Clephas

If one of the ones I play later is better, I'll change my pick later, but I seriously doubt it. What I have left are moege or guro for the most part. Karumaruka isn't a work of genius, but it maintains Saga Planets' usual quality.

It's been decided, my game of the month for this month is Karumaruka Circle!!! (http://vndb.org/v12476 reference the post above for my thoughts on it). I thought about making it "Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka?" However, when I choose a game of the month, I'm not just choosing for me, I'm choosing what I think is the best overall game I played from that month's releases. From a technical and writing quality perspective, Karumaruka is simply the better game, even if Ichiban is a more hilarious nakige (it draws out the tears very well, even though the game is relatively short). While I still have a few games from the past month that I haven't played yet that I'm interested in, one is a moege, one has yet to be released for download, and one is probably not as good as I want it to be.

Number 2

I finished playing Karumaruka Circle and Himegoto Union, moving on to Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka?! (which is absolutely hilarious so far). Karumaruka is about as good as any of the Saga Planets games (with the exception of Natsuyume Nagisa and Hatsuyuki Sakura, whose quality was on a completely different level), meaning it is a game that pretends at being your classic charage with strong heroine paths but turns into a story-focused when it goes for the true ending. I didn't have many problems with Karumaruka overall, save for the somewhat erratic protagonist (in that he changes a bit too completely, too fast in the story) and the fact that Yukiha's path was so short. It is currently the number one candidate for my game of the month. Himegoto Union is your classic comedy-focused charage utilizing archetypical characters to create a story in a weird setting full of ninjas, princesses from space, horned girls, and androids. I honestly didn't really enjoy this one much, but if you are looking for light laughs and airheaded princesses, this is a good choice for you. The game I'm currently playing, Ichiban Janakya Dame Desu Ka, is by one of my favorite companies, Rosebleu (responsible for the Tiny Dungeon series, a group of hilarious fantasy VNs). True to the company's best work, the characters in this game are hilariously deredere (literally, their deredere antics are so extreme it will have you rofling) and it'll have you crying at least once in the early game. Since I'm only just finishing the common route, I don't have any comments on the heroine paths yet, but feel free to look forward to my final comments, which I'll include in my game of the month post for September, regardless of whether it wins or not.

Anime adaption of Tayutama killed the Mashiro ending so badly...

Kitsunekko, intelligent, strong-willed, and aggressive in obtaining what they want.

VNs eat through most of my entertainment budget every year. I also have a lot of role-playing games that I've bought over the years (I recently completed my collection of every psx role-playing game, localized or imported). I believe in supporting good games, so I pay... and I believe in corrupting our youth, so I usually get two copies of the best games so I can use them like a magic item to turn bright-eyed young people into dark-eyed otaku.

mmm... I played it, but I might not have rated it. I also own it. However, it isn't one of my favorites.

I own about one quarter of the ones I've played... (thousands of dollars). Anything with a nine rating or above on my vndb profile I have. I think I have about two thirds of the ones rated eight and one or two of the ones rated seven. All of them are boxed up, save for the extra copies I bought for corrupting the souls of innocent students who have learned Japanese enough to read them. These are my votes: http://vndb.org/u10917/votes?c=all;o=d;s=vote Listing them would be too much of a pain in the rear.

Aside from my VNs, I'm also playing Tales of Xillia for the PS3, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and the original Agarest War (which just got released on Steam). To be honest, I play these games only when I need a break from VNs...

Mmm... a lot of my attitude toward kinetic novels comes from the fact that I tend to obsess over plot, rather than characters. Having a lot of heroines to romance is fine... if they have distinctive routes that are at least as long as or longer than the common route (longer being preferred, as I like a short common route and long individual paths). Everyday moege got old for me long ago (around the time I played my twentieth one).

My favorite type of story structure is where the branches of the story are at the beginning or where it is decided from beginning to end. In the case of the former, it is because it creates more distinctive paths that aren't basically an alternate ending for the common route (most moege have that flaw), and in the case of the latter, you get what I think of as VN in its purest form, where the story is told using all the elements of presentation without the unecessary intervention of the player. If I want freedom, I'll play an Elder Scrolls game, lol.

Fast translations require a devoted group with a translator with lots of free time or numerous translators working together. Fate Hollow/Ataraxia is slow because the people working on it are low on free time. It is a miracle the project didn't die years ago. However, even a relatively fast project will still take a year or more to see the translation complete.

lol... VN of the month has to be above a certain level of quality. MML is out of the question, for instance, because it is too light with no real substance. One of the basic requirements I make of VNs that use supernatural elements as a central factor of the story is that they be addressed properly, if not completely. In addition, pure moege are almost never worth an endorsement, lol

Played two of September's end-of-month releases so far: Magical Marriage Lunatics and Noblesse of Rouge. Neither game is worthy of a 'game of the month', though MML manages to be a decent moege, fit for someone who wants a light game to play with no inspiring or truly interesting story to it. Noblesse of Rouge is downright awful, failing to fulfill any of the promise its setting had. I just started Karumaruka Circle, hoping that Saga Planets will manage to work the magic it did with Hatsuyuki Sakura and leave me in tears at the end.

