Cool thread. I've actually been looking for omochikaeri. I lost my bookmark of it!

Praline caught my eye because I'm a sucker for white frilly dresses(that's what got me to play princess waltz actually). It doesn't seem like the heroine will be dressed like that for a majority of the game though.

>>377
Then again, this girl seems rather cute.

>>378

How long does it take you guys to finish a VN while reading in Japanese compared to English?
Also, do you use AGTH? If so, is it because you're still studying and don't know enough words or kanji to manage without it? Or do you just use it so that you can easily look up any unfamiliar words or kanji that you come across once in a while?

>>385
I can't read kanjis for shit. I use AGTH + Translator Aggregator (wich includes Atlas), and I would say it might take me about the triple of time to advance that way, compared to translated ones, if only because I have to read each lines at least 3 times (from 3 or more different translations) to get its true meaning in regard of the context...

But it's relative, all the same; because how fast I make progress on a VN, depends much more on how interested I'm on it than if it is translated or not.

>>386
I have a similar setup, but I just use jdicks at this point if I run across kanji I don't it's not hard to look them up (mouse over).

I figure I'll be off training wheels in a few months but right now it takes me about 10x as long though because I have to sit there and think about all the grammar or figure out loan words or write down a word to add to my deck.

But I also read English books about twice as fast as most people so I'm not sure how good of a gauge that is (I finish virtually all English VNs in one sitting, I've only finished like 3 in Japanese.)

>>387
Like you I only use JParser.

Reading an eroge in Japanese takes me maybe 3 times as long as in English. I've played over a dozen in Japanese though so I rarely get hung up on grammar anymore. It's mostly looking up kanji/compounds I don't know. During stretches where I know all the words I can read almost as fast as I read English.

>>385
can't really compare it to other VNs because the only vn I've ever read in English was Bible Black, and that was like 5 years ago, when English still felt like a foreign language to me.
But I figure I need maybe 1.5 to 5 times as much time, depending on the writing style. Less kana and more kanji generally means I can read it faster (I loves the cunjees). Except when there are lots of rare-ass kanji that I don't know yet and have to look up, like in Saya no Uta for example.

I do use AGTH in order to copy compounds I cannot make sense of and unknown kanji into a dictionary, but I generally play VNs in fullscreen mode, so using any kind of translation extensions would be kinda pointless.

I feel like I'm an idiot for doing so, but I'm putting off Muv-Luv Alternative to read H2O. It's mainly for studying, though, so it's kind of worth it. I heard the anime was awful so many times, but I never got around to watching it. I only started the VN a few days ago, and the story thus far is a little silly, but I'm a sucker for non-stop drama like this VN provides, so I'm enjoying it. It doesn't hurt that the art and character designs are gorgeous. The only real shame is the music isn't anything special. Just standard, low quality sampled midi.

>>414
You should post your impressions when you're done with it. I've been interested in H2O for awhile now.

Luckily I just finished playing the eroge I've been reading, Konata yori Kanata made (which was really great), and my Alt torrent finished a couple hours ago. Unfortunately it's 4:30 am and I have a ten hour work shift tomorrow.

What did you guys think of Axanael? I loved it myself, mostly because of Noko though.

>>375

>previews (english): http://omochikaeri.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/march-2011-eroge-releases/

I like how it says March 2011 releases and then leaves some out.

HHNNGGGGGGGGG-

>>425

... Shit, I misread OP's post (or rather, I just plain didn't notice the 'untranslated' part). Sorry 'bout that.

>>426
問題ない、気にすんな

Do any of you, or do you know of anyone, that have decent blogs that are mainly focused on untranslated VNs? I kind of want to keep up with a few that update regularly, but the only one I know of that I actually like is Ixrec's, and he doesn't update that often. I don't really want to read a Japanese blog, but if there are any you would recommend, I'd at least check it out.

how much japanese do you need to know to get through the average VN with atlas? i know hiragana/katakana and basic vocabulary/grammar, but i don't know kanji for shit

>>437
grammar knowledge is more important than kanji knowledge if you are just going to use a translator of some sort.

>>436
I have one. I've never advertised it anywhere, and was trying to see how many people would find it without me doing anything, but I've been doing that for almost 9 months so I guess mentioning it once won't hurt. I'm not sure if I'd call it decent though, and updates are sporadic.

For other blogs, I know TakaJun over at Yandere Translations sometimes posts eroge reviews. There's also Accany's blog, erogereview.com, and a bunch of other blogs that I randomly stumble upon but never bookmark or subscribe to. I probably should. I'm subscribed to wordpress's eroge tag but 9 times out of 10 the posts that come up are anime blog posts that are only tangentially related to eroge (OreImo, adaptations, etc).

>>441
Thanks for all the suggestions. It seems like most blogs don't really update too often, which makes sense, since VNs do take a while to read. Your reviews are exactly what I'm looking for, though. Descriptive, but not heavy on spoilers, which I know can be difficult to avoid.

Any idea what the pun here is? The context is a bit spoilery to explain, but this is the after story for one of the girls in H2O, Hinata. Hayami, the girl pictured, forced her way into the protagonist's and Hinata's apartment and is living with them for the time being, which the protagonist isn't too happy about.

