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Hey everyone, I started playing Sharin no Kuni and I wanted to know what the structure of the game was like. From the walkthrough I rapidly skimmed, it seems to me that the story is very linear: aiming for a certain route won't change much except H-scenes and epilogues. That's why I'm asking the people here that already played it: how much new content should I expect from each route after the first one? Is it worth it to make all the route, I'm afraid i'll just get bored skipping through the same stuf... If there's little new content, what route should I start with? I know that if there are repetitions i'll skip mostly everything and just get the new ending, therefore the first ending i'll get will be the most marking one: is one of them really better than the others?

VN OSTs have such a big impact on me. They're very important for me during the game, and while I play they engrave in my mind. After playing, listening to the OST just brings back everything in my mind, therefore my favorite OSTs are linked with my fav games... Therefore I like a lot the OSTs of Kara no Shoujo and G-senjou no Maou. Just listening to the songs makes me happy Currently playing Umineko and there are godlike stuff in this too. And one thing I realized recently: I listened to Saya no Uta OST and it was awfully distressing. Even more than during the VN itself. (I like it though).

So, is that unique visitors? Because I think I browse Fuwanovel at least 5-6 times a day, and I think people here do that even more often. That's good news anyway, you're having more and more visitors through nyaa/tpb.

@Steve: you shouldn't search in animes what you find in VNs. If what you're looking for is stuff like Angel Beats and AnoHana, then just stick with VNs: those type of stories usually relie heavily on character development and slice of life immersion (which is why I didn't find Angel Beats memorable). VNs are outstandingly appropriate for that. However, animes can't be reduced down to just comedy. There are tons of other genres in animes you can hardly find in VNs, and I can only encourage you to check them out On the VN vs Anime adaptation debate, I've never seen an adaptation of a VN be better than the original, mainly for the reasons I mentioned earlier I think. I still think an adaptation can be better than the original though (see Kara no Kyoukai or Nichijou)

Greetings to you! I see you just played Kara no Shoujo. It's my favorite VN of all time, hope you liked it ^^ (Now joining Steve on the side of the ones who didn't play Katawa Shoujo because of an extensive backlog of 50+ hours stuff >_>)

Really? It might just be a preconceived thought on a preconceived thought (yeah, we meta-think now ) but I thought Japanese people didn't like it when foreigners were trying to fit into their cultures. Their non-interest in the rest of the world is said to be worse than the Americans ^^ Again, the opinion of someone more knowledgeable or with actual experience would be helpful on that point.

Well, if you liked the anime you should love the VN. It has so much more content and is so much good B) No release date yet, but it's Type-Moon so we're talking months... well, maybe years here Agreed. I'm not a fan of new Arc and Sacchin (although they're fine), but the others are great. Especially Akiha.

And here is a PV for Tsukihime Remake that was just released: Totally made my day. I'm happy ;_; (Yeah, this probably mean Sacchin route too)

Well, I'm of course aware of that. My point was rather that as a whole Japanese tend to have a narrow-minded thinking when it comes to foreigners. What they say is "westerners are just a bunch of pirates" (obviously they know japanese are doing the exact same thing). What they think is "we don't want foreigners having access to our stuff". That might sound stupid, but it's a preconceived idea from a very isolated population. Hence the fact that apart from some exceptions (the Umineko thing was something I read in the TL notes btw), the general tendency is rather to forbid translations. (That's why we can't have more Innocent Grey, god fuckin dammit).

We're not. Anime fans are a LOT more numerous than VN fans out there in the Western world, and Japanese producers still don't give a fuck. I don't have any kind of figures but it's obvious that VNs are an ultra-obscure niche hobby. Anime is considered a niche hobby yet random people usually have a vague idea of what it is. Absolutely no one even know what a VN is. It encourages piracy of the game. That's probably not true actually, since it should not affect the japanese market and if it manages to get just 1% of the people reading the translation to buy game-related stuff or the game itself they get something out of it. But still, we Westerners have a pretty bad image in Japan; basically they think we pirate everything we watch/play. This is, again, very arguable but it's just like any preconceived image: it's there and even if it's false to a certain extent you can't do anything about it. Open-minded people do exist though. I think I remember the team that translated Umineko got encouragements from the author. Both animes and VNs are otaku things in Japan. It's not as niche as in the West but it is. What is consumed by people of all ages and genders is manga, there's a huge difference in the markets.

Seems like it would be very useful. What I think would be a great addition, would be a small presentation of the structure of the game. Something like "there are x routes, this route leads to y endings and this one to z endings, this route have to be cleared first if you want to do that one" etc... Not always useful but there are games where i'd wish to know about how the routes are constructed beforehand. Also, even though it's a locked forum, would normal users be able to submit contributions to staff members for example?

Great news! Although just to be sure, maybe you should refrain from putting links to obvious illegal download sites this time.

