TheCrimsonFucker

Hmmm aside from Rance and Kamidori the only two games that come to my mind is Eiyuu*Senki , which is an SRPG and the edited machine translation of Ikusa Megami Zero. The only character who I would consider as dominant as the MC from Bunny Black is Rance. The protagonists of Kamidori and Eiyuu*Senki are more passive.

Little late, but I would also suggest Eiyu*Senki.

Little late, but I would also suggest Eiyu*Senki.

The only one that comes to mind is Edelweiss from Overdrive. I was surprised when one of the MC's friend got a girlfriend even before the MC

I'd say it's at least intermediate. The fight scenes can prove especially tricky, so I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner. That being said, if you really want to read it, there is no harm in checking out the trial to gauge whether or not you'd be able to comprehend the rest of the game at your current level.
Akabeisoft is quite annoying, as they block IPs that aren't Japanese from accessing their website, but you can still download the game's trial from sites that sells the game, like Getchu. (Just hit the "体験版DL" button on this site.)

Congrats finishing it then I only read the translated games and I actually forgot that I didn't read the after stories of the original heroines in S. Well they have to wait since I'm still sitting on the last route in Tsujido, the last route in Comyu (which I'm afraid to read at this point), Edelweiss, the Kira Kira Deardrops fandisc, I also want to check out Hapymaher and I just finished Hatsukoi after leaving it alone for months. Not to mention I also want to start reading in japanese at one point this summer.
Damn I remember how I fell in love with this game when I first started reading it and then waited for years checking yandere translation every few days to see nothing happening for years but after S came out I felt like I read too much of it. Got a little fed up with the "strong-willed girl gets all shy and submissive in a relationship" thing that makes 90% of the games. Also kind of got bored with Yamato being every womens type in Kawakami. Still hopefully a new fandiscs will get translated at somepoint and I can get back into it

just to clarify, im referring to all the fandisks and of course the main game itself as well as the little known A+ fandisk. so unless math has failed me thats 8 vns done from the majikoi universe!
 
quite the ride its been. cant deny that i was getting majikoi fatigue at the end. love the main vn to death but my god. theres only so much majikoi a person can take. not sure exactly how many years its been exactly but its probably been like 6 years, maybe? anyone remember when the translation for majikoi was released? the one that had all the routes except miyakos and the agave route? i believe fuwa still had torrents floating about when i first played majikoi. think this is where i got it, in fact. I do know the picture that sold me on majikoi though.

 
just look at that face. so happy and carefree.  the face that started it all.
 
so yeah, read majikoi when the original tl team released the translation that would lay in limbo for majikoi english progression for a long time. so long that i became impatient and started reading with a machine hooker. while i was reading it i learned that a new team was gonna tackle majikoi and years later they released a full english version that was uncensored. re-read majikois miyakos route and the agave route to get a better understanding of what was happening and finished majikoi fully. learned of the fan disk S and got started on that and its partial translation. history repeats itself as i read an unfinished translation with a machine hooker and learned that another team was gonna complete the vn. didnt go back this time to that one since i got the gist and had a better understanding of japanese. then the a series. oh god, the A series. 6 fandisks, 18 heroines and a whole lot of rinse and repeat. yamato must help the girls with some kind of big event and then theres a massive, overly long fight sequence. with the amount of girls in the majikoi universe that yamato can bone, id be really surprised if there was a main character of a vn who has more total possible heroines than yamato. 
 
feel like making a chart for all the possible boneable heroines but i dont want to right now. later.
 
decided to change my avatar after like 3 years of having the same avatar to mark this occasion!
 

 
what a nice reward after all these years. the famous last words from this series will be with me after this long journey. "Maji de watashi ni koishinasai!"
 
 

I just say some people though, which mean that it also true that people might find MC is likeable as well. Anyway while it's true that VNDB list him as proactive MC, he might come as emo and weak protagonist for some people while leave all the job to the girls, which make him as some sort of dependent MC even though he has a reason for that. So in sort he might not for everyone, but regardless of that I would say that it's up to you to find your own opinion about the MC (Tohru), and I'll do that likewise while keeping his weakness in mind.

More like some people think their opinion are fact and everyone else who thinks differently are trash. Not to mention when they put titles on themselves like "I'm a gamer" they feel their opinion matters more. Funny since it doesn't actually matter -.-'
 
There can be one to a million reason "why now". From a business standpoint they may see a "future" in VNs, maybe they are leaving a door open for the chance that VNs get more popular in the west. I'm leaning towards, that they want to distinguish themselves from Steam as you said

Yeah pizza is awsome and when it's bad it's still pretty good
 
Well this kinda things happen in 3 occasion as far as my experience goes:
1. You read to much VN-s from the same genre so you are bored of it
2. The genre you read doesn't really suit your taste
3.  You read something really good and now look for that in everything
Most of the time changing the genre or just stopping reading for a time is a good idea (like the others said). In my case I just simply lower my expectations depending on the VN I read.
Funny how I'm the complete opposite of you I droped Wagamama but I love Majikoi and I will love Tsujido when it is completly translated.

Honestly I would like a sequel for Majikoi that moved on a little. For example a new game which is set around 2 years after the first one. That way most of the cast is moved on but still have some of them in the school and in the city. It would also give plenty of opportunity to have them make a cameo. This way they could focus on the first years that are coming in to town and maybe have them live in the Shimazu dorm as well We could see a new group of friends getting together in a game like this instead of having them already know each other.
I think a VN like this would make a nice sequel with new characters while retaining the charm of the original.

Personally I would also enjoy having an MC and some guys who are good fighters and on the girls level. Something similar to Dragons Rioting so the MC is on the level of Momoyo just holding back for most of the time for reasons. But thats just my personal preference I gotten a little bored with how Minatosoft always doing the "weak guys, overpowerd girls" thing.

