Conjueror

It's a nakige from the golden era of visual novels, not a moege (I might be mistaken, but the concept might not have even existed when it came out). It's not neccessarilly groundbreaking, but it's actually the highest rated nekoneko soft game on erogamescape, even above Scarlett. I pitched the project myself. That said, it definitely doesn't have any chuuni elements. I think the closest game to it I can think of is Narcissu.

This topic is so depressing, lol.

I wouldn't recommend reading Kei's route first. The order is Kasumi > Kei > Marie > Rea (don't ask why light decided to unlock it).

Yeah, I think most MG games, especially story titles, tend to sell better over time. I'm pretty sure Himawari's initial sales were significantly better than TB's too, so I think it's a bit too early to judge its performance, but it definitely wasn't a flop. I didn't expect to see TB above Fata Morgana though. Its sales really seem to have picked up over time.

I think I will use your suggestion. The fact the ps3 version was out a month before 2016 kinda puts it in an awkward position, but I guess most of the voting community here are primarily PC 18+ players, so I can make an exception for this...

Well, that... complicates matters, but it already has more votes on vndb than Noble Works, so a lot of ppl seem to have read it already too. I wonder if the improved release next year will count as a re-release or release too, lol. Removing it at this point would upset the balance of Group F too, gnghngh. >_<

I wonder if my brain blocks Yuzusoft or something, but I somehow managed to miss it everywhere, even in Decay's post. Looking at it now, damn... it should have been in my top 10 best rated list. I'm pretty sure I looked through that Fuwanovel's list and then used all the filters to see VN translations released in 2016 on vndb and still didn't see it. Anyway, in response to all of the recommendations in this thread I'm thinking to add two more groups: E) Bunny Black 2/Koiken Otome/Beat Blades Haruka/Majikoi A1-A2 F) Funbag Fantasy/Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro/Nurse Love Addiction/Dracu-Riot I reeeeally hope none of these games break something, especially Majikoi...... Maybe I'll make an extra round with Nekopara after all is over too.

Yeah, I guess I'll consult the community before launching next year, if I'll be doing this again. I wasn't trying to omit promising titles out of spite though. Nekopara honestly never even occurred to me before you mentioned it, but it has multiple problems besides that it's not exactly critically-acclaimed. It's an unfinished episodic VN that is pretty much a franchise at this point and has been around since 2014. It's a bad idea to include fan discs / sequels with big established fanbases because ppl who haven't read them will vote for them anyway... so I'm not sure what I'll do with Majikoi-A even when it fully comes out... I guess we'll see if I fucked it up by making an exception for Grisaia already (I mainly did that because there are a lot of ppl that have very different opinion about it than the original, me included). Funbag Fantasy is one title I really wanted to include, but as I explained before, it would have most likely turned into a joke entry and derailed the competition. All the rest of the titles mentioned in this thread would have dropped out during the first round anyway, and I think my picks were better (if I could go back in time I'd probably exchange Memory's Dogma and Harmonia with Nurse Love Addiction and that August fan-tled game, but that's about it... and they'd still drop out on the first round). I want this to be a fair and interesting competition between avid VN readers who follow new releases, not established fanbases and name recognition (also, there are 18 titles in total). Maybe I should have just included the best rated ten, in that case people could have complained at vndb instead of me (as I bet every game released this year has at least one person who'd argue they should be on this).

Um, I'm not sure why you are so angry, but as I've already said, I basically just used my top best rated video data and randomly added Harmonia and Memory's Dogma to fill in the spots for extra fodder (so yeah, it's basically top 10 best rated VNs this year + 6 extra picks I personally thought were interesting + 2 random extras that I thought I might as well use because I ran out of ideas). I thought MYTH deserved an honorable mention because it has an 84 median on egs.

You're making me feel guilty for not including it now, lol. Maybe next year I'll have users nominate stuff for a few days before starting the thing.

