Joyjason

LOL >Implication that MangaGamer's products are even of similar quality of the original work

Thank you for your point; it seems I was not clear enough. Long story short, I don't actually enjoy games like Steins;Gate or Ever17. Yes, they were good titles, but they're only a few of the 400+ titles I've played until now. I wouldn't call them "eroge", but I've never really had to I mention it since you, your mother-in-law, and your long lost half-sister seems to have played it. In any case, I would define these as plain old "games". Slice of life in FSN? Okay, maybe it has a bit more storyline than your mainstream nukige, but I'd say that FSN is extremely overrated by the English community. As I said, FSN is one of those games where If you want real slice of life... You really shouldn't be looking at an eroge with a fantasy setting with monsters and characters with superhuman capabilities And regarding that "5%".......... so what if you had hydrochloric acid in 5% concentration...? Holy shit, that stuff would be extremely dangerous to swing around, let alone drink it despite the fact that 95% is still water. Humorous analogy, but it still makes my point that if the story has some sexual content in it, no matter how small, it will be defined as an 18+ game, not sold unless you have ID (at least in the stores).

Trust me. Ep. 1 isn't enough to determine the quality of the game because the main characters do not even appear until Episode 2, which you need to buy. Incidentally, did anyone realize that there are already "votes" for this game on VNDB? Yeah, it's not even complete (even in Russian), yet people are casting their votes... What does that mean? I'll leave it up to your imagination, but let me take 5 seconds to utilize this factor to criticize VNDB for the 13 millionth time.

More information please. What exact error are you getting? Does it simply show a blank page instead of their normal site? etc etc. (protip: screenshots are helpful. They say a picture is worth a thousand words)

Oh you guys make me laugh. I thought this was common knowledge, but I guess it's not. Eastern language and Western Language are only difficult to translate back and forth into because of not only grammar differences, but also cultural differences as well. By cultural, I mean the fact that Japanese uses the saying "いただきます” before a meal, while not many of the other cultures do. Literally, this translates into "I will have this now", but obviously, we're referring to the food. However, this can translate into "잘 먹겠습니다" (lit. trans: I will eat well) in Korean, because of the fact that the two phrases are implied to be used before a meal despite its different meanings. Literal translations don't work? You must jest. Sure, Japanese -> English is hard to do, but let me say it right here, right now, that the difficulty isn't the difference in grammar; it's in the background and culture. EDIT: Forgot that I didn't even answer the topic. In my experience, I see trouble translating various phrases due to the reasons I stated above. Many teams have different ways of translating them, but I generally find them unfavorable because of my perfectionist personality. But otherwise, most of the lines are easy to translate "literally". Unless it contains some kind of a joke or a pun, I'd say that 99.9% of those lines are "translated literally".

MY FEELS, GOOD SIR. TAKE MY FEELS You just wrote down my entire feelings for this month's releases down to its last specific point in a few sentences; that is amazing. I'm probably going to lay low and finish some old games before touching any of these (for the reference, I won't be going for any of the FDs, so no Walkure (didn't even play the main game because it didn't sound interesting), and no Monobeno. feng's game, I might get into purely for completion's sake, along with the fact that in their most recent games, I made my knee red from slapping it too much via laughter. Other than that, not too much hope for them. I kept Cocoro at bay for the exact same reason as you; Nostalgia made such an impression on me that I don't think I'll be playing any "sci-fi" storyline until Nostalgia wears out for me (icwutididthar). Along with this, it seems as if it's going to be really similar to other of Pulltop's games, which wasn't exactly the best for me.

