adamstan

I liked PE very much, it is near the top of my VN list, with score of 8.5 I plan to reread all-ages version some day, as I bought it on Steam too. All-ages version is direct port of console version, with some replacement content for h-scenes. (that's why, unlike with the fandisc, there's no +18 patch from Mangagamer, as the versions differ too much). I think it should be good in this version too - while h-scenes were actually quite nice in this VN, not showing them shouldn't harm the story, assuming it's only the actual sex-scene being cut, like in Sanoba Witch. But if you don't like moeges or anything close to them - obviously don't bother with it, as it is just sweet romance story.

From the recently necro'd thread about Libra of the Vampire Princess: Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But other thing baffles me. There certainly ARE many Japanese people who are fluent at English - I refuse to believe otherwise. So why PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATION SERVICES don't hire them, and instead opt to produce unreadable gibberish? Do those tl companies (not game localization, but in general) pay their translators too little, and a person who is actually good at English just has many better job opportunities? It would certainly be ironic in a pretty disturbing way, if only people who suck at English would be desperate enough to work as translators...

Yeah, SukiSuki should be out in two weeks As for DameKoi - it probably will take some time still. But I think I saw it mentioned somewhere as one of the "beginner-friendly" titles for reading untranslated So either way I'm going to read it someday. As for Sakura Sakura - yeah, I'll definitely try it, but I'm waiting for some price drop - maybe during winter Steam sale? Sol Press' titles are on the more expensive side when it comes to localized VNs.

After looking here and there, it seems that Naoki is horrible protagonist, being extreme jerk/asshole. That seriously turns me off - that's one of the various reasons I'm avoiding School Days like a plague . Have you already read his part? Is it really as bad as VNDB forums make it to be? And so on... That last comment was from @Stormwolf if I'm not mistaken, and I agree with it - do writers really need to go from one extreme to the other? Anyway, if I had to choose, I'd prefer donkan or hetare MC over an asshole. That would be lesser evil But why cannot they give us just some decent guy, with some guts/balls but without being totally obnoxious? You know - the MC that wouldn't make us facepalm at his every action, or lack thereof, but also didn't stimulate killer instincts

Well, they say that it's best to read Ayaka after Ritsuko - there are some minor spoilers for Ritsuko in Ayaka's route. Also, Ayaka's route is the one that explains headmistress' behaviour. But it isn't that big issue. I went with Rise > Chiho > Ritsuko > Ayaka. But saving Rise for last may be good too - if you like her. (I did, but some apparently don't) Yeah Ritsuko hiding behind potted plant in cafeteria was absolutely hilarious I think Chiho's route was the weakest (but not bad), however I loved her epilogue.

I just finished Shinigami no Kiss wa Wakare no Aji. And it isn't easy to rate it. It's rather short VN, with only three routes (with the third being unlockable true route). There is only one choice, that selects the route, so there is no need to repeat the common. I started with Shizuku's route - she was interesting tsundere-imouto character, but the route felt pretty weird, especially h-scenes, filled with bad hentai cliches However there were some nice emotional moments too. Honoka's route was much better, there was actually some nice love there However, whole thing felt underdeveloped - there were few locations and characters, and whole world felt rather empty. It was almost as taken out of the conversation Kouhei had with Tsubaki in YMK, when he lamented the fact that, in contrast to eroge, in real life you can't just create world for two people Also, I mentioned h-scenes earlier - they, especially in Shizuku's route - were full of hentai cliches, like hero's unlimited stamina or And of course Kohaku, main heroine and shinigami HAD to be loli... It was slightly jarring, because especially in true route writers attempted to make nakige. It looks like they decided to take after ONE, Kanon and AIR, but didn't make it to Clannad in their research Mind you, sex scenes weren't nearly as bad as those from Kanon or AIR, but still created some dissonance. (except for Honoka's route, they were sweet and loving there) // side note: there is this term for videogames, "ludonarrative dissonance", when gameplay elements in some way don't align with a story or contradict it. Maybe we should apply something similar to h-scenes in VNs? "Ero-narrative dissonance"? // If that was all there is to this VN, it would be somewhere between 6.5 - 7 on my scale. Nice art and likeable heroines, but nothing special. However, true route is reedeming quality for this VN. Despite some dissonance created by turing MC-kun into lolicon, it was filled with feelings, and ending managed to squeeze some tears from my eyes. It actually followed KEY formula pretty well. Translation was pretty good - not overly literal, and without glaring errors. So, thanks to the true route the final score settles at 7.5/10 (lolicons and siscons can raise it even more for themselves ) You may give it a try, it's short. I'd say about 15-20 hours max.