Hoshimemo in general ranges from a 3.5-4 difficulty in normal conversation to a 7 during conversations involving the mystical/scientific elements of the story. In other words, it isn't something I'd recommend to a beginner unless he wants to take the Spartan path to improving his reading skills, like I did (my second in-Japanese VN was Jingai Makyou and my third Dies Irae, followed by Devils Devel Concept, lol)

Kinetic novels have one huge advantage over other types of visual novels... freedom for the writer to focus on story rather than romance or heroines. Some of the best vns out there are what amount to kinetic novels (Eden* from Minori, for instance) or would have been much better if they had been kinetic novels from the beginning (G-Senjou no Maou). G-Senjou suffered greatly in quality because of the irritation factor from irrelevent heroines and side-paths that didn't make much sense in the greater context of the story. On the other hand, there are many VNs who create stories that are enhanced by having the opportunity to take different paths, but the advantage to kinetic novels as a storytelling medium is not to be underestimated, nonetheless.

329 so far. put the last option as over 200 rather than that joke option. My top ten (in any order, really) Draculius Yurikago Yori Tenshi Made Devils Devel Concept Hapymaher Konata yori Kanata Made Evolimit Akatsuki no Goei series Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no Tokyo Babel Dies Irae

Draculius http://vndb.org/v453 Length- Between ten and twenty hours, depending on your reading skills. Difficulty- 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. It uses a lot of common language, as well as more frequent utilization of hiragana than is common in games of the type. Genre- Vampires, fantasy, science fantasy

See my recommendations in other threads, avoiding the ones by Nitroplus and Light. The rest should satisfy your requirements.

It's mostly a problem of contrasts... Kei, Mary, and Rea are all three great heroines, so a weak, everyday boring osananajimi character heroine just doesn't fit into that group.

Yeah. The only major difference is you get to see Seizanhai's insanity a bit more clearly. However, you get to the core of that insanity in Rea's route without having to endure Kasumi's idiocy so you can generally ignore hers. Not only that, but Kasumi's route's ending is awful.

It's a coincidence. Kasumi's route is the least important, as all the revelations in her route happen in one or another of the others as well, and she is also the least interesting of the four heroines. Not to mention the fights are boring, relatively speaking. Most people play Kei to open up the Mary route, then play Mary, then Rea. Kasumi gets ignored because she is the most out of place character in the entire game, lol.

http://g-seeker.net/game/r/littlebusters.html If you match this walkthrough to the english choices, you will get an 'efficiency' walkthrough, letting you save at split-off points so you can avoid having to skip through tons of excess text.

Gensou no Idea is good, but not great. Innocent Bullet was OK at best, though it was slightly better than I anticipated. I balanced Gensou no Idea against my other two potential picks before picking Futagoza. My reasons... were mostly because Futagoza's ending was more satisfying. Gensou no Idea had better characters (funnier ones), but it glossed over some key elements without touching on them directly (such as the true identity of that detective/bunnyhead/torturer in relationship to the characters of Bloody Rondo). January-(http://vndb.org/v11193) Natsu no Owari no Nirvana. This game is an utsuge with a protagonist who is the son of Enma, the Japanese judge of the dead. He is tasked with judging three girls for their sins, a process that is rather more time-consuming than he would have preferred. This is a generally hilarious and heart-rending tale whose true ending will probably have you weeping like a waterfall. Nothing else in this month even came close. February- Hapymaher (http://vndb.org/v10957) Godly music, a great story, and a decent (if messed up in a bad way) protagonist. This game is one of the few games I could honestly call a kamige from this year. I cried more for this game than I have for any new game this year by far. Runner up was (http://vndb.org/v10958) Komorebi no Nostalgia, a second kamige in a single month, for whatever insane reason drives companies to put out all their good games at the same time. March- (http://vndb.org/v11194) Lovesick Puppies. This is your basic comedy/drama/romance VN whose only flaw is that the most interesting girl in the game isn't a heroine. April- Yaneura no Kanojo (http://vndb.org/v10541) similar to August, April was a rather dry month. However, this game - the sequel to Konakana - was the best of a bad lot. It doesn't match its predecessor for quality, but then there are few games that do. It isn't mediocre, but when I played it I was disappointed because it failed to be a beautiful utsuge like its predecessor. Nonetheless, it is a decent game in and of itself, and a worthy play if you have nothing else on your list. May- (http://vndb.org/v7773) Reminiscence. This game is my favorite for May, if only because . I can also recommend this game for the seriously screwed up relationship between the protagonist and his little sister (and not in the usual fashion of VNs and anime) and the rest of the great cast of characters.