Well this put Grisaia at the top of my to read list.

>>466
Yeah, I've wanted to read this since I heard about it a month or so ago. It's rated pretty high on Erogamescape, so I'm sure it's decent. You should post some impressions when you start it.

Finished H2O. It was just an average romance/harem/drama scenario. The three routes all follow the exact same pattern, and while they aren't identical, it makes reading through them after going through it once a chore. The common route is focused almost solely on one girl, too, which would probably be a positive or negative depending on how you feel about her (her route was my favorite). It's also fairly long, and ended up being my favorite route. And just as a warning, if you can't stand seeing girls being beat up and bullied, don't read this.

There's nothing really in the VN that hasn't been done before, and there are a number of really convenient developments that occur and dampen the impact of some scenes. None of the characters are truly unique, and consist of typical tropes. While they do have plenty of development (including the protagonist), none of it really left an impression on me. There are a number of repeated scenes, too (mostly flashbacks), but some of them grow longer as you progress, and provide vital context as to what's actually happening. I didn't like the repeated scenes, but I liked the idea behind them.

The writing is succinct, which I enjoyed. Typical VNs have the protagonist narrating every scene, but that rarely happens in H2O. It's mostly dialogue focused, and it cuts out a lot of the fluff. I wouldn't want this style of writing in every VN, but it worked in H2O's case.

It's entirely linear, too, which I prefer in VNs, but I know some people like a number of choices. There's an enforced play order for the routes, as well. The one choice that shows up that actually changes something (besides which route you're on) is during a sex scene.

Worth reading for the beautiful art and nice atmosphere, but other than that, I wouldn't recommend it.

I'm not sure what to read next. Thinking about another Sca-ji scenario (Nijuuei) or Nitro+'s Tenshi no Nichou Kenjuu, which supposedly sucks, but it seems like it'd be decent reading practice.

Okay, forget reading Nijuuei. It crashed about an hour into the prologue, and I can't figure out how to prevent it. Oh well.

That was a really weird opening, anyway. Look at this thing. I'm spoiler tagging it because it creeped me out.

Vanitas turned out to be a disappointment, that's too bad.

>>466
Yeah, too bad I won't be able to read it for another year or two considering how awful my Japanese is.

So cute.

Finished Tenshi no Nichou Kenjuu -Angelos Armas- a few days ago. Well, one of the routes, the other two seem like they play out pretty similarly, and I didn't like it enough to go through them. Much shorter than I expected, or maybe H2O just seemed super long for some reason.

The beginning's pretty violent, and throws 3 or 4 sex scenes at you pretty quickly. The sex scenes were long and very descriptive, which made reading them tiring. I started skipping them after the first couple, but some would just kind of sneak up on me before I realized it, and I ended up reading a fair bit of the buildup leading into the actual act.

My major problem was the absolutely unengaging combat scenes. They weren't gripping at all, and they always played out in the same way. The combat takes up a fair bit of time, too. So when a combat scene is coming, which is always obvious, because it's announced either by the protagonist or someone else, it just kills the mood.

The downtime parts of the VN where Vim, the protagonist, (Bim? Beam? I have no idea how you'd romanize his name), is just hanging out on his own pondering over the city, being an angel, humans, life, death, etc. are the best parts of the VN, but even those aren't particularly great.

Vim was an okay protagonist. He tries to understand humans and questions numerous things around him, as well as himself, but his development throughout the VN is shallow at best. I did like how nice and honest he was, and he showed a lack of understanding regarding humans and their interactions a few times that felt truly genuine. Oh, and, surprise, voiced protagonists/frequent art showing them (or sprites, depending on the game) really adds a lot to the character! I'm glad Nitro+ are really big on having pronounced protagonists.

The supporting cast doesn't have much development. Fuuko is probably the most interesting of the bunch, though. Peter doesn't get enough screentime, despite being a fun character that went well with both Anri (Anli?) and Vim. The core group of angels (Vim, Anri, Peter) are by far the best characters in the VN.

As you'd probably expect from a VN with angels, it's heavy with life and death symbolism and the questions pertaining to life and death, but there's nothing here that's really noteworthy. The scenario establishes a paradox in which both humans and angels can simultaneously be viewed as life and death, which is sort of neat.

The plot twists are easy to predict, too. The first is practically thrown in your face a good hour or two into the VN, but isn't revealed until much later.

Unfortunately, the scenario develops in a completely lackluster fashion, and really kills an interesting concept. There's a typical group of villains, there's a really, really lame love story (the girl's route I played felt forced and extremely rushed), and something stupid just suddenly happens, which only serves to rush the scenario to its end.

Presentation was top notch. It's similar to Quartett with floating text boxes and frequent pictures. There are sprites, too, but they're not used as often. The problem with this, though, unlike with Quartett, was that pictures are reused a number of times. Of course, this can be attributed to Tenshi no Nichou Kenjuu's length, which is much longer than Quartett. The art isn't particularly amazing, either. Some nice backgrounds or pictures here and there, but most of it's not too detailed or unique.