As for second question - yep, magic: I have another question - you keep speaking about after-stories, and in the walkthrough it is mentioned that there should be "after" section in the menu after beating all routes. I completed the game, have all CGs, but didn't find it. Are they just additional h-scenes (like in Chrono Clock) and thus exclusive to H-edition? I've seen only normal after-credits epilogues, but they played automatically.

Yeah, the romance part of it could be described like that.

I finished YMK. Whoa, that was a ride. But then, @Stormwolf was right It was better than I expected, and didn't disturb me as much as I feared. I started with Nekoko's route. In the beginning that route was like one big WTF - but that's understandable considering Nekoko's circumstances and her route's main theme. But the ending made up for it (not just epilogue, but generally last 3rd of this route). Also, the plot twist really surprised me I also liked the 4th wall breaking - or VN's self-consciousness - in this route, with Nekoko giving "affection points" to Kouhei, and his frequent talks with Tsubaki about eroge - route systems, character's behaviour etc. (This comes up in other routes too, but in Nekoko's it was most pronounced). Next was Mizuki. That route was pretty crazy too - when I think about it, Mizuki had something in common with Nekoko - she also tried doing various crazy things as an escape. Sometimes I almost couldn't catch up with her But Mizuki's ending was maybe the best in whole game. At last I read Aeka's route. It was definitely the heaviest of them all, but very good. It does really good job at making player want to protect Aeka, and then fall for her along with Kouhei. Don't know what to say, as almost anything will be spoiler for this route. Also, while maybe slightly exaggerated, the whole bullying theme and mechanisms of it were presented almost disturbingly realistically. Final sequence got me by surprise, it was very strong too. It was difficult to go for Nekoko's route first, as the game surely made me feel like trash for abandoning Aeka - to not get on her route you have to completely ignore her, and that's really painful. (on the second playthrough, when aiming for Mizuki, auto-skip eased that pain ). Also, antagonist in that route... Another strong point of the whole VN is Kouhei's family - that's right, here we have eroge protagonist living with full family (well, adoptive, but still) - now that's something you don't find often. And on top of that, they're great people, really caring for him. Now about H-scenes - yes, there were a lot, but authors made the effort to justify them within a story. Well, in Nekoko's route they were a bit random to me - except the last one - but then again, everything she did was random, so it fits I guess. I think in that route the reality was bent the most to allow for h-scenes, but still, somehow it worked. In Mizuki's and especially in Aeka's route sex scenes fit well into the story. There were also some really important and moving dialogues during Aeka's scenes - I like that. So - except maybe a little for Nekoko's route - no complaints about h-content from me Well, maybe HCGs could use a bit more variation, because often they don't align with the text (like, characters being in completely different pose). Translation is OK - there were some rough lines and typos, but it read well. All in all - I'm glad that I gave it a chance and read it. 8/10

I don't know yet, as Ever17 is waiting in the backlog too. But I liked YU-NO

Yeah, I accidentally necro'd it by creating similar one and then spotting my mistake. Your (and others) range seems similar to mine in the 6-7.5 range, and that's what I was worried about the most.

I plan to grab Sakura Sakura during december sale

That's nice scale too. It looks like mine is still a bit "compressed" into 6-9 range, relying more on decimals, while yours makes better use of full range. But now I'll probably have to stick with it, to maintain relations between different titles - or I'd have to re-rate them all...