I picked the games that had the best rating on vndb with at least 100 votes and were translated for the first time this year. I also added the few overlooked VNs that were big and well-received in Japan but somehow went under everyone's radar in the west (Chusingura, MYTH, 11eyes). I added Enigma: because it was getting favorable reviews and would have had a qualifying rating on vndb if it wasn't for too few votes (and also because I worked on it, I guess xD). I added Ozmafia!! because I wanted some otome representation. World End Economica seems to be relatively popular and has an all right reception in the west. And I added Memory's Dogma and Harmonia because I needed two more and they were the first that came to my mind. To be honest, I think only the top 10 in that video really matter (or rather, more like eight) and the rest are just there to change things up a little, and maybe advertise more niche titles like Enigma and Myth that deserve more attention. I haven't read those and vndb lists Majikoi A as a single game... so I'm not sure how to treat them. It's probably not a good idea to include fan discs and sequels as they have an established fanbase already, but I already did an exception for Grisaia, because of how... different it was from the original. I guess I might include Majikoi A when all episodes are out (next year?), like I did with World End Economica. Nekopara has a lot of votes, but it's only 7.33 on vndb despite the popularity, so I'm not sure if it can qualify for "the best of" nomination. It's also an ongoing episodic series. And uh... I feel that its fanbase is completely different from this community and I'd be inviting another one of T-M disasters by including it. ...Maybe a bonus round when it's fully out or something. I actually had that but switched it with Harmonia at the last minute, since I figured it stood no chance anyway and Key nakige needed some representation. Definitely can't be having retranslations with an established fanbase. Muv Luv would wreck everything if I added it to the competition, lol. I debated whether I should add Funbag Fantasy and Beat Blades Haruka, but decided against including nukige as it could be seen as a joke option, and given that most ppl won't have read most of the VNs in the competition, it's highly possible they would opt for that just for funsies... and it would be a mess. Which also would probably apply to Nekopara now that I think about it. I honestly missed this somehow. Damn... I would have used it instead of Memory's Dogma... Hmm, I wonder if I should maybe exchange Myth with this. I never heard about this one on JP boards and it only has 70 votes on vndb, with a rating that's... just okay, I guess? I could have maybe included it instead of Memory's Dogma if I knew it was something ppl actually knew about. 60 votes with a rating of 7.10 doesn't sound like visual novel of the year material to me.

Yeah, I don't think oelvns and translated vns fall into the same niche just yet, so pitting them against each other would be kinda... off. I might have been in the JP VN community for too long, but a VN for me is either something that concentrates on narrative completely, or uses game-play to present me with ero-scenes. There's a very distinctive feel that AliceSoft and Eushully games share with the rest of non game-play VNs that more mainstream stuff like Danganronpa lacks. I guess target audience is what makes for this difference? Anyway, Danganronpa has barely any narration, and Phoenix Wright has none, so they felt more similar to games like Gabriel Knight than visual novels to me. As in, I was playing them, not really reading them (but it might be just me... I still have trouble adjusting to the idea of all age VNs too). Did any big moege come out this year? I checked every game in your own list, and I'm pretty sure I used all that received relatively favorable ratings or were popular. I actually didn't have enough games in the end so I added Memory's Dogma and Harmonia pretty much randomly.

Perhaps I can include it in the bonus round after the tournament. Are you sure it's a VN, though? It looks a lot more mainstream, and is tagged as an adventure game on steam, so I thought it was more like Phoenix Wright or Danganronpa. In any case, including something like that would probably lead me to another TYPE-MOON situation.

NextNinja really dropped the ball with Chusingura46+1 hard. Most of its ratings on vndb are still from JP readers. I chose the stuff that received relatively favorable ratings both on vndb and Japanese boards, and most of the opinions on Root Letter are that it's like the worst thing ever (I think it has two or so stars on amazon, lol).

Hey, I thought to organize something like GOTY voting for the visual novels translated this year, in a similar fashion to my last year's untranslated VN tournament. https://vnrw.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/conjuerors-vn-of-the-year-2016-tournament/

Ｉ've never seen anyone talking about Nekopara on Japanese boards and it has like a 100 votes on egs. I'm pretty sure it's mostly a western phenomenon as Japan has no shortage of moe nukige.

I think it all depends on sales in the end. I doubt FW will want to remake Aqua After, but I don't think it would be completely beyond the realm of possibility for MG to try to work with the actual doujin company to bring it over. The fact that it looks like a completely different game because of art now makes things more complicated though, but I'd love to tl it, yes. Haha, I even found inconsistent use of "alright" and "all right" in the Last of Us subtitles (said by the same character), so yeah... I was actually half sure this would happen. Still, I do think that it's a bit harder to do that kind of thing in a VN because people are REALLY used to bad translations and inconsistencies in this field, and are on a constant lookout for them. You can trust MG more, guys!! Yeah. I would have had to cut a few scenes and make some even more obvious inconsistencies with voices in the others, and he didn't want that (just imagine that Jun'ichi is a codename for whiskey if it bothers you :P).

