adamstan

Still, probably the weirdest route is Rin's. But Shizune's is close second.

Good luck, and have a walkthrough ready

Ah, so there's actually someone here, who has read Amber Quartz Yeah, I think I get it. I will write more when I finish it, but it seems to tick the right boxes for me personally, so I'm glad that I found it despite its relatively low popularity. Currently I'm near the end (I think) of Miyako's route, with Nayuta's route left (am I right thinking that it's kind of "true route"?), and so far I'm liking almost everything I've seen, except maybe for not too good H-scenes. They aren't horrible (I've seen much worse), just painfully mediocre. I guess I got spoiled by the few titles I read that actually had decently written sex scenes. Luckily there aren't that many of them in Amber Quartz .

That one clue gives it right away

is one of the exceptions. (I wonder, is it a spoiler in itself?) I really liked how they executed it.

For me they worked. It was one od the best VNs I've read recently.

If you are self-inserting and/or treat a game as dating sim, then certainly But you might miss some nice things that way. When playing the common route I thought that Mashiro was pretty meh, and wasn't interested in her route at all, but got nice surprise, and in the end I liked her. Also, I think that romance isn't main focus of this game, even though it is done decently.

Backstories... The first one that comes to mind for me is Kotomi from Clannad. It made me feeling exactly as described in the first post - wanting to protect her and never leave her alone. Also Yuka from Crescendo, and Jun from Family Project. And then, maybe not as tragic but still made my eyes wet - Ayaka from Princess Evangile.

Maybe, but the main reason I'm finally not attracted to high-schoolers is perhaps their behaviour. So I might see cute or hot girl and feel attracted, but that lasts only until she speaks (Actually that extends to other age groups of course. For me the way of speaking, and general behaviour is very major factor of attraction - perhaps even more important than appearance)

I often thought about it. I feel like in many aspects (relationships included) I haven't grown up, whatever that means. I have quite weird (?) memory, as I'm still remembering school days like it was maybe a year ago, not over 20. Also, never being in a romantic relationship, I kind of didn't have the opportunity to "progress", I'm still at level 0. I often still feel like that shy 17-18 yo I was back then. So while I'm mostly not attracted to actual high-schoolers for various reasons, I can relate pretty easily to characters in JVN high-school settings. Also, because I've been kind of "frozen" for the last 20 years, I have somewhat skewed age perception. By that I mean, that when I think a girl is just a few years younger than me, she turns out to actually be 18-19, when I think she's roughly my age, she's often actually in her mid 20s, and when I look at girls that actually are my age, I often feel like they are much older than me Back to VNs - while, like I said above, I can relate to high-school characters, I also can appreciate adult settings. I loved The Language of Love.

Time travel is fine, but I guess I'm slightly weirded out by Newton turned into heroine

I've been on the fence about Newrin for some time. I've seen it praised, but somehow the setting and premise fail to catch my attention. Like, I'd perhaps like to read it some day, but it has pretty low priority.

Thanks. That was exactly my fear. If it's like you say, then I think I should be able to enjoy it Fureraba was pretty good for me. Going back to current reads, I feel like Amber Quartz is really underrated (unless they fuck up things in a big way later ). Like, from what I see so far, it deserves more recognition than it gets. Ratings both on VNDB and EGS are decent - most of them in the 7+ range, meaning that people who actually read it tend to enjoy it, but the number of votes itself is abysmal. I wonder if it's because it got overshadowed by some other great titles, that came around the same time? In 2009 there definitely was a couple of big releases.

That was my main gripe with Lamunation. To the point that whatever was left of the story, seemed totally random. It was all memes, but it wasn't because of translator - it was written this way originally. How is this one? Is there some story at all? After meh experience with Lamunation I'm inclined to think that bakage, or memege, or however they call it, are not for me. I'm fine with jokes, memes, references, fourth wall breaking etc, but when they are used as spice, not the main dish so to speak.

As for the question I have it in my backlog. Question is - do I need to read Grisaia before to enjoy it? (It also sits in a queue, but it's huge trilogy, so it will take some time)

Hmm... how to say it without being too spoilery... there's more to this VN than SoL and romance. It kind of reminds me of first episode of Sailor Moon - you have your SoL, and then suddenly strange things start to happen, or, as @GXOALMD has put it - shit goes down

Yeah, I think it really deserves translation. Maybe someone should pester NekoNyansoft about it - I think they would be best for this job At least Palette isn't against translating their VNs (Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki and 9-nine have official translations).

I already mentioned Aokana, but if talking about VNs I read in 2019 (instead of 2019 releases), it falls to second place, and my absolutely favourite read of 2019 would be Mashiro Iro Symphony.

Amber Quartz already managed to surprise me pretty hard When you read vndb summary and look at screenshots and (non-spoilery) tags, it looks like just another nakige/charage, focused on the themes of group of friends, memories, etc etc. And the beginning of the game seems to confirm this - it starts similarly to many other high-school romances. Also, just in line with summary, we see some of the MC's flashbacks from seven years ago, when he was playing with his group of friends, from whom he's been estranged later on. And now they (a bit unexpectedly) meet again. So far, pretty typical setup, and I actually liked it. But then they That was totally unexpected, but now I am really curious what happens next. Also, I love character designs - they have that classic 90s anime style. BTW it seems to be pretty obscure VN, with only 18 votes on vndb, and, if memory serves, something like ~380 on EGS.

Wow, that second video is really something Looks like I have another singer to follow. Indeed, very nice voice, and songs too. That violin solo at the beginning was pretty impressive as well.

My biggest disappointment recently was definitely Lamunation(TL released in 2019), even though I read it this year. From the titles I read in 2019, the most disappointing one was Sisters ~Natsu no Saigo no Hi~ I think I finally never got to write my impressions in "What are you playing" thread, so might write here as well It has pretty good production values, being almost fully animated. Also, the story had the potential for being nice nakige, but developers decided that the best use for all those animations would be to turn that "na" into "nu" So the story got overwhelmed with numerous long h-scenes. Overally game isn't bad, I enjoyed it (and it's pretty short), but it screams "wasted potential!" - after some of the story reveals my expectations were much higher, thus disappointment. On the more positive note - except for few lines when we hear news from TV, it's easy enough that I could read it without the text hooking

Today I started Amber Quartz. It looks promising so far. Nice art, likeable characters and the themes/tropes I like - group of childhood friends, memories... Let's see, how it turns out.

+1, it was very pleasant surprise.

So should we consider official English releases of titles like Clannad, Little Busters or Grisaia kind of happy accidents? (perhaps having anime adaptation helped there to convince publishers...?) But yeah, all those releases happened few years ago (2015 for Clannad and Grisaia no Kajitsu, 2017 for LB). Lately, SolPress picked up Irotoridori no Sekai (also Favorite's game), and JAST is working (forever...) on Majikoi, but neither seems to be close to release While we're at Favorite's games, Sekai still hasn't fixed Hoshimemo... In the meantime, FanTL of Hoshiori Yume Mirai has been released, and currently they work on Gin'iro Haruka, but tsurezure scans is kind of exception rather than a rule So, probably you're right, and translation indeed seems unlikely

I'm definitely interested in it. Too bad the download version seems to be DMM exclusive DMM is the one JP VN storefront that I can't buy from - at least without using VPNs etc. I can access site and create an account, but whenever I try to buy a VN, it throws out an error message at me, equivalent to "this content is unavailable in your location". No problems with either DLSite or Getchu, it's just DMM being the odd one. Why is that? I'd be inclined to think that good nakige should be popular. Is it the matter of size?