Seraphim

I'm currently reading/watching Shiny Days. Not going into any details about what a trainwreck it is in terms of technical performance (basically, it's even worse than School Days HQ, which I referred to as Broken Mess: The Game back when I was going through it), but more importantly, the writing is just plain terrible at times. I just finished the "Paris for Two" route. It was a pretty cute love story for the first three chapters, but then they somehow managed to mess it up completely in the final chapter. Summary of the final chapter: What the hell happened? Anyway, due to OCD tendencies, I'll probably force myself to 100% Shiny Days, as I have with all other VN's I've read, but my expectations are pretty low by now.

Thanks for answering! I got a pretty in-depth answer from some guy on Reddit, and I'll go ahead and post it here in case anyone else is confused. "Just play Chaos;Head is enough, since Noah only have additional details for characters development and better experience, the main plot is still the same. So yeah Chaos;Child only spoils the main plot, i'd recommend you just go for Chaos;Head then shift to Chaos;Child instead of waiting for Noah. Chaos;Child is just so good it's such a shame to be missed. Chaos;Child only gives some general information on the true end. So Chaos;Head alone would be more than enough. And since Noah mostly only provides additional details for the original game without any significant change in the plot, you can always read Noah again when it's released after you read the original Chaos;Head." On another note, Committee of Zero have made an announcement regarding the Steam release of Chaos;Child: "Committee of Zero here. We're porting our Chaos;Child patch over to Steam, and it will have additional fixes. Also, we want to release this one on Steam as soon as possible, so don't worry about it taking a long time like the S;G 0 one."

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/970570/CHAOSCHILD/ With that said, I figure I’ll take this opportunity to ask for some clarification! I’ve been looking forward to reading Chaos;Child ever since Committee of Zero released their patch at the end of June last year, but I’ve been putting it off in order to read Chaos;Head Noah first, since Chaos;Child apparently spoils that. I’m growing more and more restless, since it might take a long time for Noah to be translated and I’m really hyped for Chaos;Child, so I’m currently considering reading the original Chaos;Head instead. What I’d like to know is: Are there any vital plot-related differences between Chaos;Head and Chaos;Head Noah, or is Noah just meant to bring some extra content for the fans of the original? I heard that Noah has a revamped True Ending and changes to the story, among other things. If I read the original Chaos;Head and then Chaos;Child, will Child spoil anything from Noah that isn’t in the original (like the revamped True Ending, for example)?

I'm going through Shiny Days right now, and it's even more of a technical disaster than School Days HQ. The first freeze happened within less than half a minute from starting, and it was just downhill from there. After a ton of crashes and freezes, I began troubleshooting like a madman for hours on end. I tried a billion-or-so different fixes in Windows 10, like playing in Windowed mode, different compatibility modes, closing all other programs and so on, and then I gave up and figured I'd try playing it in Windows 7 instead. Problem was, I didn't have Windows 7 installed anywhere, and getting that taken care of turned out to be easier said than done. I decided to install it on Boot Camp on my MacBook, but then I ran into all sorts of trouble with that instead. I had to pick up old Boot Camp files because the newer ones were incompatible with Windows 7 on my machine, and when I finally managed to install and get into the OS, no devices worked. No USB ports, no network, etc, so there was no way for me to install the game. Defeated, I moved on to install Windows 7 on a USB drive so I could use it on my PC, but after a gazillion BSOD's and whatnot, I accepted that this apparently wouldn't work either, hung my head, sighed and turned to my last resort: An old computer I haven't used in forever. I had to make some hardware changes first, but then I was finally able to install Windows 7 and start Shiny Days again... only to see it freeze within a couple of minutes. I gave it one final attempt by switching to Windowed mode, and apparently the combination of that + Windows 7 seems to have done the trick. ~2 hours and no crashes or freezes yet. This has been a battle, let me tell you. I have never before fought this hard to make a visual novel or game run on my computer, and it feels kinda weird that it was for Shiny Days of all things. I guess I'll blame my OCD tendencies.

