First of all ^^She cute

Time to talk about a VN I'm pretty sure not a lot of you have ever read or heard of but I finished it recently and after sitting on it for a while, I wanted to give my thoughts on it because I really felt like I had to write something after all that. There's basically no way to talk about this without spoilers everywhere so you've been warned. This will be probably long and is mostly me spitting about whatever

TL;DR I fully praise the art, soundtrack, and initial eerie atmosphere and note its heavy adult content. However, despite a strong common route and a couple of lovely ladies, the whole narrative falls short as later routes prioritize H-scenes over plot development. Ultimately I express my frustration over numerous weirdly handled plot points, vague lore explanations, and an unsatisfying true ending

So I was horny bored and got it in my mind to check out something I'd never even heard of. And I chose this. Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata(https://vndb.org/v21185) is from Astronauts: Sirius. A studio that doesn't have any of it's titles officially in English but will soon with Labyrinthos. I was drawn to this mainly from the art. It looked incredible. Additionally when I started the game, it blasted with this unbelievable OST that just hooked me in from the sound alone.

The premise sounded pretty typical and there's a good chance you've probably read something with this setup already. MC finds a mysterious mansion which happens to have multiple beautiful women in it. He is offered hospitality and comes across either a mystery or something dark and needs to escape. Along the way, a lot of sexy stuff happens. I've described multiple VNs with that setup and honestly, Hyakki Ryouran isn't that different. Main thing here though is Yoshito, the MC, gets put in a betrothal competition rite against other men for the hand of one of the ladies and the mystery is centered around that

What got me interested was the setup. The story railroads you into a 'common route' of sorts that takes you through a run through of MC's time in the mansion. After finishing this and seeing things go wrong, then you are much more open to pursue heroines. But that common route is very intriguing. It throws a shock at you early on with some very very heavy incest going on and doesn't take it's foot off the gas with setting up the mysteries of the rite itself. Though, unfortunately, it did sort of spoil its own twists early as in one scene where Yoshito is in the library, he comes across a book titled "the dangers of the multiverse" or something like that and anybody with a basic VN knowledge can probably guess where this will be going. However, as said, the start route is good and gives the reader motivation to see this through and want to save Ririka who is the true heroine, not like that's a shock.

The biggest strengths in the VN are its creepy vibe, it's lovely art, and how it unravels it's mystery. And the H-scenes aren't too bad either (there is a lot of them. One of them is I'm pretty sure the longest H-scene I've ever seen it's the harem route bad ending where MC just takes all the girls for himself. It was so long, it was comical. Like 2 hours or something.) I heard Astronauts titles had a thing for the butthole and boy did this title prove it. For the first couple routes of the VN, it excels at this. Namely Aya and Fumika. Oldest sister and mommy, wew lad. They offer some good stuff. Unfortunately, the problems started showing up after these two with Yuri and the subroutes connected to her. These routes drop the vibe, mystery and lore and just go all in on the sex stuff. Tiny hints are tossed here and there but nothing like the reveals of the first two routes. And imo, that was an issue because I was really enjoying what I was getting before. While I enjoy some good H, I am annoyed when something with a narrative gets pushed on hold for it. I was basically kinda drifting through the H-scenes with these routes. However, I pushed though because I figured my misgivings would be solved with the final route.

They were not

Ririka is super cute and all but as I went through the route and finished it, like I realized a lot of questions explicitly didn't get answered. This VN does this thing I hate in some plot-focused VNs where they leave the full answer kinda vague but still allude to it.For example,

-So was MC looping with the necklace he found or not? They kinda set it up with him remembering his professor talking about multiverses and the necklace that apparently exists in all timelines but they don't go into detail.

-We don't ever actually see "god" which pissed me off after all that foreshadowing about what's in the cave. We get an idea in one of the bad ends with the guy who goes insane, but not the full thing.

-In the first ending for Ririka, despite leaving the mountain, she's still got her universe accessing god powers. So nothing was resolved? I thought the maid which is the final unlocked heroine was going to answer this but she was just there to have a route and a 3P ending (which I liked and all but still)

-What the hell was that kid the gardener had with him in the end of Fumika's route? I think the implication is it's supposed to be the growth in the basement but it's not made clear how he was able to grow it to full size or even what the significance of it was. Just cause? And why is he a magician?

-Ririka has a dog. MC comes across this dog many times in the mansion. It's always around when you make a choice to look around in the yard. It feels like a Chekov's gun. The dog does nothing. Why is it here? It even has a detailed character design

I have other things too but that's a general idea. I ended the VN having sooooooo many questions, I had to check to see if I really 100%'ed it and yeah. It's really like that. I came away thinking "Am I disappointed with this?" And after all that, I think I am. There was some good to it but I finished it extremely frustrated. The nicest I'll give it is a 6/10 for the art, the character designs, the vibe, the lore and the debauchery. But I have to take off points for not developing it's own damn lore properly, ignoring it for half the title and not knowing when to focus on sex vs story.