I'm pretty surprised that this thread lived until now. (Didn't think it would even make it past a week, lol) Nonetheless, let me make my point crystal clear; I couldn't care less what you call your "games". I just wanted to know your reasoning. For the people who are comparing "VNs" with actual interactive games like Final Fantasy, Pokemon, or whatever famous games are out there, there's always going to be two elements in all forms of "games" 1) Interactive element. Yes, this is present even in "VNs" due to you "clicking" stuff, even if it means the auto button. This sole reason is how it "receives" input from the player, and considered a game. DIsagree? Hit me with your opinions 2) I don't know about you, but a lot of games absolutely suck if it's purely gameplay and no story. I want to have my characters interacting in some way throughout the entire gameplay. This is why Final Fantasy is popular; this is why pokemon's quality is exaggerated with the release of X and Y. If a "game" doesn't have any story, it will suck, and lose popularity rapidly. But doesn't that mean we have to consider all games like pokemon and FF as a visual novel? As with 99% of this forum's population, I'll have to disagree. Then I go back to our "old terms" ADV or NVL. These are elements exclusive to Visual Novels, and usually have separate artworks for Background, CG, and character sprite (of course, I'm referring to some of the newer games released). Long story short, a "visual novel" is called that way because it has a dialogue box at the bottom (almost always), USUALLY unanimated sprites (although there can be miscellaneous animations to a certain extent), a complex story line that the producer prioritizes to a large extent, and character sprites floating around the screen while the engine recalls its voice/bgm files. The reason I push the so-called "niche" terms like eroge and galge, is because in MY own eyes, they are the more appropriate term. Many of you suggested that a VN is the better term to be used for various reasons, but I like to be literal--these games have the adult content, while having the implications of a "VN" (you'd only know this if you were highly experienced with "eroge"). For the players who don't know that and refuse to learn? Sorry, I don't feel necessary to interact with them at all. Furthermore, I know of plenty of people outside of this community who would rather use the term "VNs" instead of "eroge" because of social taboo. Again, this is another one of my rants, but it's not like you're asking to proclaim it to everyone. For me, when communicating to someone who comes to my review site, I use the term "eroge". When my roommate (with no experience of anime or VNs) asks me what I play, I'll answer him with "a novel-like game with sexual content--Called eroge (I still use the term". However, I expect the same term to be used in communities such as this. Bring on the fresh new discussion.

Good sir, I'm afraid that I would have to say that you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. You have just applied the Western Stereotype of "game" to an entertainment provided by the Eastern area of the world, and you expect them to correspond? Before comparing RTS to the Japanese term for "games", please do study the definitions of the two first. I really apologize if this offends you, but your reply that doesn't even answer my original question of "Why use VN?" (Are you sure you are even experienced in the field of "visual novels"?) Even for RTS, there are various other "elements" that make one RTS different from another, whether it be a specific goal (kill all enemies or build X amount of Y), or even survive a certain number of minutes, you can't just compile everything into "RTS", since Starcraft, LoL, and even Mabinogi has "real-time strategy" to a certain extent. I'm especially offended by your reply, as it has an aura of haughtiness with the "I'm smarter than you, but I'm not going to try to understand your logic and will only spread out mine" implication. Furthermore, you mention that some "visual novels" have gameplay elements. This is exactly why I hesitate to utilize the term "visual novels", and would rather call it an "eroge", since 99% of the games we know of has the 18+ material (provided PC, since not many people rip ISO files for PSP, at least to my knowledge), and it (the term "eroge") would also cover for the situations where there would be gameplay elements. That is also the main reason I asked this question: an overwhelming majority of "visual novels" have sexual content, and while I understand individuals who would feel embarrassed to admit to playing "porn games" (and thus would be completely valid as a "reason" to utilize the term "VN"), I think it's just as embarrassing to admit to watching anime in general. I understand your point, mainly because I'm a Korean myself, and can back-up your claim that "green light" is actually called "blue light". Koreans also have a tendency to say "it is cool (as in temperature)", especially if they enter a very hot bath. However, I would also like to make a point that these are IDIOMS, and not necessary a good analogy for this particular topic.