Hi there, Recently I started to think how do others interpret the 10 point scale used for example on VNDB, and if mine isn't off or something. What ticked me off was seeing several posts in VNDB forums that boiled down to somehting like "This VN was lame, didn't like it too much, 7/10", and I was like - WTF? And then I started to worry if, say, people looking at my list in search for things to read won't get wrong impression. I don't feel confident about giving 10s, so the best ones that I've read are 9's (currently this list has three Key nakiges ). And on the other side of the spectrum - I consider anything above 6.5 to be good enough to recommend to others. Two 6.5's on my list are borderline cases - True Love gets dragged down by poor translation and it's system relying too much on random events. Harukoi Otome had good moments, but also some terrible ones. 7's for me are titles that were enjoyable, but suffer from some serious drawbacks - like, poor editing on Kazoku Keikaku or tiresome "adventure gameplay system" on Sakura no Kisetsu coupled with some translation problems. 7.5 is "normal" grade for me - this is base level, titles that I thoroughly enjoyed, but didn't consider "special" enough to rate them higher, or some would-be-eights that got dragged down to this level by some annoying fault (like Nocturnal Illusion, dragged down by abysmal translation, or Miagete, with Korona and Orihime routes significantly weaker than Saya and Hikari) 8 and 8.5 are for VNs that had something in them that enabled them to rise above that base 7.5 level. I wonder if one day I encounter a VN that I could rate 10? So, that's me. What are your thoughts about this topic? EDIT: I see that there's already a topic like that ("How do you rate your VNs?"). I didn't find it because I used wrong keywords. Mods, could you move my post there?

?? I don't see anything wrong with images from english version. On the closer look, second and third image have just-so-slightly different mouth placement, but I think it is almost non-noticeable difference. I had to look two or three times to see it. And edited image still looks better to me - if the game has to run in high resolution, then leaving original images wouldn't look good.

I used this sale to snatch Root Double - its regular price was bit too much for me, but after 65% off it became much more accessible

I bought it today as it was on pretty big sale on Steam (-65%). But it'll have to wait for its turn

Nah, it's not that strong. There are instances when I genuinely like them, and some others where I think the work would be better without them. But I explained myself already in some other thread I know about a lot of H in YMK - probably it will be too much for my taste, but whatever. I was more scared about general heavy mood of this VN, H isn't that much of a problem - after all, in worst case if I don't like H-scene I can skip through it First impressions - unusual art style. The backgrounds look a little like painted with watercolors.

I'm starting YMK. Wish me luck

In some way every route in every VN is a "what-if", and sometimes they can have more than one "good ending", so I think you could treat afterstory as such alternative ending, and discard the original one - which indeed is understandable, but rather unsatisfying.

I read VNs sitting by the table, using my main laptop (17" Lenovo Z570), while having 10" netbook (old Asus EeePC) on the side, with the walkthrough open Reading or watching anything in "weird" positions, like lying on the bed, is actually uncomfortable for me, as it seems to put more strain on my not-so-good-eyes and neck.

