Decay

I hate Sengoku Rance more but that's just because of my personal tastes. Koihime Musou is utterly inoffensive because it's so boring. Whereas I strongly dislike Rance as a protagonist and most of the h-scenes. If I am to view them objectively, I can see why people with certain senses of humor or proclivities enjoy Sengoku Rance, but I can't imagine very many people enjoying Koihime. Well, whatever the case, you certainly shouldn't get it for the gameplay. Maybe get it for the comedy factor of seeing Zhuge Liang be some extremely nervous little girl who freaks out all the time. If you're not a Three Kingdoms fan who can't appreciate things like that then there probably won't be anything to enjoy about it.

I wonder if there's a trainer for Yumina, I wouldn't mind cheating my way through it just to see the story. Some parts of the gameplay are fun but it gets so old after a while. Reminds me of Kamidori, fun at first but it expects you to grind too much to complete all of the quests. Except with Yumina it's not just side quests you have to grind for. If it's much easier in new game plus and there's no downside to it from the perspective of a first time player, I also wouldn't mind just using a completed save and doing that right off the bat. Can anyone confirm that? I like Pulltop most of the time but Princess Waltz is just a game I can't get behind. I hate the action. I hate how inconsequential the gameplay segments feel to the story (it feels less like you're actually fighting the battles in the story, and more that you're just playing for the privilege of continuing the story, if that makes sense). And while there were parts of the story I liked, I think some of the plot twists were rote and the drama too contrived.

Disclaimer: I kinda hate both Sengoku Rance and Koihime Musou. Story-wise, Koihime Musou is just dull. Some of the heroines are kind of interesting but there's very little to each one's individual storyline. The overall plot is kind of terrible. Gameplay-wise, it's ridiculously simple. The gameplay sections are short, and use some kind of six-way rock paper scissors system. There is no strategy whatsoever. Each fight the enemy behaves in a set pattern so you just learn the pattern then adjust to counter them perfectly. It's almost impossible to lose. If you do lose, you get sent back to the beginning of the battle with extra troops so the win is guaranteed.

For romance vs non-romance, it's just a matter of taste. Romance is good, VNs without romance are also good. They're entirely different and I don't really prefer one over the other. I'd say that this probably isn't actually the case. Most eroge readers are probably adults. It may seem strange, but in Japan adults are the primary audience for most works of fiction taking place in high school, while japanese high schoolers tend to prefer fantasy/sci-fi/non-highschool settings. Never underestimate the power of nostalgia.

Translation is dead. It got as far as 80% translated but it was largely unedited and the translator is nowhere to be seen. There hasn't been any word from them in nearly a year.

Well, Nakige literally means "crying game" so "Nakige anime" doesn't make much sense. You're just looking for some good drama. Hmm.... maybe try Eden of the East? It's really great.

Ayakashibito has rather good art, but there just isn't much of it. Very few sprite variations, CGs, etc. It was Propeller's second game and so they probably had a limited budget.

You realize that's a JAST release, right? I am not exaggerating when I say that I would be utterly shocked if it came out within the next 12 months. Maybe in 2 years. edit: To back this up, Sumaga's translation finished something like 14 months ago. Still not out, with no signs of it coming out any time soon. Django's translation has been "almost complete" for over a year as well. Still isn't done. I have zero confidence that Seinarukana will be finished any time soon. Well, it's to be expected, JAST treats their translators like shit and nobody ever gets paid until a game's release, so it's no wonder why their work ethic is so bad. And I wouldn't be surprised if JAST intentionally delays their releases just so they can postpone paying their translators/editors.

Part of it is probably because Type-Moon themselves want to lighten the atmosphere of the series a bit. That's just the direction they're going in. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if the Tsukihime remake was at least little less dark.

Let's do a comparison, shall we? Ufotable's upcoming F/SN anime adaptation slated for this fall: Deen's 2006 anime adaptation: No further words are necessary. edit: Not words, but a leaked work-in-progress animation of saber v lancer:

It's dead, or in a state of limbo, or is being very slowly translated, or all of those things at the same time. If you think you do not understand, then don't worry, you actually understand as well as everyone else.

Well that's never going to happen. If he's for real and not spreading bullshit, then posting evidence would get him in serious trouble. He works with these companies from time to time, you know. So either you take him for his word or not, but why would he lie about something as dumb as Eiyuu Senki of all things? I think worst case scenario is that it was licensed but the localization went nowhere. It would make sense why all of a sudden this other company is doing an entirely separate translation for the PS3 version.

Regarding Eiyuu Senki, Herki (vn and fansub editor) claims that another localization company licensed the PC version a while ago and that's still on the books, h-scenes and all. That's all he said about it. I don't really see the PS3 version pushing too many units. Its gameplay and story aren't much to write home about, I hear.

Well the style still somehow reminded me of Type-Moon's earlier works, my mistake.