Gonna give this thread a bump here. I was also granted a free copy, which gave me the title up to episode 3. As I finish episode 3, I have very favorable review for this game, except for the fact that there are several things I find unpleasant... 1) The "whoosh" effect is getting annoying 2) There's no humor 3) Elements are introduced too suddenly 4) Too much effort has been spent in creating route variety, to the point character graphics really suck 5) Finishing episode 3, I can see how this story is going to end; and it's not going to be a "happy ending" that we're all familiar with, unless there are even more "sudden elements" that switch up the plotline in the next two episodes. Lostwood Games, this is a nice direction you're taking, but I'm afraid that it'll be hard to complete with the commercial groups due to the fact that cyberpunk isn't the best genre out there, and that Leviathan is really short compared to the other games. I mean... I finished the entire 3 episodes in a single sitting...

My face as I read the page and see "Leaf's Defintion"... Not that I'm paranoid, but I'm thinking that page is "created" after the term "visual novel" started being used in the English (or Western) communities. It also doesn't help that it's using the "English Wikipe-tan" example on its page as well, meaning that the term "visual novel" was probably derived from an English community before a Japanese one. Furthermore, there WOULD be a proper "translation" to "Visual Novels" (according to Google Translate, the best translation is "視覚小説"), but the Japanese page insists on its katakana translation "ビジュアルノベル” But I still understand how one would like to "go with the flow", and address these entertainment options as "VNs" instead of eroge, galge, or simply games.

Got really curious as I saw people referring to the commonly enjoyed entertainment as "VN", or "visual novel". As everyone knows, in Japan, the term "visual novel" is pretty much non-existent, and are actually referred to as "ギャルゲ" (Galge), usually for the PSP games that do not have sexual content, or "エロゲ" (Eroge) or for PC games with 18+ material. In many other cases, these "visual novels" are even referred to as "games" (as seen in various anime series, blogs, and news), if the term "galge" or "eroge" is considered to be too informal or inappropriate. So other than the fact that typing the letters "V" and "N" is a lot faster than typing "eroge" or "galge", why do you use it? It's the term that better describes the content we're talking about, and even if you don't like to "speak weeaboo", you can just say it's a "game". I'm also curious to how the term "visual novel" even originated, since it's not only "visuals" that make up what we call "VNs". There's sound, so why not call it "Sound Novels"? I can only imagine that the "visuals" were focused on first, since I know of several "Visual Novels" without voices... But many of them seem to contain BGMs so... ugh (confused) I personally named my blog "VNEroge Review Site", but the "VN" part makes the title sound less boring (I mean... "eroge review site" seems too cliche... don't you think?), and is only used (really) for aesthetic purposes. Opinions are appreciated.

Why not all three of them?

Just saying, but a Korean group who translated the IC in about a month is still taking over a year to translate the CC. This means that for amateur groups, this is going to take AT LEAST 2 years to translate even with the fastest translators, and even for many of the other players, this title took a long time to read. aka, if you want to experience this series, it'll be faster if you simply learned Japanese instead of twiddling your thumbs hoping for a translation.

Usually, if I said "Wow, this was a nice game" for any reason, I'll recommend it to others. Aka. I'm giving other people my own "preferences" and "tastes"...

I'm actually really happy someone knows how it feels to "translate" these lines. When I was working on a very small portion of Nao's route from the YnS project, I would be able to breeze through the main lines, but would have trouble on how to translate the H-scenes properly. I ended up skipping over most of them.

With how we define "VNs", I would expect the following components in addition to the story 1) High quality CG, which includes background, sprites, and actual CGs themselves. 2) Character Voice I'm only going to be harsh on this idea because I had the same mindset as you guys when I first started reading VNs and eroge. Unless you can do everything by yourself, there will be clashes among members who are working together, and it won't be pretty. Also, you need to be able to interest many of the players like me (who plays Japanese VNs) above the continuous, new releases. This is because if your game looks blah, I'd much rather play a nukige instead (or the 50 titles I've stashed on my External HDD) Don't forget that you are doing this all on your own behalf, and you shouldn't be expecting money for it; are you sure you can come up with even a full story without getting tired/finding progress to be slow? There are so many factors against "writing a story", which is why I admire even the crappiest games for at least making an effort. Normal people like me can't "make a VN" like we hope to do, and even if you can get everything (CG, Voices, Scenario) all compiled into an engine, it'll be inferior to the commercial VNs being sold and pirated every month. But my suggestion follows: Are you trying to make a novel instead? Remember that there's a difference between a "Visual Novel" and a "Novel". If it's just a story, you can make it yourself, include your own ideals for it, and you can do it without stress and in your free time.