I finished it yesterday. It showed me again, that first impressions can be misleading. The beginning of common route felt kind of bland to me, so I was a little disappointed, especially reading this after Yoake, where I got emotionally attached to the characters and atmosphere right from the beginning. OTOH - it kind of relates to the story so maybe it was intentional? Whatever's the case, I'm glad I didn't drop it, as the character routes are where it starts to shine. As for common - I loved comedic bits, the scene at conveyor-sushi shop was hilarious My reading order was Tsumugi -> Meguru -> Touko -> Wakana -> Nene, and after all I think it is the best when it comes to discovering different parts of main magical theme. (well, Wakana's route can be moved freely, as it unlocks after completing one route, and is kind-of side route, but a very good one). So, like I sadi, I started with Tsumugi's route. It's the shortest one from the main routes, and serves as good introduction. The ending felt rushed, or rather, very action-packed, there were lots of things happening over short time, but all in all it was good. This route had many sweet moments: Good route, and the best thing is that remaining ones are even better, so it is good to start with Next was Meguru. It had different mood and theme, but is connected with Tsumugi Very good route. And then came Touko, and upped the ante even higher. Her route was great, and provided another bit of main story There were many sweet moments in this route, and the drama got me as well So, to conclude, this route was a bit of nakige, but I loved it. Wakana's route is on the shorter side, but it was very nice romance route, with many sweet and funny moments. Nice breather before final. Nene, main heroine and true route. It was hard to imagine, but it was even stronger than earlier routes. Many funny moments in the beginning, and many feels later, especially in the second part. Almost anything would be a spoiler, but all in all it was epic. In every route there were also some really nice thoughts about the nature of relationships, and quite helpful advices (coming either from Shuuji's dad or in conversations while OC is helping students with their love problems). They were pretty obvious things, like how communication is the key, or that you have to constantly maintain your relationship - but it was nice thing to see. Art and music was pretty good. Also, I absolutely loved all SD/chibi scenes - they were cute and hilarious, often with small animations thrown in. I played without H patch, and I think it was perfect this way. Even without H-scenes, it is by no means "all ages" release, as all other ecchi stuff is left intact. Also, while the scenes aren't shown, in all routes except Tsumugi characters often speak about what they just did, sometimes with a great detail And those kissing scenes were pretty hot and erotic if you ask me. So for me it was very good solution - it isn't bad to leave some bits to imagination Translation is good, but I encountered numerous typos - not of the misspelling kind, but rather missing or misplaced words. Dual language option was very nice. I actually read parts of the prologue in Japanese, checking with translation afterwards. To conclude - it started low, but ended on a very high level, just like protagonist's life 8/10

I finished Sanoba Witch yesterday. It showed me again, that first impressions can be misleading. The beginning of common route felt kind of bland to me, so I was a little disappointed, especially reading this after Yoake, where I got emotionally attached to the characters and atmosphere right from the beginning. OTOH - it kind of relates to the story so maybe it was intentional? Whatever's the case, I'm glad I didn't drop it, as the character routes are where it starts to shine. As for common - I loved comedic bits, the scene at conveyor-sushi shop was hilarious My reading order was Tsumugi -> Meguru -> Touko -> Wakana -> Nene, and after all I think it is the best when it comes to discovering different parts of main magical theme. (well, Wakana's route can be moved freely, as it unlocks after completing one route, and is kind-of side route, but a very good one). So, like I sadi, I started with Tsumugi's route. It's the shortest one from the main routes, and serves as good introduction. The ending felt rushed, or rather, very action-packed, there were lots of things happening over short time, but all in all it was good. This route had many sweet moments: Good route, and the best thing is that remaining ones are even better, so it is good to start with Next was Meguru. It had different mood and theme, but is connected with Tsumugi Very good route. And then came Touko, and upped the ante even higher. Her route was great, and provided another bit of main story There were many sweet moments in this route, and the drama got me as well So, to conclude, this route was a bit of nakige, but I loved it. Wakana's route is on the shorter side, but it was very nice romance route, with many sweet and funny moments. Nice breather before final. Nene, main heroine and true route. It was hard to imagine, but it was even stronger than earlier routes. Many funny moments in the beginning, and many feels later, especially in the second part. Almost anything would be a spoiler, but all in all it was epic. In every route there were also some really nice thoughts about the nature of relationships, and quite helpful advices (coming either from Shuuji's dad or in conversations while OC is helping students with their love problems). They were pretty obvious things, like how communication is the key, or that you have to constantly maintain your relationship - but it was nice thing to see. Art and music was pretty good. Also, I absolutely loved all SD/chibi scenes - they were cute and hilarious, often with small animations thrown in. I played without H patch, and I think it was perfect this way. Even without H-scenes, it is by no means "all ages" release, as all other ecchi stuff is left intact. Also, while the scenes aren't shown, in all routes except Tsumugi characters often speak about what they just did, sometimes with a great detail And those kissing scenes were pretty hot and erotic if you ask me. So for me it was very good solution - it isn't bad to leave some bits to imagination Translation is good, but I encountered numerous typos - not of the misspelling kind, but rather missing or misplaced words. To conclude - it started low, but ended on a very high level. Very nice charage - 8/10

Yeah, it is, and I suppose that's the purpose of it. Man, how I felt anger at those bastards, mixed with sense of powerlessness (just like protagonist)...

After story fixes that