Grisaia no Kajitsu, without a doubt. I had actually read a few visual novels before, like Danganronpa and Phoenix Wright, but I didn't think of them as such at the time because I had no real knowledge about the medium. I actually experienced my first visual novel, which I have now forgotten the name of, sometime in the late 90's, but I didn't even realize it until recently because at the time I just thought of it as some random porn game. Gaming has always meant a lot to me, but over the years as I've grown older and had to take on more responsibilities in life, I've become less and less inclined to waste time (I don't really like that term, but whatever) on gameplay-heavy games. I now prefer games that prioritize the story, and I've even started playing almost everything on Easy difficulty just to be able to experience that story without any hassle. That, in turn, made me take a real interest in visual novels, since they are so focused on that story element I'm seeking. That spark ignited, I started picking up on people mentioning this visual novel called Grisaia no Kajitsu, or The Fruit of Grisaia, time and time again on some of the gaming websites and forums I frequent, and that made me more and more curious. Said and done, in early March 2018, I picked up Grisaia no Kajitsu and was hooked more or less immidiately. It was both fun, exciting and sad, and the story connected with me on a deeper level than anything I had ever experienced in a game or movie before. Despite having read/played those other visual novels I mentioned earlier, I consider Grisaia no Kajitsu to be my first, because it was the first time I looked at something as such, and it opened my eyes to the medium and made me fall in love with it. I've read a ton of visual novels since then and might even consider a few of them better than Grisaia no Kajitsu, but I think it will always hold a special place in my heart for taking my life in this direction.

Daiteikoku is 35% translated with no further progress (afaik) since 2012, so you should probably remove it from the Translated list.

The heroine in the initial, forced route is kinda controversial. I grew to dislike her over time, but it's still a great VN that I'll probably reread someday.

I realize this is a really old topic, but I just finished Kira Kira (all routes) and since I have nothing better to do, I thought I'd clarify what happened. Normal Ending: Maejima talks to Kirari outside her house but is basically only told that she's been offered a new, better paying job that she will do in order to pay off the debt. The fire happens sometime shortly after that, but we aren't told exactly when. True Ending: Maejima talks to Kirari outside her house and is told about the fact that it's a prostitution job and that she's going to start the next day. However, she gets her period (or at least says she does, but it's probably true considering she doesn't really have any reason to lie about it since she's already decided to start working) and tells the new "employer", resulting in her not having to start work until five days later. On the day she's supposed to start, her father tries to commit suicide, making her miss her first work day to be with him in the hospital. Her father then dies after cutting his wrist there, and after that the family manages to settle the debt and receive welfare, meaning Kirari never had to work as a prostitute. Conclusion: I assume she got her period in both routes and thus were able to postpone working for another five days, so whether or not she ever worked as a prostitute in the Normal Ending really depends on how soon after her and Maejima's talk the fire happens. If it was within those five days, it would probably mean she never got the chance to work in the Normal Ending either. The stuff her mother says about not thinking badly of Kirari and whatnot might just be an apology because Kirari decided not to tell Maejima about what her new job entails. Anyway, I thought the whole thing was pretty stupid. They could have easily solved it all by doing what they later did after Kirari's father died, or by talking to Sarina, but they decided against either of those out of pride. It is utterly ridiculous that they figure turning Kirari into a prostitute is less shameful than asking a friend for help or turning to the welfare system.

I've realized that this is extremely important, at least for me. It hasn't made me stop reading a VN, but it has taken away a lot of the enjoyment because I start looking forward to the next one. Most recently, this happened with Ever17. I liked it a lot at first, but then I read a bit about Swan Song and wanted to find out for myself why people consider it depressing/disgusting/whatever, so I started thinking "I want to finish Ever17 as soon as possible so I can start reading Swan Song" and that made me unable to enjoy Ever17 as much as I should have.

I rate every game I finish on howlongtobeat.com, and when it comes to visual novels, I rate every ending I get. In other words, I have a ton of ratings for VN's with many endings, like Fate. This helps me keep track of which endings I actually enjoyed the most, in case I want to reread a specific one sometime.

I haven't watched the anime, but here's my opinion of her from the VN (with some spoilers from it, so don't read if you want to avoid them): Going back to the original topic, I've only read If My Heart Had Wings and Koichoco out of the ones you mentioned, but I enjoyed IMHHW the most out of those two. In fact, it's on my top 5 VN list. It has some very lovable characters and an amazing soundtrack, among other things. I wish there was a bit more drama, but I didn't expect there to be much of that in the first place so I can't really say I'm disappointed. If you're going to pick IMHHW, just make sure to, like adamstan mentioned, grab the retranslation patch, since the original localization by Moenovel is a complete disaster.