+Support. I can't use IRC because my school blocks IRC/Torrenting/any P2P feature It's annoying.

Can you confirm that the kiminago files you have are the correct versions? (v. 1.0 or 1.1). Make a backup for the v1.0 and download each respective patch from the main website of the game and see if the patch will work with a specific version of the game. As always, disable antiviruses, and make sure the SHA-1 matches up. Don't know how to check SHA-1? Google is your friend.

Played it, and cringed at the fact that this is a nukige in my eyes. Parody = Nukige; because I said so. Despite this, I had the balls to actually finish it (not really... I'm just a dumb perfectionist x_X) Considering that, it's one pretty DAMN horrible nukige. I've really seen better, which includes other parody titles like Futsuno Fantasy, which is more funny, at least (but note that both games really suck) This title is pretty much the sole reason why I don't go near Alcot's (or even Honeycomb's) games. I'll only do that if someone strongly recommends me a title, which I'll probably skim through as fast as I can.

Very good topic by solidbatman! I actually had this question asked to me by a friend, and this was the answer I gave him; As examples, I take Corona: For both the main game and the fandisk, it is possible to clear the entire game without having your characters at max level; you just need to balance out your character's levels throughout the story, and you should be able to clear every stage. Although in the main game for Corona, there are some advanced strategies that needs to be used against some of the bosses who continuously heal and make you want to rip your hair out (lol), it's still do-able.

It's just a made up name in order to make a suggestion. Don't hate xP Glad to know that this suggestion is slowly being implemented. Looking forward to seeing some people really working to improve the community

Regarding recognition, I think a simple and unique "badge" would be enough. You know how in places like Anime-sharing, the uploaders have a custom "badge" saying "Uploader" next to their name? Something like that, but it's for the general purposes. Some stuff I can think of from the top of my head is stuff like: Eroge Knowledgebase (players to talk to for eroge-topics/advice) Korean Translator (Only because I'm Korean and I'd like this title 8D) (Team Name for anything, like translation projects) Leader: e.g. Fuwanovel Translation Team Leader (<-- made up name) And let your imagination run wild. But yeah, if you decide on various improvements, do make a thread asking for such suggestions; I'm sure there will be more people willing to share their thoughts.

Re-read the original post and your original ideas, but I don't see how LOLIS is NOT a contest of likes. I mean... If we had a list of titles, and it was ordered by its ratings, wouldn't people first click on the titles that have the highest ratings (or in our case, the highest number of "likes") Unless I'm blind, the example you gave us, Steve, was the title and its "like" stats as well as its "disagreement" stats. I kinda see where you're coming from with the "linking" of titles, but that's pretty much common sense; if you liked Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you're probably going to read the second book, and the third book, and etc. Same here; if you liked a game from a certain company, you're probably going to go for the company's other games. Next. How do you even know if all those people who "link" a title or "disagree with a link" have genuinely played the game? As far as I'm concerned, when WA2's CC was released, there were dumbasses who voted for the novel on VNDB the very day it was released, and I know it would take at least 2-3 days for someone to read it to even get a general understanding of the plot (aka, not skip everything and say he finished it). Hence my suggestion that only "authorized" members be able to "create links", and even better; write up a little review to WHY they think so. (Obviously, this element could be hidden since it can contain spoilers) In addition, this overall idea can really be simplified if we can make a list of titles, and just put tags on it. VNDB isn't good with this because of how the tags have values and crap, as well as the fact that some tags are plain stupid and unnecessary. Finally, let me say that this idea in general is very difficult. As you have also mentioned, people have different tastes. However, what "standard" do we have for this system? From all I know, only people like Clephas would be able to "effectively" make use of this system due to the large number of games he played, but what good is it if only one person contributes to all these "links"? Even further, a large majority of the English-restricted players are not benefited by this system because of obvious reasons. Now if we're restricting all of this to just translated novels, then that's fine. However, if that's going to be the case, I will say that I'm out. tl;dr. Don't worry about "linking" titles. Figure out some way you can pique the interests of non-Japanese readers to actually learn a bit of Japanese, enough to play VNs for themselves with (or without) a translator. That step is first. P.S. @Clephas, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a LOT less than that...

