adamstan

Aaaand KonoSuba finished before I was able to blink (both seasons) Totally ridiculous, but fun. Solid 7 for me.

Kyou's description aligns with my memories. Maybe they're right about Maya's too. I'm curious about the Yukino's afterstory then, as - even though her route has its share of problems - I really liked her as a heroine. Kyou's and Maya's appends were nice, but I was slightly overwhelmed with the amount of h-scenes.

Well, for me VNs could be considered some kind of mutation/spin-off of adventure games (for example YU-NO is adventure game, but with much more dialogues and character interaction than typical point'n'click) but as time went by they strayed further and further, and now indeed are their own thing. BTW When I played classic point'n'clicks, the "gameplay" - like solving the riddles - never really interested me. I was in it mostly for story, so I almost always played with walkthrough handy - just like I read VNs

And (if my memory is correct) with very nice animated opening, rarely found even in newer titles. Also +1 on KoiChoco and KonoSora. Clannad, while not being strictly romance VN, has many romance elements, and is simply very good VN. As for Hatsukoi - yeah, protag's behaviour in Ruuna's and especially Yukino's route was really frustrating at times, but I still enjoyed that VN (rated it 8). That frustration was part of the story for me - as the MC was frustrated too. And while from reader's position it's easy to shout at him "You idiot! You should..." - I know that when faced with similar situation IRL I wouldn't do any better. If everybody always acted reasonably, life would be much easier, but we all know that this isn't the case. BTW - if one strongly dislikes "hopeless" protagonists, then some routes of ToHeart2 may be annoying for them too.

I haven't read the last (Yukino's) append yet (only Maya and Kyou), but they're essentially the fancy name for fandisc and are "afterstories" consisting mostly of h-scenes.

Yeah, me too. Two such heroines in one game? That's almost too good

So now, for a change of pace and something lighter I went with KonoSuba. So far it's good. Incidentally, it is from DEEN who was making Maison Ikkoku too Megumin's "Explosion" looks suspiciously like Giga Slave I think she'll be my favorite character of this show.

No, it can also be ruined on its own, when translators/editors style is so bad that it gets exhausting to read. I think that's why @Toranth referenced "the most legendarily bad written book".

I just finished Maison Ikkoku few minutes ago. It was amazing. Don't know if it is the best romance anime, since it's only second I watched (after Toradora), but it was amazing indeed. Also, if it truly was one of the first, then not only did it provide tropes for the shows coming afterwards, but for many VNs as well*. Some episodes were really frustrating, but in the end it made great romance story. And the ending certainly belongs to the "ultimately satisfying endings" list - it was absoultely sweet, amazing and whatever. Kyoko was great heroine. After first few episodes I wouldn't think she would be such classic tsundere Two other girls that were interested in Godai - Ibuki and Kozue - were great characters too. It would actually make pretty nice VN, with additional routes for these two Also, I was able to symphatize with Godai, as I'm even more hopeless... I really liked the setting (meaning, the '80s, and lots of trains ). *side note: I don't know if it's because locations were modeled after real ones, but so many scenes looked almost exactly like the places I've seen in many VNs. The playground in the park looks almost exactly like the one in ToHeart2. We have seen similar steep-sloped streets in TH2 and SakuSaku, the uphill road to the girl's highschool looks suspiciously like in Clannad etc etc. Overally - I'm really glad that I watched it. Truly great show - 9/10

I don't know if it has been mentioned in this thread or not, but if it wasn't - add Maison Ikkoku to the list. The show was frustrating sometimes, but the ending was great and ultimately satisfying indeed.

I'm waiting for the official one. My backlog is long enough Maybe my impressions are wrong, but I'm wary of Ixrec's translations, cause, from what I gathered, he seems to, ekhm, rewrite a lot. OTOH - Clannad was better translation-wise.

That's actually an interesting point. We often tend to assume that original was well written to begin with, and blame all bad or awkward things on translation team.

Yeah, 5 is minimum for me too. Unfortunately, most of the 5's I played were official translations BTW recently I expeirenced something between 7 and 8, but it wasn't VN, but anime subtitles. I'm speaking about fan-TLed polish subtitles for "Toradora!". I started watching with english subs, and they felt rather stiff and bland. Then I wanted to show it to my mom, so I found PL-subbed version, and it was really good. There were some mistakes, but it felt very natural. BTW they ditched honorifics but still retained some level of information provided by them, by substituting diminutive versions of names in place of -chan - I think they are easier to create in polish than in english, at least for character names in this show. It turned out pretty good.

Yes, because you applied it only locally. If you install game from steam on different computer, it will install basic version. That's for unofficial patches, like Konosora retranslation patch. Maybe it's different if mod is on steam itself, but if it's 3rd party, then you have to apply it manually each time.

Yeah, but then they should stick with just CN translations - like Hikari Field did.

I'm closest to second option - I read mostly charage/moege, but not restricting myself to them (I really liked YU-NO). H-scenes are optional for me - sometimes I really like them (PrincessEvangile, Koiiro, Konosora), sometimes I slightly prefer all-ages version (Miagete) , and sometimes they are crime against humanity (I'm looking at you, Kanon! , fortunately there was all-ages option in fanTL patch ). I tend to avoid "disturbing" or very "dark" titles, like the ones focused on rape, gore etc. Also, while nakige is fine (and actually my highest-rated VNs are nakiges), I'd rather avoid utsuge (meaning only sad endings). As for Japanese - I hope that one day I'll be able to read, as there are some VNs I'd like to experience, which probably won't get translated.

Saya's route is good. Unfortunately Orihime and Korona both suffer from having different writer, and feel more like "side routes". They have some good moments, but IMO overally were weaker than Saya's and Hikari's.

I have to disagree. For me They didn't show anything, but both those situations clearly hint that they do it IMO. I have to agree, it would have been even better if they added some cuddling in the next morning or sth like that, but as we discussed it already - +18 version lacks such scenes too. But I think we have to agree to disagree here, so I quit now

Nah, with how most of the scenes are, they would just show us "friends with benefits" If you cannot perceive their relationship as love, just adding porn won't fix it. Especially since this route even in +17 version heavily hints about them having sex at least twice, just without explicitly showing it. Also, this sentence probably hinted to me why we perceived the routes in +17 version so differently. For me teenagers relationship without fucking is perfectly normal, although I'm aware that's not popular opinion That's why I genuinely liked +17 Saya's route more than the version with H. And, to @MarcomiX - I definitely recommend finishing Hikari's route too. The ending is absolutely beautiful and compensates for any shortcomings this route may have.

Ah, yeah, I forgot to include Saku Saku on my list. +1 to recommendation.

No, they aren't sequential, they feature just different sets of side routes.

Now if only Sekai would be so nice to finally fix its broken release :/

Well, that's a lot. I wonder how all-ages edition compares in such case Considering how the story starts based on the description, it looks little pointless to make one for this VN

The progress is amazing. I think I'll wait until final patch, but it really looks promising Great news there.