Current Events > Visual Novel General v3 "The toaster oven is a sacred treasure"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Courtesy of @kirbymuncher again, it's the same list from the start of the last topic. It's handy and easy to add to. Made a slight change about Eden of Grisaia, which has released since the original list was made.

I tried to organize that list a little, made a few different sections and also tried to group stuff from same devs/publisher together. I'm not super familiar with everything on here so if anyone sees mistakes please correct me. I also snuck another VN in at the end since I'm almost done it and it's just so good

Mostly reading only
Muv-Luv (third part not out yet but planned with no specific release date)
ef: a fairy tale of the two
eden*
Grisaia series
Higurashi When They Cry (getting improved reTL that's about half finished)
Umineko When They Cry
Rose Gun Days
Higanbana
Princess Evangile
Katawa Shoujo
Steins;Gate and 0
Devil on G-String
A Profile
Himawari
One ~To the Radiant Season~
Moon
Planetarian
Clannad
Tomoyo After
Rewrite
Kindred Spirits on the Roof
Ever17
Never7
Root Double
Fate/Stay Night
Tsukihime
Saya no Uta
Fault Milestone
Kikokugai
Swan Song
Narcissu
World End Economica
True Remembrance
Flowers -Le volume sur printemps-
Yume Miru Kusuri
Corona Blossom
Lonely Yuri
Symphonic Rain
Sugar's Delight
Analogue: A Hate Story
Hate Plus
Negligee
Catch Canvas
Strawberry Vinegar
Sakura Fantasy

VN / game hybrids
Shadowgate (point and click adventure game)
Uninvited (point and click adventure game)
Trace Memory (point and click adventure game)
Long Live the Queen (raising sim)
Blazblue series (fighting games? not sure how much gameplay is actually in story mode)
Zero Escape series (point and click puzzle solving)
Ace Attorney series (murder mystery trials)
Danganronpa series (murder mystery trials)
To the Moon (top down adventure game)
Aselia the Eternal (kingdom/army RPG)
Yumina the Ethereal (small party RPG)

Stuff that's technically translated but I recommend avoiding
Cross Channel (2 TLs, both not very good)
If My Heart Had Wings (really bad TL, someone's making a reTL patch but no idea when it'll be done, if ever)
Sharin no Kuni (Just finished kickstarter for reTL, strongly recommend waiting)

Untranslated stuff
MinDead BlooD
Abyss -Homicide Club-
Furuiro Meikyuu Rondo
White Album 2
Aiyoku no Eustia
Sakura no Mori Dreamers
Axanael
Majo Koi Nikki

and because @Spidey5 is mah boi




@Itachi157
@GiftedACIII
@Rika_Furude
@Two_Dee I bet you got Nekopara 3
@Popcorn_Fairy
@Cookie_Bag
@DragonPick
@ArkThompson
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i started reading labyrynth of grisaia but havnt made it far

i kinda wanna read a key VN instead for the time being but i dunno
maybe even re-read steins gate and then read steins;gate zero
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I really loved Steins;Gate 0 so that's a solid option.

Only key VNs I've read are Clannad, Clannad Side Stories, Planetarian, and still very early on in Tomoyo After because as much as I say I'll get around to it I never do. Planetarian is a top-tier pick for me, pretty short, and only $3 right now on the Steam sale.
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Oh thanks for the tag :>

I haven't read any VN lately, too busy playing Stormblood, if anything i'd finish Grisaia then proceed to play magical michiru lol

Oh yeah also started World End Economica ep1, same guy that wrote spice and wolf, the little i played it seemed fun.

Would've gotten danganronpa 1 and 2 from the steam sale but i feel that since i've seen a full playthrough video of both and seen all the animes, it would be pointless.

I still want to read steins;gate and then Zero though...
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I seriously can't shill Steins;Gate hard enough I love the game so much.

If you get it on PC, there's a fanpatch that makes the texts a little easier to read, along with some other changes like higher-quality CGs. I haven't compared the CGs so I can't comment, but the phone change was really nice and worth it for that alone.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/412830/discussions/0/215439774868934160/
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In retrospect it would have been nice to check for any changes/additions to the list so it could be nice and fresh for this topic but we didn't really have enough posts left to sort that out anyway

currently rereading symphonic rain because of steam release. Just as good as I remember it. Not totally sure what I'll read after but I have a few various things in mind
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Yeah I meant to start a rundown of the list and any additions around post 450 and just kept forgetting.
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Good taste
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I have one route of Himawari and some side stories to do. It's pretty good I actually like it quite a bit. Feels like I've been reading it forever though due to being busy with various things (work etc) and often at the end of the day don't feel like doing anything or even turning the computer on

dont know what to read next but I have some time to find something

The face when you want to try an otome because of the girl's character design http://store.steampowered.com/app/307190/Nicole_otome_version/
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I've finally hit that point where pretty much my entire Steam discovery queue is visual novels. I don't know whether to be proud or depressed.
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ArthasReborn posted...

I've finally hit that point where pretty much my entire Steam discovery queue is visual novels. I don't know whether to be proud or depressed.

This is pretty much my goal. I want Steam to just recommend weird stuff.

