figured that I would do a review of them, however it has been a while since i read them so I don't think I would be able to make a proper review for each of them without rereading parts of them. As such I decided that instead I would do short reviews of each and put them all in one blog entry. By the way these titles are aimed at people who have watched the anime or read the manga.
 
Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?? Wonderful Party! is in my opinion a good Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu Ka? VN. It does a great job at properly representing the characters as they are in the anime (haven't read the manga) and manage to execute well on the relaxed atmosphere found in the anime. The main story of the common route is that Kokoa wants to make a surprise birthday party for Chino, after this the character that interact most Kokoa (who you play in the common route) will be inspired to themselves hold a party chrismas for all of the other girls. The main thing then is how each of the girls thinks about how best to hold a party and what will make the other girls the happiest. There is also a mini game in the common route where you play as Kokoa working at Rabbit House, this is quite short but can be annoying when you just want to get into another route. I also want to mention that I prefered it to the anime as many of the jokes in the anime seems to be too slowly phased and therefore become boring while they work pretty well in the visual novel. One thing I should also mention is that it of course feels quite childish which is to be expected since the series in Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu Ka?
 
Himouto! Umaru-chan Himouto! Ikusei Keikaku managed to surprise me by being better than I had expected. It released before the 2nd season of the anime, but I would say that the general vibe of it is more similar to the 2nd season rather than the first season, something that I think is a good thing, btw didn't hate first season just thought the 2nd season was better. As for the common route I would say it was pretty decent and had some nice comedic moments, really liked the interactions between Taihei and Alex. As for the routes I would say those were the highlights of the VN. There are 3 different Umaru routes, one for UMR, one for her chibi form and one for her outside form as well as a route for Ebina, Kirie and Sylphinford. The routes did a good job at telling a story (mostly focusing on the relationship between siblings, not the incestious kind) and the comedy was what you would expect from Himouto Umaru (Sylphinford had some amazing comedic moments). Also after the end of the route there is an extra ending, this ending is just a few lines and a CG and tells what Umaru ended up as later, something that depends on lvling stats in the common route (just give her items that she use to lvl skills and have her use them). Again this is an annoying mini game and you probably need a guide to find out the stat combination needed for all the extra endings, but at least I think the extra endings are quite fun even though they are really short.
 
Nisekoi: Yomeiri!? is the first VN I ever read and where my profile picture is from. As for the VN itself I think it is really good, though it could in part be nostalgia since it is the first VN I read. The VN starts with Raku encountering a loli fox spirit named Otama who I would say works as a mascot for the VN. After the introduction you get a map of the school and of the city and then use that to choose who you want to have events with, after a few normal events with a girl you get a larger event that lasts longer and has a bit more impact and you continue with this until you get to the last event which can probably be considered her route. Each of their routes start with the girls going to the shrine connected to Otama and making a wish, Otama then fufills this wish in a way often not really expected or thought through by the one wishing it, thus creating a suituation that needs to be solved. As for the routes there are 6 in total, with 4 main routes that are romance focused one for each of the main heroines Chitoge, Kosaki, Marika and Seishirou and then extra routes unlocking after you have completed a route, one being the Ruri route (not romance but mainly about not making her hate you as Shuu involves you in things that piss her off) and the Raku route which can be considered the harem end, or rather the end where nothing happens. Chitoge's route is really emotional and something I think would fit in a nakige, Onodera's route is very nostalgic having many references to the main series while the other routes mainly focus on comedy (found most of them hilarious). As for gameplay there are a few minigames where you have to avoid being seen by someone (often the gangsters), then there are a few times where you get a few different hiragana that you need to combine to make a word that is your answer to something and lastly there is a health bar which mainly go down if a certain character gets mad at you and punches you or you eat something you shouldn't. I feel like these are the best implemented mini game systems I have seen so far in these kinds of VNs and while these unnecessary minigames that slow you down when you want to read other routes are annoying this one didn't feel all that annoying and a few times actually worked pretty well within the story. Just to end this of I wanted to say that it does a really good job using the characters to their full potential and that anyone who is a fan of Nisekoi, has a PS vita and know japanese should pick it up.
 
Sakura-sou no Pet na Kanojo is something I am a bit more mixed about. On one hand it does a pretty good job with the characters, comedy and story and on the other hand the art is kind of plain (colours are pretty bland) and the gameplay system is really annoying (the most annoying I have seen so far) which I think is somewhat detremental when doing the different routes. The general story is about the people at Sakurasou starting to work together on a game for a game competition. How this plays out in the VN is that you spend time working with them and depending on who you work with you end in their route, though you also need to ensure that all of them manages to get their required tasks done and I found it to be a bit more complex than it sounds. Other than that there are lots of scenes with the different people at Sakurasou as well as a new character that was the one who got them to enter the competition. As I mentioned I found the comedy to be well executed and the characters to be handled well so these scenes are pretty fun. As for the endings there are only endings with Shiina and Aoyama, though there are 3 variations for each of them which I think just depend on how many times you cleared an ending with them (bad type first time, better 2nd time and the best the 3rd time). They have also built in a stupid new game+ thing making it so you have to complete it from scratch to get the better endings, other than that there is an event for each character that includes a CG that requires you to go through each of the 6 routes twice meaning you have to go through it and the stupid gameplay system at least 12 times in total if you want to have all the CGs. In conclusion I would say it is a pretty good VN though it is held back by plain art with bland colours and a stupid system forcing you to go through the VN 12 times to get all the scenes while you navigate a semi difficult annoying system for each route.
 
To Love-Ru Trouble Darkness: True Princess is the only of these titles that I found to really be a disappointment. There is a wide variety in how good the routes are, some I would say are actually somewhat good while others are quite bad (especially Yami's route). While there is a lot of VN original content some of the scenes feel like pretty much a copy of things in the manga/anime just toned down due to it being on PS vita. The general plot is that that Rito loses his memory due to one of Lala's machines, then he spends time with the different girls and at the end of it he regains his memory after having gotten close with a girl and happy end. Other than some routes being generally poorly written and lending too much from the source matterial I would say a huge problem is the limitation it has being on the vita. Since To Love Ru generally rely on perverted comedy it can't really do as good of a job with it due to Sony even before their recent censorship crusade not really accepting anything as lewd as things found in the manga and anime. Other than this there are also some really annoying technical problem, for one all of the art has been compressed which is quite clear when comparing it to other vita titles, this makes it look much worse than it should have (art quality is pretty good), also one really annoying problem is that it seems it has memory problems, as you get close to having done all the scenes it just goes black everytime you try to save regardless of savefile and refuses to save after the VN is complete. This is a problem I found other people also had when I googled the problem in japanese though I didn't find a solution, as such I have  everything other than the ending CGs of the Nemesis route (at her ending part but won't save after the credits) when I have the memory card in and without the memory card I have done the Nemesis route so I could get all CGs, even though I don't have them all in the same place.
 
Front cover of the five VNs

 
Back cover of the five VNs