adamstan

But if not-so-good translator tries to do it (that is, remove them), it's double disaster. (And good translators seem to be rare)

I think there can be more exceptions. Basically, every case where using of this or that honorific combined with first or last name is plot point, is explicitly talked about, and characters make great fuss about it. Like my Princess Evangile example from another thread. Recreating that scene (and whole Vincennes' "ecosystem") without using any honorifics at all would be really difficult task, and results may not sound good.
While it's true that every language has different levels of politeness, they may not be compatible with what we see in VNs. And honorifics in VNs are not only about politeness, but also about different levels of affection and familiarity.
Like, most highschoolers in VNs adress each other by "lastname-san" unless they are close to each other. In English we have only choice of using last name or first name. While sometimes "-san" could be translated as Mr/Ms among adults, in HS situation it would sound ridiculous. Using only last name may sound rude. And if we default to first name, then we may get away with it if there is no change in relationship. But then, what to do when they get closer, and switch to first name? Translation has nowhere to go.
Also, if it's just generic "name-san" because it had to be there for basic politeness in Japanese, then chop it off, no problem
 
Side note: I don't like when there is too much discrepancy between voice and text (like character constantly uses last name but translation uses first). So with unvoiced titles, it is possible to do more of adaptation work without annoying the player

Katawa Shoujo did nice job at avoiding it - Hisao just suggests to switch to first-name basis, they agree, and that's it Maybe not exactly realistic considering the setting, but definitely better than English writer trying to imitate Japanese speech patterns.

Yesterday I finished Clannad. (with Steam's time counter at 67 hrs)
What can I say, it was great. @wei123 said that Tomoyo & Kyou were best girls, but while I love them, it isn't as easy to pick for me - they all were lovely. Tomoyo's was first "romance" route that I read (Misae's was more like an introduction to the world for me). Her and Tomoya were nice couple, I really liked it, but then...
I also love peace that Yukine brings, and her sweet, caring personality, I want to protect Kotomi and never ever leave her again, I want Mei and Fuko as my little sisters... Kyou is amazing girl too - I liked how she was on the same wavelength with Tomoya, and her ending had some really moving moments for me.
And then, I totally love Nagisa, and really like how her relationship with Tomoya was portrayed in VN. They need each other, and seem to be meant for each other and I totally get how she is main heroine. And let's not forget pair of greatest supporting characters I've seen - Akio and Sanae.
AfterStory was great too, but saying almost anything will probably be spoiler...
 
Strangely, the scene that moved me the most was Fuko's ending
That didn't only make my eyes wet, but it actually made me sob and cry. Thank goodness, that she finally got her happy ending too - I see that some readers dislike Fuko, but I can't. 風子ちゃんが嫌いになれない。　She turned out to be one of my favorite characters.
Now something about the game itself. Backgrounds were really nice, and characters were looking good too - I probably got used to Hinoue Itaru's style. Then, the music - that was totally awesome. My favorite tracks are melancholic song that plays during Illusionary World sequences, and both ending songs. I didn't have any issues with translation - it reads smoothly, and feels pretty lively.
So, after all, it seems like it's Nagisa for me. (BTW, I forgot to mention it, but oh how cuuute she looks in her waitress uniform )
So now, everybody sing:
"Dango, Dango!"
Great experience, 9/10
 

It's OK I guess. I didn't feel as overwhelmed with h-scenes as it sometimes was with Majikoi S.

Well, that would be the ideal state of affairs IMO. Steam that respects its own rules and brings the all-ages VN experience to weirdos like myself, that prefers those versions in the vast majority of cases and would be happy about originally all-ages titles being in a less sketchy environment.
The problem is, it was Valve's desition to be consistently lenient towards the 18+ patches and porn sneaking its way on the platform, make some explicit rules on how it should be done (keeping the patches off-steam, not discussing/directing to the porn in the community spaces etc.) and then asks devs who operated under a rather stable set of rules for a long time to wait for possibly months after months, with no timetable (which means no possibility for proper planning/reacting to this setback) and apparently no workarounds that could mitigate the costs of such a delay.
Devs are actually pretty quiet about it, as they know they're in "sticks vs nukes" situation against Valve. I just find how shitty the Steam administrations acts pretty inexcusable - no matter what ideal scenario we might come up with, I'm pretty sure Valve won't do much about it, as it would require them actually making some desitions and then curate stuff to a minimal extent. Now they're just stalling, making other people's lives miserable in the process until they make some filters that they hope will make the problem sort itself out. I'm not channelling devs' outrage here - I'm channelling my own, because all sides deserve a storefront with some kind of consistency and responsibility behind it. The only thing Valve does is making sure they're not responsible for anything.

You're not limited to Steam as a release platform. VN devs finally need to stop abusing Steam. If they need porn that badly, maybe they should change their market. There's both Fakku and Nutaku available as well.
Steam doesn't allow porn, simple as that. The non-steam patches are only a half-assed grey zone band aid to circumvent the inconvenience, Steam never really approved.
At the same time, Steam is ready to actually allow sexual content in vns, providing it has either artistic or intellectual merit. Guess what - vast majority of 18+ vns don't have that - it's either porn or fan service for the heck of it, despite what community thinks. Adult visual novels could easily have more value to them, but so far most devs constantly prove otherwise through their own actions. It's plain hypocrisy and I'm honestly fed up with it. I'm not surprised at all they refused to publish Starnova as it stands now - it's meant to be an edgy, weeb-pandering porn game involving idols, lol.
Complaining about this in general - especially as a developer - is just silly. Most devs got what was coming at them.
Steam is not a platform to release porn games and 18+ visual novels. Period.
 

I know.  I was simply stating my opinion.  This is one case where there shouldn't be an h-patch, regardless of what the fanboys and the anti-censorship people want.
 