ZISS's score is great, as expected, but it's not on par with their other works. The music suffers from the same problem as the art: it's frequently reused and usually with the same scenes. When something bad is about to happen, time to throw on the hard rock guitar track, about to fight a light pillar, eerie piano track time, etc. It's annoying. The VN isn't lacking in tracks by any means (there are 20 tracks on the OST), but they could've switched up some of the songs for scenes a bit. They also tend to play for a long time, so they loop over and over. Of course, this depends on how fast you can read, and I'm not a particularly fast when I'm reading Japanese text.

I'd rate the VN as a 5-6/10 to read, difficulty-wise, at least for me right now. 10 on that scale would be crazy ass Rail-soft shit, just for reference. If you're not familiar with them, go look at the sample screens for their VNs up on VNdb. Not sure about a 1, but H2O was about a 2-3. Coming off of H2O it was a refreshing challenge, but I never felt truly stumped by anything. The only somewhat tough parts (and why I'm adding between a 5-6 and not just one or the other) were some of the discussions about biology that happen later in the VN. Everything else probably sits in the 5 range. Surprising lack of details about the guns, besides a brief introduction to the different ones the characters use in the beginning. Was expecting to be Googling Japanese gun terms frequently, but I guess I lucked out. Anri has by far the coolest gun of the bunch, though, a Mauser C96.

This turned out much longer than I initially intended, but I'll throw on a score: 5/10. It's average, that's it, and disappointing for a Nitro+ title.

>>517
Yeah it's disappointing game indeed. Personally I only played Henri's (I think that was the official romanization as shown in their fightan game), and the biologist girl's. I thought the biologist girl's route was quite interesting with the carchase and how you cooperate with the two gays (they were the best characters of the game imo), and it was nice seeing stuff like Fallen Angel Henri.

Anyway my biggest complain (I had many other though) about the game was how you just watch stuff happening without being able to do anything for the most part of the game. Simply frustrating.

I rated it I think 66/100 or so on EGS myself, which is what the average there was if I recall correctly since as I said above the biologist girl's route was decent enough for me. I couldn't stand the ghost at all so I didn't bother with her route.

I have a question for the eroge regulars.

I'm playing my first Japanese eroge and I"m quickly coming upon the point where masive branching starts to happen. The save screen has like twelve slots. Suppose I finish the route and do another girl and save over the previous one,will that erase the work I did unlocking the gallery for this girl? Also is it ok to just save right before the final point and then pursue a different end on each save?

>>564
global (cg opened/routes cleared) saves are pretty much always separate from positional saves.

>>467
I`m slow to read and get around to actually reading, so I have not gotten particularly far into it. So far it is pretty entertaining though.
But it is summer and classes are out so I will probably spend most of my time on it now.

>Also is it ok to just save right before the final point and then pursue a different end on each save?
depends wildly on what game you're playing. You can do what you're talking about on a theoretical level (and most walkthroughs actually use this fact, they tell you to make "Save point 1" and then use it a number of times and so on), but route branching points vary from game to game so you can be fine with just one save for all routes or require close to 10 saves.

This is too funny not to post. From /jp/'s current VN/eroge general thread.

If anyone's looking for a quick time killer, Mugen Yakou (無限夜行) is quite decent for its very short length. The music, in particular, is excellent.

You know when a parody takes itself far too seriously and it ends up being hilariously bad? That's the majority of Dengeki Stryker from what I can tell. Will update if I'm wrong, but so far, that's how I've felt. At least the girls are hot, but I don't think you can fuck the one girl I really want to get with. Voiced protagonist is neat, even if he's a boring character, and he even is voiced during the sex scenes which is awesome.

I read a tiny bit of Rewrite the other night, too, and a couple things I'd like to note:
- Writing is pretty amusing, probably due to Romeo Tanaka.
- Music is amazing, wow. I had no idea Key had such talented composers.
- Map movement system is arhadjsdkasd, and made even worse by the fact that you can search out secret locations to prompt dialogue. Good thing you can just skip to your destination with no consequences.
- 1280x720 resolution is the sexiest.

http://frontwing.jp/product/grisaia2/index.html

fuck yeah

Anyone else reading Higanbana? I read a bit of the manga and found it to be awful, but the VN's been much better presented thus far and Ryu07's distinct writing style spices it up. I just got up to where I left off in the manga, so we'll see how it goes from there.

Unfortunately, most of the music thus far has just been re-used from Umineko and it feels really out of place. The few tracks I've recognized that are exclusive to Higanbana haven't been that great.

Edit: Apparently that was some troll release with replaced music. Oh well, I already finished it, so I'm not going to worry that much.

Post edited on 19th Aug 2011, 1:15am

I've been out of the loop since galge.com went down...last year or so? Those were the days...what are the big happenings in the past year or so? I love F&C, Navel/Lime/etc and Unisonshift

Nekonade Distortion requires too much 雑学 if you ever want to fully understand it. I'd recommend at least a basic understanding of quantum mechanics, some philosophy, and thermodynamics before reading it.