Didn't we just have this thread a couple weeks ago? Anyways, although I haven't played them, I really like what I've seen of the art from the studios Abhar and Trumple (same artists). Actually, I'm curious if anyone possibly knows who their main artist is and what he's doing now. This is why I wish VNDB had their staff database finished. This one's impressive because it shows just how far Type-Moon has come. You can tell it's still the same lead artist whom they had way back with Tsukihime. Yet the artwork is way better.

I haven't really seen any super old anime. The oldest that I've watched and enjoyed was probably the original Dragon Ball ('86). I used to like DBZ but I turned on that when I grew up, heh. Dragon Ball though is just a really fun action/adventure show. No beam battles, no powering up, no sudden transformations just before victory, maybe only two fights that last longer than an episode, and so on. It's a much simpler show and way better for it. I watched it again a couple years ago and still really enjoy it. Second oldest show I enjoyed was probably Legend of Galactic Heroes. It's amazing. It's like someone turned Three Kingdoms into an epic length space opera and stuffed it full of WW2 allegories as well. Just really fantastic political and military drama. It's easily one of my favorites, it's such a timeless show, and one everyone should watch. Edit: Or maybe they turned WW2 into a space opera heavily influenced by Three Kingdoms? Whatever, the order isn't important.

Well, it's not super special or anything. The writing is pretty funny, and the characters are amusing and likeable, I guess. It's a pretty good game, but it gets extra attention because of the translation drama.

The writers at Akabeisoft2 (and by extension Akatsuki Works and AS3) always tend to put very strong personalities into their protagonists. Sometimes they're a badass, sometimes they're not, but they're always interesting characters. It's one of their best qualities.

BaseSon is just... yeah, they put the the least amount of effort necessary into everything they do, it seems. If you felt so strongly about what goes on in the routes, I'd like to see your reaction to a real nakige or utsuge. Well, I'm mostly talking out of my ass because I quit this game pretty early in, but I can't imagine BaseSon delivering any particularly strong emotional moments.

In 95% of VNs, this is something you don't really have to worry about. The choices are usually obvious and you just have to be kind to or hang out with the girl of your choice at every opportunity. A few VNs though have a large amount of choices that can set a variety of flags which influence the endings, Fate/Stay Night being sort of like that. Honestly, I'd just read a walkthrough. I don't find that sort of "gameplay" where you have to discover the correct choices to get the best endings to be very compelling. It reminds me of Persona 4 where the s.link choices that got the most points were usually the ones that teased the other person the most.

A guy on nyaa... and his torrent was taken down anyways. I really wonder about that one.

Hey my recommendation made it on that list! And if sexual content is a big sticking point for you, maybe consider one of the two recent all-ages games Propeller put out, Tokyo Babel and Negai no Kakera to Hakugin no Agreement. (the latter being shoujo ai)

I don't know the exact line count, but I believe the first game in the Tiny Dungeon series should fit most or all of your criteria: http://vndb.org/v3767 This VN would have the benefits of being somewhat short, and not particularly well known. By all accounts it's quite funny and entertaining, so it might be a good title to cut your teeth on. Maybe give it a read and see if it's something you'd like your group to take a stab at.

As I said earlier, the best solution isn't to stop less skilled translators from translating games, but to encourage the skilled translators to translate the games they're most passionate about regardless of already existing translations. In an ideal world less skilled translators would be working on less visible games but that's an impossible dream. People will inherently want to work on what gives them the most enjoyment to work on, and more power to them for that.

There is one more component that makes me somewhat accepting of the laissez faire philosophy, as Chronopolis puts it. It's just a simple fact that there are more entertaining/worthwhile VNs out there than the number highly skilled translators can translate. Simply put, the supply greatly exceeds the capacity to translate. Taking a wide view, this can mean that even if some VNs get ruined by shit translators, there are still always more great VNs waiting to be translated by the great translators out there. And that flow of VNs being skillfully translated is not hindered by some VNs being ruined. This philosophy of course has a lot of downsides. If the number of shitty translates increase disproportionately there can be a problem, and if your own personal favorite VN is one that gets ruined, well, that really sucks. There are other considerations as well, you could hope that translators would be more selective of what they translate, and pick projects that are appropriate for their skill levels. But this is kind of a vain hope, nobody wants to work on a mediocre or bad game. But to say that people who aren't especially skilled should either translate those mediocre titles or not participate at all is really unfair. In my opinion, the best solution to this problem is to encourage the skilled translators to translate the games they are most passionate about regardless of existing translations or active projects, and not to shoot down everyone who tries but isn't quite up to snuff. This increases redundancy and reduces the total amount of translated VNs overall, but is it worth it if it means that games can't really get ruined so much? No, but I've heard of "Beggers can't be choosers." Honestly, I dislike the "Well do it yourself/better or don't criticize" attitude intensely. Criticism is an extremely important aspect of any creative medium and everyone has the right to criticize. You do not have to be a translator to criticize translations. You don't have to be a chef to criticize food, or a writer to criticize books. Many communities lately are becoming hostile towards criticism and it's always to their detriment. Criticism is important, please don't try to shut it out.