Please sir, my feels. Jokes aside, though, I'm going to shamefully necro this thread. H-Scenes needed? HELL NO. Yes, it's a great element to express the "romance" between two characters, but in many games where there are more than one heroine, it just seems as if the protagonist is pretty much a player. Obviously, this isn't according to the context of the story, but how do you expect the readers to feel, if a guy is banging all these cute girls? In many "good" titles, H-scenes ruin the conclusion. I don't understand why they include it, and the only times when H-scenes are actually "used well" are some of my highest ranking titles, such as Mashiroiro Symphony, SINCLIENT (kinda meh, but I'll include it nonetheless) This is why I like to read LNs too, except for the fact that LNs do not contain visual or hearing elements that would factor in for a "good story". Then again, I hate anime because there's only so much you can fit into a single series. Finally, one last (and weird) reason I don't like H-Scenes is that for many games, skipping through them is a pain. Even when I mash the "Ctrl" key, it literally takes an entire minute to skip through everything. Ugh! EDIT: Sorry for my half-assed post. Here's a better explanation of what I was trying to say. 1) In a series where there are multiple heroines, the protagonist "falling in love" with one of the heroines will either not be explained, or be clearly defined. In the former situation, this makes him seem as if he fell in love with the heroine for no particular reason (but some games have the protagonist "thinking" that the heroine is "cute", which makes me wonder; did you fall for the heroine because of her looks or what?), and in the latter case, affection being clearly defined makes the game REALLY boring. In either case, the protagonist's "affection" for the heroine seems bland, shallow, and pretty inconsistent. So does that mean that H-scene with games with a single heroine is good? In my opinion, it generally is (unless it's a nukige), but I can't really name many games that have this trait. (Mainly because I'm a bit unique in my tastes, and such a game wouldn't sell easily) 2) As some other individuals mentioned, H-scenes are often a factor that ruins a conclusion. Whether it be from Da Capo (which annoyed the living daylights out of me) or games like "Natsu no Ame" (This is only if I recall correctly), random inclusion of H-scenes suddenly overrides the "good ending" and the satisfactory feeling. I'm sure someone can explain this psychology much better than I can, but ending a "romance" game with an H-scene refers to guilt, humiliation, and taboo, while an ending with the heroine working hard with the protagonist is a symbol of hope, diligence, and happiness. 3) I guarantee you that over 90% of the text in any H-scene is either the excessive detail of the intercourse (such as onomatopoeia of ejaculation, the heroine blankly describing the obvious state that she's in, and how it "felt good"), or the "panting" of the heroine. Simply put, it's the same thing over and over again. Now, this is really not the case in some darker games where the intercourse is used to express something else, but that would stray FAR from romance, which I think many readers would say is nothing but "fapping material" Please. I know that H-scenes are generally used for a certain purpose, but would it KILL the company to include a bit of foreshadowing or even a portion of the scene dedicated to "realistically" (note how I put that word in quotations) creating the mood? Not every player rushes to pull down his bottoms as an H-scene starts... 4) And as I mentioned, some scenes are too long for me to skip. As a conclusion, let me point out that I've actually gotten into the habit of "stopping" each story as I get to the H-scenes, and do that for all the heroines present. I would then do something else (study, text, eat) while I hold down the Ctrl key for all the heroines that I've "saved up" until that point. Sad, I know, but it's how I play my novels, and haters are going to hate.

Thanks for the warning; I shall keep it in mind as I try both titles; I'm sure I'll enjoy them as much as you did. Generally, I don't like using walkthroughs in the first place since I like to know what "I" make the story become (Yeah~ I'm powerful!) On the other hand, am I the only one who uses Seiya Saiga when I do use WTs? >.>;