Kenshin_sama

Gathering MOE has been a bit slow, not as many intro threads, but I persevere for the sake of MOE!

This is a VN by Circus, the company that makes the Da Capo series, which I'm sure most of our resident moe-addicts are familiar with.  It is also based in the same universe (well, I'm pretty sure it is, since a Professor Amakase made an AI with emotions who likes bananas and who is the true heroine of this VN, lol). 
To put it straight to you... this is a very old style of VN.  It is a lot closer to the old Da Capo games and Key's early VNs than it is to anything else made in modern times.  Like Da Capo, it has its emotional moments... and some decent drama.  However, in exchange, the lateral relationships are almost nonexistent (character interrelationships other than with the protagonist tend to be weak to nonexistent, beyond a few templates).  This is the standard for this type of VN, and it was more than satisfying enough for me when I first started playing VNs... but now that I've experienced more fulfilling interactions between casts of characters, this VN feels startlingly dull at times.
Both visually and audio-wise, this is a VN that 'feels' like a Circus VN.  Almost all of the tracks are 'honobono' (restful) or playful in atmosphere.  Visually, it is a reasonably pretty VN... but it isn't near the higher end of things.
I feel a need to mention the ero simply because of the degree to which the spare (short and plain) h-scenes screw up the rhythm of a VN that doesn't have that good of a rhythm in the first place.  This is a VN that was definitely made with an eye toward releasing a console non-H version later on, and it shows.  As such, the ero is fairly meaningless and tends to be more of an obstacle to enjoyment than is usual.
One more little thing that had me peeved about this VN was the fact that the protagonist is nameable... and that is also the single element that caused me the most difficulty in enjoying the VN as a whole.  I don't say this to be an ass, but this particular trope has a singularly dehumanizing effect on the protagonist of any VN in which it is used.  Considering how weak and pale charage protags are in the first place, this is a really bad idea, lol.  In particular, when there is a blank spot in various spoken dialogue from the heroines where nothing is said or the name is changed to a pronoun, it feels really weird and breaks my engrossment in the story.  Style-wise, this is one of the most abominable tropes in existence, and it is the reason it took me five tries to get into and finish Hoshi ori Yume Mirai, despite the overall high-quality of the VN otherwise.
Now... this VN particularly shines in its heroine routes.  Those routes are done - as I mentioned above - in the 'older' style, where the heroines have a serious problem that only comes up when they are with the protagonist and the protagonist solves, thus affirming their bond (after some shakeups).  Now, I don't particularly hate this particular archaic type of story, and the heroine routes themselves are fairly high-level... but looking at the VN as a whole, the weak scenario design outside of the heroine paths (the lead up to the romance formation) is absolutely abominable to experience.  This, in some ways, makes the heroine paths an experience in the good slowly carving away at the negativity of the early game. 
Overall, this VN is a typical Circus experience... good in some ways, godawful in many others.  It is difficult to call most of the games by this company a kusoge, but this kind of BS is why this company isn't anywhere near a favorite of mine. 

Common

First, I should say this VN isn't like Purple Soft's last few works. The common route is straight comedy and heart-warming antics combined with some minor drama and with a bit of personal growth for the protagonist on the side. It is good comedy and the personal growth is actually quite nice, since the protagonist as he started out would have driven me insane inside two hours. It is also relatively short, as are the heroine routes so far. I managed to finish the common route and one heroine route in around seven and a half hours...


Makoto

Makoto is a very straightforward girl, the daughter of a local yakuza group who has been ordered to live as a normal girl by her family. The funny thing is, she isn't one of those template heroines who dislikes her criminal family, but rather respects and loves them. This results in a rather hilarious personality that comes out a great deal in her route. This VN's route structure is really unusual, in that there is literally no H in the routes themselves, though there are a few nude scenes. As a result, this route passes by with relatively little ichaicha and most of its focus on the drama, which is one of the reasons why it is so short... there is no time wasted whatsoever.



Michiru

Aaah... Michiru is probably the most blatant example of the 'adoring little sister' I've seen recently... and combined with her being a total yamato nadeshiko and blind, this makes her the standout amongst the four heroines available at the beginning of the VN. One of her most hilarious aspects is how she sounds like a 'niisama-cultist' when talking to others, and how aggressive she is in her pursuit of her older brother... so naturally you'd expect a 'oh, I'm not sure if I can cross the line!' kind of route, right? Fortunately, my expectations were betrayed quite nicely on this, and the route itself is highly emotional, following a track I can guarantee you won't guess without spoilers. That said, it is mostly heart-warming and tear-jerking stuff, and that is one of its biggest draws.

Because of the policy they are using for this VN - no H in the actual routes - it is really easy to focus on the plot flow, and there is none of that sense of 'you interrupted the story for a pink-colored scene?!' that comes so frequently with many VNs of the type. To be honest, I'm really surprised that no one has done this before, as having the choice as to whether to pursue the H in the extras section rather than go through it in the main game makes it a lot easier to enjoy the character interactions and story in general.

Edit: Adding Misaki


Misaki
Ummm... I'll be frank, I was disappointed with Misaki's route... but that's because I went for the two most unique heroines - and least annoying - amongst the four starter heroines first. It isn't that it is a bad route. Indeed, if you go by the standards of your average VN (cutting the low and high ends off the curve) I'd say that it was in the upper ranks as individual heroine routes go... but after Michiru it just lacked impact. Misaki is one of those heroines who is a lot better as comic relief than as a heroine... or at least, that is how it felt to me. A big issue is that they reused Alice's face and voice (from Hapymaher) for her, and I was always a bit frustrated that Alice was the true/main for that one (I liked her the least, though I still liked her). Cutting out those emotions, her struggles are actually interesting, if a bit overly familiar for those who have seen (this really is a spoiler, though indirectly)

That said, the theme for this particular one has been touched on so often in VNs lately that it seems overly dull...

That said, if you weren't me, you'd probably be able to enjoy this route just fine - actually, you'd probably enjoy it a great deal - as long as you made sure to play it first or second (I'm not really interested in the annoying foreign girl heroine, since her speech patterns make me want to punch her).

Recently, a spirited argument erupted in the Monobeno -Happy End- project thread regarding the perceived poor quality of translation samples. As this a topic of general controversy in the fan translation scene, I decided it might be worth addressing on a general level to those who might not care about this particular title. Please don't take this post as an invitation to reignite controversy in that thread; post your comments here instead.
 
Fan translation is as much about the journey as the destination. While the audience may only care about the final product, for the translator the journey may be even more important. This is an opportunity for a translator to improve both his Japanese skills and his English skills. As much as he's doing it for you, he's doing it for himself. I don't understand why anyone would think that fan translators have an obligation to provide a quality product, and that the audience should have an expectation of a quality product. All fan translations should be treated as being of suspect quality until proven otherwise. That's really all there is to it. If you're unhappy with the final product, don't play it. A game like Monobeno will never ever get licensed in English, so it's not like a substandard fan project would be ruining our chance at a professional translation (as might be the case with other titles).
 
So before you complain about projects that don't meet your quality standards, remember that no one deserves a quality product for free, and that fan translators have just as much of a right to benefit from a project as their audience. Maybe if there were a better resource for tracking translation quality across different releases we wouldn't even be having these arguments. And maybe if the more skilled fan translators simply took pride in the quality of their own work, and weren't so preoccupied with the attention other groups were getting, there wouldn't be so much bickering going on.
 
[This is a repost of my response in that thread edited for a general audience]