PiggiesGoMoo

Even though Suguri is my favorite, I think her route is pretty meh IMO. I'm liking Nastume's a lot more.

I'm 2-3 hours in and it's good so far. It has a reasonably paced introduction and transition into potentially more serious stuff. I'll make a more detailed review when I'm done. As for the translation, there are some liberties taken it seems, but not so much that it becomes a giant meme IMO. I don't think the translation changes the personality of the girls in any significant way... but I only know some Japanese, so take that for what it's worth.

This game has some great music IMO. All songs I've heard so far have vocals

Dropped Inganock, the story and theme is just not my thing. I didn't realize the story would be so strongly steampunk. Still, I have to give credit to the nice art style and atmosphere. I started reading Swan Song instead for another post-apoc story, and I like it a lot. Lots of interesting inner monologues by characters. Tanomura is as manly and great as people describe lol. Also some surprisingly funny dark humor (this is a drunken rant): EDIT: Considering what happens later, I don't find that rant very funny anymore

I'm back after a long VN Hiatus. Speaking of Hapymaher, I kinda blame that game for making me burned out by VNs for a while lol. It really felt like it took the worst of VNs and amplified it, just so many convoluted and unnecessary scenes in my opinion. On the other hand, maybe I was due for a burnout, since I was reading only VNs for a good 3-4 months. I'm reading Sekien no Inganock now. So far, it has reminded me why I like VNs as a format. It really pulls you into the world just by the sound effects and visuals, while also making you use your imagination. It has some nice exposition like a manga would, without cutting out details like an anime. Yet it doesn't have the lack of immersion that a manga might have. Best of both worlds, you could say.

I think VN's will get more and more animation as the market develops, which will help. Eventually I even think that the standard practice of reusing sprites will become a dated feature of VNs, and they will have more animation instead. I say this because I think people put a lot of value on the visuals of VN's, and there are definitely companies that have improved their standards over the years. Like anime, at a certain point the quality will be high enough to where it will break into a western audience.

Reading Danganronpa 2. It has a lot of entertaining characters, and the trials have all been really good so far (and really sad and dramatic in some cases). I must say though, I find myself rushing through free time to get to the trials, and not bothering to buy gifts. I don't really like the clear delineation between "free time" and "oh no someone got murdered" in the game, it makes the pacing seem predictable... Like "oh it's a free time day? Welp, I guess nobody is getting murdered." Still, I think the trials make the free time worth doing.

+1 Asahi best girl. You like Michiru and Asahi... you my friend have good taste!

At chapter 3. I don't think the gameplay mechanics compare to something like Kamidori Alchemy Meister, but Evenicle definitely has a major pacing advantage over that game. You can speed through combat scenes and encounters if you want by just holding CTRL. It even speeds up movement on the minimap. There's even an auto-combat mode. Pretty nice. I also think there is more dialogue in Evenicle than in Kamidori, at least on a "percentage of time playing" basis. I'm not sure I'd rate it higher overall than Kamidori, though. The romance is very rushed by comparison. I guess that's because Kamidori is less of a "nukige" than evenicle.

Lazy fight scenes. Honestly I wish more VNs would just use a manga-esque style for fight scenes. Funnily enough Cartagra does the "manga-style fight scenes" (I haven't read KNS 1 or 2 yet, maybe they do too), and it looks great. Of course, this demands more on the part of the artist(s). More broadly, I guess I'm asking for more artistic effort when it comes to these scenes, in whatever way it can be done. The "lazy" type I'm talking about are where CGs are reused, and the fights involve text and "colored slashes" on the screen, plus sound effects. This is the style in a lot of the highly rated VNs. It even includes some very action-scene oriented VNs where you'd expect there to be more artistic emphasis on the action. This problem might be because of budget issues.

Funny that you mention Subahibi, I actually thought there were more "unjustified fanservice" h-scenes in Subahibi than in Grisaia. Sure there are h-scenes in Subahibi which fit the plot, but there are several I can think of that definitely don't. With Grisaia, all of the character arcs are romantic, and the romance leads to the h-scenes, so I'd say the h-scenes are "justified".

I was playing Utwarerumono. So far it's pretty decent, and I've heard the sequels are top notch. However, I'm now discouraged because I found out that the sequels are PS4/Vita only.... I thought I'd be able to play them on my PS3. The funny thing is that I actually developed and published a Vita game in college for a senior project, but I don't own a Vita I guess I'll switch to another game for now.

The percentage that do

I'd be curious to know the percentage that make them optional. Seems like some of the newer ones do, like Chrono Clock and Sorcery Jokers.

Have been reading Grisaia. I'm really impressed by the writing in all of the slice-of-life scenes. Not just the humor, but in the way that it explores the depths of personality of the characters. That includes the common route. So far I've done the routes of Makina and Amane, and am currently in Michiru's. I saved Sachi and Yumiko's routes for later because I was very curious about WTF is wrong with Michiru... a very unusual character lol. Michiru's character + route might end up being my favorite. The only character I find kind of uninteresting is Amane, although her route is very riveting (it felt like I was reading a totally different VN). I also read Cartagra recently, and it was decent. It almost felt like I was reading a nukige, with all of the very short routes and h-scenes. Looking forward to KNS 1 & 2.