That was intentional, actually. Characters that are rougher use "alright" (Youichi, Asuka, Daigo), and characters that are more outspoken use "all right" (Aqua, Aries, Ginga). I think it came to be because we tried to emulate Aries' awkward speech pattern by never using contractions with her (she's supposed to sound like a mix of a child and a computer), and "alright" felt kinda contractiony and not computer like to us. Episode 2 is narrated from Aqua's perspective so the voice of the narration changes. Hmm, I'm worried we made a lot of subtle decisions like that but very few people got it because they are used to trying to find faults with the translation instead of interpreting the English text on face value... like the Oniichan joke I figured to adapt into a weeaboo joke, but most ppl just thought we were being inconsistent. I wonder if it's a better idea to play safe than try to be creative in this business (I had some mainstream ppl complain about our translations being too literal too, so I'm very conflicted, heh). Ah, I'm sorry. It was a poor choice of words. I just had to go through the text and soften some pretty heavy 18+ jokes and change mentions of whiskey to Jun'ichi. It wasn't many lines and nothing that would affect the overall context, but it was pretty hard to spot all the subtle stuff. xD

Ah, and I forgot to mention that there might be a few lines that don't match the voice perfectly because they are related to the uncensored version of the game (our base was the original doujin version). I had to re-read the entire game to make sure the script was consistent with censorship and even I couldn't tell whether some stuff came from the old text or were just liberal takes sometimes (that was some damn needle in a haystack fun -_-).

I actually didn't realize we left "shitfaced" in, lol. That actually comes from my ancient script from way before I even met Gare or thought it would go anywhere. We probably should have edited it to "wasted" like you say, but I guess we found it funny at the time or smth. We didn't know the game would have voices, yeah. And also we've never really played many visual novels in English before, so our main inspiration was stuff like Phoenix Wright or Final Fantasy games, which are all dubbed. Though I dunno, I personally thought getting a bit creative with interjections made the script have more character (it definitely took more effort than just transcribing them xD). I think our confidence was boosted by the fact we were double checking and greenlighting all each other lines and that I had read the game so many times I could pretty much recite it from memory. I feel the main reason TB doesn't have as much of that was because we'd gotten lazy, lol. For the proofreading, ugh, I had to do a lot of last minute changes to the text in a hurry because of the censorship thing and a few other matters after the beta test, and they never got edited or proofread. I think most of the typos come from that, unfortunately.

I was very vocal about my passion for visual novels and porn during my uni years too, so I'm actually impressed by the guts of the guy, and agree with him on the philosophical level at least. The only thing our society achieved by repressing sexuality for arbitrary reasons is more mental illness and stress. An according to Freud, all forms of art are just sublimation of our sexuality anyway, so I don't see why a drawing of sex couldn't be considered it. ...That said, you won't overturn thousands of years worth of societal imprinting with a single class, so the reaction was pretty much unavoidable. You probably could have tried to soften the presentation by obfuscating the image a little, or giving them some historical Japanese "pornographic" art like I linked earlier and introduce that as an evolution of that. Anyway, it's a complicated thing that will automatically make a lot of ppl upset if not presented well... and uh, I'm not sure if high school is the best place for it, given that our society arbitrarily restricts people your age from even consuming erotica yet... still better be a weirdo than live as a pretender!

How dare you show porn at class! Here's some traditional Japanese art for you. (NSFW)

Reading Steiner who was involved with the original Steins;Gate translation praised the translation of Steins;Gate 0 quite highly. I haven't seen the translation myself, but I know the guy who did it, and he's quite qualified, so I really doubt it could be bad.

I'm not running the kickstarter so I don't know myself, lol. Post that on the prefundia page and the PR team might be able to answer you.

Seconded. Also Aqua from Himawari, Mitoko from Damekoi, Yuuko from ef, Kohaku from Tsukihime, Tsugumi from Ever17, Yuumi from Sakura no Uta, and Yukari from Gore Screaming Show in my case.