The thing that most people who are new to the community don't understand, not having lived through that period of time, is that periodically, some Japanese eroge catches the attention of someone in the mass media for extreme objectionable content.  When that happens, you suddenly see entire otaku sites go down, DDOS attacks on anything related to VNs, etc.  The Rapelay incident was one of them, but Maitetsu has the possibility of being an even worse threat to the community, because lolicon is the one non-violent Japanese fetish that could cause the authorities to move against VN localization companies. 

I'm still going through Clannad. For now, I have one thing to say -
Fuuu-chaaaan That feels train hit me really hard...

Yeah, this - if characters and setting are Japanese, let's not pretend that they are not.

They shouldn't, it's pretty simple if it's a VN that takes place in Japan about japanese people, honorifics have no reason to be removed, honorifics is part of japanese communication paterns, it doesn't make any sense to remove them.
On the other hand if it's a VN that doesn't take place in Japan about non-japanese people such as Sharnoth or Ghakthun, then yeah honorifics should definitly be removed.

Maybe he meant the games themselves look old? (because they are)

Let me add one more thought about the translations. I'm currently reading Clannad, and it indeed is fine. However, I didn't perceive LB! to be substantially worse than it. I started to wonder why , and it's probably due to English not being my first language. Thanks to that, many things that feel bad or unnatural for native speakers don't hit me directly. I'd probably be similarly critical about translations into my native language as Fred is about english ones. And if presented with not-too-good translations into PL and EN - I'd probably choose english one, because errors in it wouldn't be as glaring and disturbing for me.

They really shouldn't though at least in the case of the setting of the VN being Japan its part of the culture and should be kept accurate its kind of the same reason most Japanese dubs of English media dont add honorifics to English names.
Personally when I see translations go out of there way to avoid using them or try to use not fitting English words it just makes the quality of the translation look lower even if that is not truly the case.
 

Quoting out of context makes it easier to make good joke replies. Besides while they aren't state of the art in visual technology, I expected much worse when people referred to those titles as looking old. They are perfectly fine by my standards for story driven VNs. Vanilla nukige not so much, but then again that's not a genre I'm particularly interested in in the first place.

First you complain about too big boobs, next you complain about looking old. Are you sure you are looking for MILFs? Sounds more like loli to me

Well, you can't call a decent translation "horrible" regardless what position you're in. That's just taking it way too far. If he said it's lacking and some words and sentences are lost in translation then i'd believe that, but "horrible" is such an over exaggeration, especially when no one else complains about it. You always hear about bad translations.

By "MILF" are you refering strictly to "mother" characters, or are generally speaking about adult heroines? If the latter, then - from the ones that I read - there's Masumi from Kazoku Keikaku and Kaori from Crescendo.

Those are some pretty interesting points you all made.
Regarding sexual content - just as Lunaterra wrote - I like my games having sex in them. The only difference is, I truly enjoy it when it's meaningful, instead of being devalued to exaggerated fanservice sex romps; many vns treat erotic content like some sort of wish fulfilment for their players to indulge in, not to mention sex rarely works like that in real life. Outside the scope of sex as drama (NTR, arranged marriages, rape) and reproduction, sex is something we do to comfort ourselves. It's selfish - indeed - but there's nothing wrong in demanding love from people who want to share it with you. You take it in and want to repay for their kindness in return. This is what relationships are about. Very few games reach that sort of character development and I really hate when likeable characters are suddenly forced into a pointless sex scene by their creators, just because medium demands it. It's the most grave sin any writer could make.
VNs need to stop being porn on purpose, if they want to achieve something more, otherwise they will never crawl out of the hellhole they're stuck in.
Regarding lolicon, I presume it's quite similar as with porn. Writers need to stop treating lolita characters as walking fetish fuel dispensers. Younger characters can sometimes give a completely different outlook on many elements within a story from their perspective. In the end, it obviously depends on the writers themselves, but ultimately - if a character exists only for the porn, you're getting nowhere, unless it's a porn game you wanted to create.
By all means - I'm not saying to stop creating nukige games, as they have their own place as well. What I'm saying is that all devs - but especially western ones - should start trying harder, because I'm certain they are capable of that. We can truly create immersive, story-driven vns. It's just a pity so many creators end up falling into this niche they dug up under themselves.

You play enough VN's, you start recognizing some voice actresses (when they use the same voice at least). Sometimes even the characters they voice across multiple VN's have very similar personalities.
Then again, one voice actress can voice an "imouto" in one VN (Sorcery Jokers), only to voice a cat (yes, a cat!) and a timid basketball player, which funny enough, BOTH meet horrible ends (Grisaia).

Holy shit, are people here for real with devaluation of the last good bits this game has, lol.
Lose makes lolige, but they try to keep it reasonably down to earth and emotional for most of the part, where it matters.
If you want porn and dirty talking, go play Little Bitch Girls in Hog Farm.

Actually according to vndb it's "Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi. ". See the pattern?

I did But haven't played it yet - it waits in queue, as currently I'm busy with Clannad.

Actually according to vndb it's "Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi. ". See the pattern?

Actually according to vndb it's "Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi. ". See the pattern?

Seriously, pickup and buy Clannad this second (and a box of tissues while you're at it). Has quite a lot of themes that will smack you in the heart.
Other suggestions....
* Eden . The setting for the VN speaks for itself...
* ef - a fairy tale of the two . Various relationships, which are all somehow interconnected. Packs serious emotional feels later on too...
* Kono Oozora . Quite a lot more light hearted then the other picks. But you're still helping girls move forward in their lives. Has some breathtaking flight scenes.
* Symphonic Rain . Interesting setting, and some plot twists.