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Chaos;Head, on my way reading through the series (I already read Steins;Gate and 0 a while back).

I'll never buy anything from them again if it happens. I'll never forgive Fakku for going to a completely pay to use model.

1. Steins;Gate - Easily my favorite and most gripping visual novel I've read. It's got problems with pacing early and sort of breaks down into a sort of psuedo-dating each waifu part in the second half, but as a narrative ignoring the alternative endings this is hands down my favorite. I read this every year, this year I did it with my best friend each of us voicing different characters to each other. Everything else isn't really in any particular order. 2. Steins;Gate 0 - This is next just because my top is Steins;Gate. It vastly improves on the original due to the fact time travel isn't as prevalent early on, allowing for more detailed character growth and development. Further I think it made a step in the right direction narrative taking away the narrative reigns from Okabe to see other characters perspectives first hand. Also the alternative endings were not simply waifu endings but served actual character development and stand alone narratives. In a lot of ways I like this better than the original, but the original is the original so I gotta <3. Also there's like 95% less Kurisu in this. I reread this one with the anime that came out, though the anime was disappointing. 3. Maji de Watashi ni Koi - Honestly, as dumb as this visual novel felt to read it was really dumb fun. It's like a guilty pleasure visual novel for me but not entirely, because it had good points that I think make liking it more justifiable than liking some other things. Though I didn't reread all the routes its still always there for me. 4. Clannad - What can be said that hasn't already been? I didn't really read every character's route but Misae's backstory and the After Story both gripped me all the way through. Having lost my mother when I was too young to remember her (not right at birth) I could really relate with the struggle of the end of the story. Fortunately my Dad didn't become a deadbeat and raised me well I think. I reread the main story line this year, skipped all the side routes. 5. White Album 2 Introductory Chapter - I know this gets shit on a lot for the poor translation, but when I read it, it honestly was completely fine in my mind. The story and the characters and their relationships were all great, I think this is the perfect example for how to make a well grounded story that is also very emotional. I often find some deaths in visual novels are there just to force feelings rather than to help characters grow and develop, so I wish more would take an example from this and cut cheap deaths and just naturally get the feels out of the reader. I reread this one every winter now.

I just did Sakura Sakura if it's of interest to you, I don't see it on your list. I wrote up a review of it on it's release thread but overall I'd say it was pretty fun and had some heartfelt romance, especially in (Just put a character's name and their route idk how much you care about that but yeah.

Thanks for this, I'll look into these as I do have a PS4 (no vita), and of course I intend to look into manga as well, as a way to practice reading. I think visual novels are my preferred medium because I can take it at my own pace, many it's easy to replay voice lines, and I can always reread logs. It's the best of manga and anime for learning for me I feel, because anime it's a bit tedious to keep rewinding and manga there's no voice over to hear pronunciations. I'll take a look at these, regardless of if I intend to read them right away or not. Maybe in the future they'll be good options. Thank you a ton for this! Some of these I've seen before so I'll definitely check them out and see what interests me. I want to add, that if something is fun and easy to read I am happy to check it out even if it was translated already. So if you have recommendations for translated titles I am happy to check those out.

I was unaware of this, thanks for sharing. I don't really know much about the numbers and sales of visual novels as a business so I could really only speculate as to why things were the way they were from my own knowledge of things.

It's an interesting question and one I don't really know the answer to... Of course there are a bunch of VN's for a male demographic that have action, but there are many more slice of life drama ones. For every Fate/Stay (which I did not enjoy, actually) there's a bunch of em like Clannad, Hatsukoi 1/1, and If My Heart Had Wings. If I had to guess it's because the visual novel medium does not lend itself to action as much as other mediums. Especially combat based RPGs and what not like Persona or Kamidori or Bunny Black, they all translate combat much better than just text. Even more so anime communicates combat much much better.

I am learning Japanese slowly but surely, and I want something simple but pleasant to read that I can work over slowly while trying to learn new words.

John Cena is the wrong waifu, if it's not Macho Man I don't care for it.

Maybe I'll read it with my girl then, she's not interested in my waifu visual novels so I'll just get her this husbando visual novel.

Honestly I just eat a lot of steamed white rice as a side dish to other things, or sometimes on its own. I like chewing on it a lot because it brings out a sweet flavor.

Will do, seems like a lot of people do so maybe I'll type up a review of my thoughts and open a new thread to talk about it when I get there.

Yeah I got the retranslation patch all set, thanks for the heads up. I only read the first line without it and I could immediately tell the quality difference lmao. Hope I like it as much as you guys.

True, my bad.

Thanks, I'm getting ready to check it out now. Any other recommendations?