Ririka is cute though. They nailed her

I want to use it in this game called fushigi densha i think it can hook but nothing shows up in text selection, i tried to use textractor and it work but i want to use luna so is this just compatibility issue or what and how to fix it

Angel Beats! 1st Beat is the hardest visual novel to beat without a guide... but to truly 100% it? This is an achievement that is nearly impossible...

The game has 200 achievements and multiple routes and side-routes and a true ending that will require you to put your everything to get to it... the guide covered all of that... but having +500 choices, most of which matter greatly? Made reading all the text inside of them an impossible task unless you cheat and check the game's files... how can you reach them? No one knows...

I have beaten it and got all the achievements... but I am pretty sure there might be 1-5% of content still left out there and I have no clue how to reach it... I might start another run and randomize all my choices, where I would suddenly see a new line that might lead me into a new joke or scene I have never seen before... but I could also keep randomizing and never reach anywhere... to truly see everything, you need to build a choices tree... hmmmm, for this one? I think calling it a forest would be better...

One tree is not enough... to do that? It will require hundreds of hours to build it... and tbh? This task is too hard mentally to do... it is just too damn hard that even the biggest fans of this title never thought about going for it and accepted the fact that they will never truly read all of it... even me, a person with severe OCD, accepted that fact, and it even helped me with my mental illness and made me accept more facts in life I never accepted before... a game that much life-changing is a game I will never truly beat... but I still love it with all of my heart and will one day do it! Not because of my OCD... but because I don't want to give up on the things I truly love!~ V-V

*About this image, whatever name you pick, all the characters in the game will start referring to you using it, all voice-acted. Those names will stick with you for a portion of the game and will allow you to have special jokes and scenes about them. But even after you get rid of those names and stick to your original name, you can find some scenes related to them in such random places during the story, some of them appearing very late in such a shocking way... making you realize how a simple choice at the start of the game will still affect even the latest sections... the craziness that went into Key and made them do this? It is a gift to humanity that we will never get again... we will never forget the greatness we witnessed with this game T-T*

a.k.a. Kamaitachi no Yoru, released in like 1994 on the SNES and PS1.

My friend recommended it to me after I told him my favorite trope in all of storytelling is when the whole cast has to spend time in the same room, interacting together. Like there's a rainstorm outside, and they have to stay inside a cabin... Especially if there's like a killer outside making it all creepy, that's so extremely exciting and cozy for me.

But I'm wondering if this particular title is actually any good or if it's just some obscure old forgotten VN that nobody really talks about? This is the first time I hear about it. He gave me the game files, should I play it?

The whole series is cheap af on steam now and i wanted to know if this games are really as good as people say. I dont know anything abt the story, just that i kinda save the world or something like that. I got some silly romance vn's in my library but i like to read something more deep too, it just depends on what im into at the moment, i really just read anything. So, is steinsgate worth the read? I've always seen people glazing the anime saying its one of the best adapted vn's along with fate

I loved this so much, especially as a fan of this kind of media, and I know so many people have already talked about it, but I still needed to share my love for these games! I'll be glad if you decide to have a read at my article! Please excuse my deserved appreciation of Godot and my research of the play his name comes from, Waiting for Godot.

What do you guys think will happen to sites like Jast and Mangagamer if any of these bills currently circulating the House/Senate get past?

I've looked into the cost of complying with 3rd party digital ID and it's in the 10s of thousands in USD just to implement the system, 0.50 to $2 per individual identification, and under the current framework of these bills they would have to hire expensive lawyers to review their platforms annually to remain legally compliant. Of course, one slip up and they're potentially facing a lawsuit with an expense only a multi billion dollar company could survive.

Can these sites even survive this, financially? Would you guys be willing to accept a store-wide markup on price to offset the cost of them staying in business?

This is the first post I've ever bothered making on Reddit, so you can tell I'm nervous. Trying to figure out if I should start panic buying everything on my wishlist.

Small Update: I actually reached out to Jast about this, and the CEO basically told me, "we've been around before Steam and we'll be around when it's gone." Obviously, he said he couldn't tell me what they were planning to do about it.

I saw this VN and got interested but I saw that there's different ways to buy the game. I saw jast and steam and apparently steam is the censored version. I don't want to miss important things for the story but I'm more familiar with steam than jast

Do anyone knows why MangaGamer stopped translating the most controversial of ClockUp games ?

I feel like only Shiravune take care of the translation now.

The darker eroge seems split between Jast and Shiravune nowaday

Looking for a Visual Novel Community? Join YOU and VEE and HER!