By the way, from personal experience and from what i've heard, you should not bother buying stuff from Artscow if it's not free like here. The quality of their product is pretty bad. Some of them can hold a while (mugs, mousepads) but others are shit (t-shirts especially).

Shiki can see the lines of death of Arcueid, and Arcueid is a much more powerful being than a servant, so yes, Shiki can see the lines of servants. Now can he actually kill them, well... His Nanaya upbringing gives him fighting ability not on the same level but close enought to those of Ryougi Shiki, he might be able to take on some servants with weak stats. Actually he could probably kill Gilgamesh if he was able to sneak up on him. Now for him to be able to kill concepts such as the instant death of Gae Bolg... I'm afraid he would fry his brain before he can see such things. Maybe with appropriate training (Ryougi learns quite fast how to kill Fujino's twisting power). Now against other characters, well technically Shiki can kill any terrestrial being safe for the too overpowered ones... (full-powered Arcueid...) if he can come close enough to cut his lines. That's always the same thing.

Playing through Kara no Shoujo once again, this time doing the True End I had left aside for replay. This is so fucking great. KT is the only VN where I actually enjoyed a lot the gameplay part, it was so fun. And I remember scenes that had me laughing the whole read... Be sure to unlock all the side stories, some of them are very good.

I recommend you to check this google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0Agk2IH0ZXhn7dDNmSW1BVFU5dVgyOHkzWjU4b2l2dkE Also, iirc baka-tsuki rates the difficulty of light novels. Don't know about VNs though, but people here could probably help you =o

As an hardcore Type-moon fan, I'd reaaaaaaaally like to see the end of the Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and Mahouyo translations... (Actually some guy did all the translation of Mahouyo in French already, so I hope we'll get a French version within a few months ^^) Other than that, i'll probably mourn over my non-knowledge of runes when Kara no Shoujo 2 will come out... And if the other Innocent Grey VNs are as good as KnS I hope they'll be translated too!

Well, sadly the composed words usually make sense, but the radicals inside the kanji can or cannot (more often they don't) have any kind of relation with its meaning. I recommend you read the first 3 'getting started' points at www.kanjidamage.com. I'm not sure the learning method on this site would suit you (especially since this guy's writing is a bit cringe-inducing) but the introduction has some useful general information about kanjis. His take on learning kanjis IS based on the radicals, but it's still about memorizing stuff since the meaning of the radical usually is inexistant or has no link with the kanji itself. I didn't really start learning kanjis myself but as someone who uses both memory and logical links to learn stuff, I'd say that trying to learn kanjis in a context (ie with actual sentences) would probably help you. That means of course reading a lot of stuff. The context will help you to figure out the meaning of the kanji and eventually after coming across it several times you'll end up knowing it.

Well, I guess i'll juste wait a few more months to completely forget the story (won't be hard, that was hardly a marking story...) then give it a shot ^^"

I know that, the anime is bad because animation and art are terrible. What I wanted to know, was if they butchered the end of the story to make that horrendous ending, or if i'll find the same kind of nonsense if I read the VN? Also, I don't know for VNs, but I know that the Kara no Kyoukai movies are strictly better than the original LNs

Currently playing Demonbane. I was insta-sold by the setting being in Arkham City and all the Lovecraft references, even though I knew it wouldn't be anything like the original stuff (12-year-old-looking-girl Necronomicon, anyone?). It's basically throwing lots of Cthulhu myth related stuff in a story resembling your typical battle shônen, with mechas... Still, it's good on the fighting part and goes on parody on the other part, and can be really funny. The H-scenes, especially, are laughingly ridiculous (enormous boobs, insanely huge dicks, tentacle rapes, etc...). It's a bit long though, each time I think the final is coming, there's yet some other twist interrupting the fights and the hero/the villains become even more powerful... and it's just the first route!

It sure is nice to have such welcomes! To those that didn't play Fate yet: it's long and has some defaults but also has really great content. Especially the last route, and even more so if you like type-moon stuff. Be sure to check out Tsukihime though. I found it even better than FSN. It's old and not very good-looking, but the story is THAT much great. @torbin: Katawa Shoujo is quite high on my wishlist

Hi! So, I'm relatively new to VNs, started by playing Fate/Stay Night last summer because I'm a Type-Moon fan, and I found I really loved playing VNs. Great character development, immersion in the story, mind-blowing endings... Since then I also discovered incredible non-TM VNs like Kara no Shoujo and G-senjou no Maou, and am looking to find other great works like those. This forum is exactly the place I looked for to talk about VNs, so... here I am!

One the things I hated the most in the Chaos;Head anime were the ass-pulled so-called 'scientific' explanations of the whole thing in the end, that were actually a pile of bullshit. Is it somehow better in the VN? I'm kinda reluctant to start playing it because i'm afraid i'll find the end underwhelming...