Seraphim

I had my first VN experience sometime in the late '90s. I just considered it some random porn game at the time, and it wasn't until in recent years that I looked back and realized that was actually my first VN. I didn't play it for long though, since it was all in Japanese and I couldn't understand a word of it. I think the VN in question was True Love, but I can't be entirely sure since it was so long ago. The first VNs I actually completed were Phoenix Wright and then Danganronpa, but I was still ignorant of visual novels at that time. Grisaia was what finally opened my eyes and made me fall in love with the medium.

I could probably handle bad formatting and some translation errors (as long as they're not completely off the mark and change the meaning of the sentences), but not being able to read Coda afterwards is a dealbreaker for me now that I know that it's a major part of the story. I would have been fine with skipping it if it was just a bunch of afterstories full of h-scenes, like in a lot of other VNs.

The only cases I can think of off the top of my head are: (I will let the girls remain anonymous, in order to avoid spoilers as much as possible) - Shuuichi in Hoshi Ori. There's no sex, which I assume is what you're referring to when you say "a good time", but he does have a girlfriend. She doesn't show up much though and doesn't even have a sprite. - Taisuke in School Days. Depending on your choices, he will hook up with a certain girl. There's sex, but it's not exactly romantic. Also, School Days and Shiny Days are probably the worst VNs I've ever read, for various reasons. - Shin in Swan Song. I think he and the girl are a really cute couple, but considering how dark the rest of the VN is, it might not be your cup of tea. There's sex in this one as well.

I have yet to read a single VN on Switch, but I'm happy that so many are being ported. (although MoeNovel's localization of IMHHW should be buried in some cold depths rather than spread further) I don't really have any specific titles I want to see on Switch; I just want the current Switch VN trend to keep up, since it means more publicity, resulting in sales that will ultimately increase the chances of more titles being released for both PC and other platforms.

I have some sort of blissful attachment to If My Heart Had Wings. I'm not entirely sure why, but my mood always seem to improve whenever I think about it. It's also one of the few VNs of which I still listen to the soundtrack every now and then. This song in particular always puts me in a good mood:

Well, you can only know so much about a person as they're willing to let on. The fact that she, despite being his sister, is surprised by the amount of followers he has proves that point to some extent. Many people keep quiet about their problems and concerns, choosing to put on a facade that everything's fine for various reasons. It can have some serious consequences, since if noone but you knows what's going on, there's the risk of others not realizing until it's too late how serious the situation really was.

Isn't Coda an important part of the story? onorub's post earlier on this page made it seem so. I don't want to start reading something now and then have to wait for my Japanese to improve until I can experience the conclusion of the story.

I was going to ask you to elaborate, but I found out that Coda has been stuck at ~9% translated since almost a year ago and won't be finished anytime soon, if ever. In other words, I'm putting off reading White Album 2 until my Japanese is at an appropriate level.

It's a tough call between Nagisa and Yumemi, but I went with Yumemi because Planetarian hit me harder emotionally than Clannad did. Just out of curiousity, which is your least favorite character? Mine's probably Lucia in Rewrite.

Regarding Fal.

In other words, I imagine it would be better to put off reading until the Coda translation is finished. Any word on when that's going to be? "Soon" kinda feels like something that has been there since the Closing Chapter translation was released last year, so it's pretty vague.

To anyone who knows: What is "Coda" in White Album 2? I've been unable to find an answer to that question myself. I want to read the VN, but the Coda translation is supposed to be finished "Soon" according to TodokanaiTL's website. Since I have no idea what Coda actually is, I dunno if I should put off reading until it's done or just go ahead and read the VN as is.

Ah, that clears it up a bit. I did think it seemed kinda odd for something like that to happen in a VN like Majikoi, but then again, there are certain VNs that take some quite sudden turns so I figured it wouldn't be totally out of the question.

For obvious reasons, I won't be checking your spoiler box, but judging by the rest of what you wrote, it sounds like this isn't a clear-cut case. Maybe it's not as much of a spoiler as the tag made it seem?

I really need to learn not to carelessly visit VNDb pages of VNs I haven’t finished yet. I started reading Majikoi yesterday, went to VNDb to check out the voice actors and then accidentally saw a tag that was out in the open. I don’t know which heroine it concerns, but I would rather not have known about it beforehand.

That is pretty much the only book I already know of, but I saw some bad reviews for it so buying it seems like a bit of a risky gamble. And yeah, I imagine books on VNs would be far less likely to sell well than books on regular video games, but I'm thinking there might be some Japanese ones. I would love to read a development diary of some sort, especially for more well-known titles (like Key's VNs), but that is probably hoping for too much.

I have a decent collection of books that are related to video games in one way or another (development diaries, encyclopedias, artbooks, etc) but I haven't had much luck finding any targeting visual novels. Doing a search for "visual novel books" only seem to get me results for comics and graphic novels. Are there any books about visuals novels that someone here can recommend? I don't mind if it's in Japanese, since I'm currently learning it.

I think the issue is that the character reacts in an overly dramatic way. (Note that I haven't read that VN myself, so I don't know the details.)

As for my own favorite couples, the first ones that come to mind are Aoi and Kotori in Konosora, as well as Michel and Giselle in Fata Morgana.

It's a fine line, though. There are some things that I would rather not have known, like in the ending to Amane's route in Grisaia no Kajitsu, when you learn that

Well, it's not always a matter of literally ending with a marriage, so maybe that was a bad example. My point is that they rarely delve into much detail about what happens after the characters move on from their school life into adulthood. Even when there are after stories, they seem to usually focus more on showing off additional h-scenes rather than further developing the story. It doesn't matter if it's just slice of life stuff; I still enjoy seeing what the characters' lives are like down the line.

Can anyone confirm if Gin'iro Haruka has extensive after stories? That was one of my favorite parts of Hoshi Ori, since I don't like how romance in VNs, manga and whatnot tend to end with the characters getting married and then just a brief epilogue with a few sentences to wrap things up.

Haven't started reading it myself yet, but here's what the guy translating the VN thinks of him:

I'm trying to decide whether to read the routes as they are released or if I should wait until they all have been. I'm leaning towards the former, since that should reduce the feeling of repetitiveness I got from Hoshi Ori due to the massive length and how similar the routes were in some respects.

Damn, that really sucks, and it's a major incentive for playing the old version rather than the new one. I'll start reading the current translation as soon as I'm done with Noble Works then, and if I enjoy it, which I assume I will, I'll pick up the JAST version later on to show support.