Personally, I don't really care what is considered a VN or not. If I enjoy it then that is what matters. I like deep stories and good characters and character interractions. That's why RPG and JRPG are my favourite gaming genres, and that is also why I like VN-s. But I never liked them to an extent where I was annoyed, that I had to get through the gameplay elements no matter how good they were. That is mostly true for actual RPG and JRPG games.
When it comes to VN-s, it seriously depends on how well it's done. In VN-s the main focus is usually on the actual VN parts (I belive), so there is a lot less development on the gameplay. Which can end up as a VN, with some shitty gameplay. In that case you want to read and you get constantly interrupted which is annoying. On the other hand I think if the gameplay is well done, than it can give more depth to the VN aside from the reading. It also can get some people (like me) more invested and immersed in the whole story line and world. But even when that is done, well there is still one big hurdle. The pacing of the gameplay elements. Kamidory for example (and other eushully games as I have heard) have a lot of grinding in later parts of the game, which completly cuts of the story for hours. And if you wan't to continue the story, it is really annyoing to do tha same dungeon over and over again, for some materials.

Still I'm the type who likes to play between story segments, and it also helps me get immersed in the world and story, so I prefer VN-s with gameplay if it's done right.

It's fine. I don't mind sharing my method of studying. It'd be nice if it can help you in some way.
Most of my Japanese is self-study. I did attend a Japanese class before to learn about the alphabets, basic sentence structures and some other basic stuffs. After that, I learn by reading magazines, playing games and such.
The reason why I choose Visual Novel as a medium to study is because I can listen and read at the same time. Because my knowledge in Kanji is low, there are a lot of times where I can't understand the sentence because there are Kanji that I don't know about. In Visual Novel, as there are both speeches and texts, I can look for the words much easier and also learn how to pronounce them at the same time.
I don't know if you have started studying Japanese yet, however, if you haven't, I'd recommend finding some basic Japanese books and start by learning the alphabets and basic structures. It won't take a long time and will help you a lot in the long run. And as with any other things, the more you use it, the better you'll get. So try to use it as much as possible.
And that's pretty much how I study Japanese, and English for that matter. I hope you find it useful.
Good luck ^^.

As it turned out in the end, the thing they released today is a patch that adds the h-scenes to the Steam version but deletes the additional scenes. And yes, you need to play both versions to get the full experience, though apparently the h-scenes aren't very important, depending on who you ask.
Also, I don't think it's released for anyone but backers yet.

Every market has scumbags. Believe me my family experienced something similar in the past. The VN market is just smaller so it's easier to spot the shit.
I always  knew Wingd Cloud was a shitty company, with shitty games but I never expected them to be this fucked up.

Every market has scumbags. Believe me my family experienced something similar in the past. The VN market is just smaller so it's easier to spot the shit.
I always  knew Wingd Cloud was a shitty company, with shitty games but I never expected them to be this fucked up.

Well sorry if some of you didn't find that my thread title was very creative, but you should get the gist of that anyway because it's very obvious. Anyway, here's the tweets from Mangagamer in regard of the release for both of 18+ version and all age version below.
As for mine, I definitely think this is quite a good news that Mangagamer did have big release at January. Also, I'm looking forward to the release here seeing that I saw some good receptions here. You may use this thread to discuss about Sorcery Joker later.
Edit (1/8) - Now that it's already 2018, I decide to edited the title which obviously was not fitting anymore if I keep the 'next year' part - even though it's belated because I should delete that part from back at 1st. Oh well, better late than never.
Edit (1/16) - Since this was already released, I decided to change the title a bit for obvious reason. Have fun.

Jup both Majikoi and S has a true route which can be accessed after clearing the main heroines. They are mostly story driven routes with plenty of action and most of the cast also take part in them. I wouldn't call them ecchi, there are scenes but the main story clearly took the focus.

I can't really comment on the top routes, because there are a good number of them and I pretty much liked all except the Tatsuko, Margit routes. Also there is a certain heroine who I really liked but she got completly ignored in her route and I even forgot for a time that I was technically playing her route

Then I guess I have a new game on my to read list

I looked up a japanese walkhtrough when the game came out and just droped the game after. That wakthrough basically gave me an A and B routes and the different endings you can get during the routes. At the start you pick Naja by default (this is the point I looked it up). Just by the walkthrough and what I read somewhere, this game doesn't have the basic "make choices lock on to heroine and go down her route" style, as SeniorBlitz said it has scenarios that focuses on heroines. They had a good slice of life with monstergirls story going at the start but fucked it up completely. Hell the spidergril doesn't even get a normal ending even though he is featured as a main heroine.

Hmm I don't have much interest in western VN-s, maybe because I never encountered anything good, but it doesn't mean I'm not open for the idea. I would gladly check out what you write if you start this. Why not try doing it for a few months and decide after that if you want to continue or not?

Didn't finish reading it yet but I think Edelweiss has a good amount a bros in it. It has a group of friends with some good friendly banter between them. Now that I think about that there aren't many games (at least amongst the ones I read) where the friends get the focus forr at least a little while. This and majikoi are the only ones that I can remember right now.

I second Kagome from Comyu.
Sousou (and maybe some other characters) from Koihime Musou.
Hmmm maybe Haishera from Ikusa Megami Zero but that is a heavily edited machine translation, and more story focused. This is more of a mention than a recommendation.

Doki Doki actually fulfilled a desire of mine that I thought could never happen.
 

Interesting to see how the point of this topick was SakuraGames shitty business practice, but it turned into the developer being an asshole. I don't really see his point but it's his work so he can decide what he wants to do with it. Even if it sounds rude. As for SakuraGame, well ... I'm not surprised.