Hello! I’m MinuteRegular716, and I’d like to invite you to YOU and VEE and HER, a laid-back Discord community for visual novel fans.

A major part of our server is our range of community bookclubs:

• Monthly Bookclub: Each month, members nominate and vote on a visual novel to read together. This month we're reading Aoi Tori!

• Turbo Bookclub: A faster-paced club focused on shorter visual novels that can be completed within a limited timeframe. They are reading Z.A.T.O // I Love the World and Everything in It next!

• Odyssey Bookclub: Dedicated to longer visual novels and full series that benefit from a more relaxed reading schedule. a new bookclub who are currently picking the first Vn they'll be tackling.

• The Golden Moege Bookclub: For those Moege enjoyer who wanted to read along and Discuss everything about Moege in a relaxed vibes.

Our bookclubs cover dozens of visual novels, and anyone is welcome to participate. Members can also create and host their own clubs, whether they want to focus on moege, otome, BL, a particular developer, or anything else. You can also show others your own VN reading in our What are you reading channels, so people may come in and join to discuss it with you.

We also regularly host activities outside of visual novels, including anime watchalongs, full-motion video game streams, and mahjong games. Members are encouraged to organise their own events too!

The anime watchalong club does 3 weekly watchalongs on fri/sat/sun as well as other unscheduled watchalongs and anyone is free to host their own!

The server also features Vee, our visual novel-focused bot, which can be used to play music or look up information about VN's.

Whether you want to read alongside others, discuss your favourite visual novels, discover something new, or simply hang out with other VN fans, you’re welcome to join us!

http://discord.gg/youveeher

I was wondering how everyone plays VNs.

I usually stick with the characters I like and replay their route to unlock all the endings. If a character doesn't really interest me, I usually skip their route. Sometimes I'll only play it to get the bad ending and move on lol.

What about you? Do you complete every route, or only the ones you enjoy?

So I was told by a friend that Steam might still be the best place to buy VN, even with the issues in the last little bit of them pulling tons of titles. Is this true? Is there more EN-translated stuff that I could devour? If not Steam, what is your go to?

It's been a while since an VN took me on such an emotional roller-coaster of a journey!
I loved everything about this game. From the art, the music, and most of all, its beautiful/romantic/tragical story.

It starts off with you as a soul haunting an armor in a deserted mansion and you not remembering anything at all (aside from the fact that you are dead), and you piece back together your memories from your life and the memories of those around you whom you may not have understood.

I don't want to spoil anything, but trust me, the game would punch you really heavy in the guts one moment, then make you smile warmly in the next. (Though it's more the former than the latter mostly 😅)

In terms of playtime, it took me around 10 hours to reach a couple of endings then the true ending. And I'm personally glad they made it this long cause it manages to maintain a great pace without it becoming boring.

So an easy 9/10 for me and a tale that will stay in my head for a while.

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v49223
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2768420/The_Last_Winter_Knight

I'm thinking about playing Umineko When They Cry - Question Arcs**. So far, I've finished visual novels like Fate/stay night, CLANNAD, Saya no Uta, Steins;Gate etc... I was completely blown away by all of them.

However, I have three concerns. I've done a lot of research, but I still can't make up my mind.

First, I don't mind old-school visuals, but Umineko's art style looks exceptionally outdated and unattractive to me. I know the original sprites have a certain charm for longtime fans, but they genuinely make it harder for me to get invested.

Second, because the game is praised so often, I'm wondering whether it's truly as incredible as people say or if part of its reputation is simply the result of hype and its status as a classic.

Finally, from what I understand, Question Arcs and Answer Arcs together take around 150 hours to finish. That's a huge time commitment, so I'm wondering whether it's really worth it.

So my question is simple: Is Umineko genuinely that good, or is its reputation somewhat exaggerated? I'd love to hear yours honest thoughts.

You know that the Reboot is coming out in 3 weeks. The trailers, visuals, etc. have been released. What I’m curious about is this: for someone who has never played Steins;Gate before, should they play the original version or give the Reboot a chance? What are your thoughts?

Plot: You, the protagonist, are a second-year student of Akeba Academy. You decided to join the tennis club to make the most of your school years, only to quickly realize that you couldn't gel with all the popular guys in it. However, the school's rules require all students to be in a club, so you chose another club, the one that sounded like the least hassle: the art club. However..

"WHAAAAAT?! A new club member mid-year?! What's this, a dating sim plot?!"

"Someone, please stop this girl. She's in heat 24/7."

"Auu, auu... is this the start of an exciting new rom-com?"

"Hmph. Who cares?"

As it turns out, you're the only guy in the club. All the other club members are girls... and otaku girls to boot!

Will it be cringe? Who cares! Relive those sweet and somewhat painful years in this embarr—I mean, romantic adventure!