GiftedACIII posted...

The face when you want to try an otome because of the girl's character design http://store.steampowered.com/app/307190/Nicole_otome_version/

I might have a DL code for this around somewhere, if you really want it I can try looking (but not guarantee I'll find it or that I even have one)
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Anyone ever heard of "Izuna Zanshinken"? Looks like it's ninjas vs yakuza. Could be pretty dumb but I need something to tide me over until Yakuza Kiwami comes out.

Also looking at "ChronoBox". The way I typically find these is reverse image search on imageboards.

There's also this Russian VN that's free on Steam (in English) that my friend is saying is pretty good. Called Endless Summer or something like that? I can't vouch for it myself as I haven't tried it out.

I see Everlasting Summer now and then but haven't really given it much of a look. If it's free, I might as well check it out. It has Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam.
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I have a friend who read all of chronobox in like 2 days and was ranting like a madman the whole time, apparently it's full of opportunities to make theories about all sorts of wacky stuff since the game is constantly hinting that things might not quite be as they seem

unfortunately it has 45 h scenes so...it will probably feel like a bit of a slog
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kirbymuncher posted...

I have a friend who read all of chronobox in like 2 days and was ranting like a madman the whole time, apparently it's full of opportunities to make theories about all sorts of wacky stuff since the game is constantly hinting that things might not quite be as they seem

unfortunately it has 45 h scenes so...it will probably feel like a bit of a slog

I see. I was mostly interested in it from the vndb tags. The description on there doesn't really tell me at all what it is about.

The art style kind of vaguely reminds me of Danganronpa too.

Recently I finished WEE 1~3 and Root Double. Both absolutely terrific. Root Double left me joyous.

Controversial opinion: I loved every girl in Root Double except Yuuri. Yuuri was such a boring ass character and plain as all hell. She was a literal stand there and look pretty character compared to every other females in this story who were powerful and adorable as fuck. Natsuhiko's mom was the best waifu though. She was so freaking precious, omg.

But I just hated that Yuuri was such a big part of root d and Mashiro took a backseat after being such a significant part of root b. Mashiro was like infinitely better than Yuuri in literally every way.
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Itachi157 posted...

The description on there doesn't really tell me at all what it is about.

I tried asking him what it was about and he couldn't even really say anything without fear of accidentally spoiling something or other so I guess that gives you some idea what sort of story it is <_<

it had 4 free trials that are actually included with the game as well to make sure you read them because the trials are seemingly inconsistent with the story itself and that's just another piece of the puzzle. I want to check it out some time because it just sounds absolutely insane
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kirbymuncher posted...

I tried asking him what it was about and he couldn't even really say anything without fear of accidentally spoiling something or other so I guess that gives you some idea what sort of story it is <_<

>_>
Those are always fun games to try and get people into. "You should play this thing I can tell you absolutely nothing about but trust me you'll love it".
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kirbymuncher posted...

GiftedACIII posted...

The face when you want to try an otome because of the girl's character design http://store.steampowered.com/app/307190/Nicole_otome_version/

I might have a DL code for this around somewhere, if you really want it I can try looking (but not guarantee I'll find it or that I even have one)

I'm fine, you don't need to bother yourself. I appreciate the offer though
ArthasReborn posted...

I've finally hit that point where pretty much my entire Steam discovery queue is visual novels. I don't know whether to be proud or depressed.

Proud
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I suddenly remembered the Nekopara OVA

oh shit there's going to be Nekopara Vol. 4
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What's up with the "Bayesian rating" on vndb?

How does that differ from just the normal rating? I tried googling it and the Wikipedia page wasn't really enlightening.

ArthasReborn posted...

I suddenly remembered the Nekopara OVA

oh shit there's going to be Nekopara Vol. 4

Wasn't that on Kickstarter (the OVA, or maybe the game itself)? I never really get excited for or fund anything on Kickstarter because the promised product is always way off in the future like 5 years from now.

Also they could end up being a Mighty No. 9. Shovel Knight though I guess was Kickstarter and that was a really good game.

Never really got into Nekopara other than playing maybe like 30 minutes of the first one.

Itachi157 posted...

What's up with the "Bayesian rating" on vndb?

How does that differ from just the normal rating? I tried googling it and the Wikipedia page wasn't really enlightening.

From what I understand, it's a way of displaying a rating without using the mean, which is to say, they don't add up all the scores then divide them. I guess it prevents things like this:
https://www.xkcd.com/937/

Itachi157 posted...

Wasn't that on Kickstarter (the OVA, or maybe the game itself)? I never really get excited for or fund anything on Kickstarter because the promised product is always way off in the future like 5 years from now.

Also they could end up being a Mighty No. 9. Shovel Knight though I guess was Kickstarter and that was a really good game.

Never really got into Nekopara other than playing maybe like 30 minutes of the first one.

Yeah, it was Kickstarted. Hit the goal within an hour, and then ended up reaching almost all the stretch goals by the end. I backed this and two inXile games, Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenara. I haven't finished either and actually haven't even played Torment, but I really liked Wasteland. I just got distracted by too many other things and then they rolled out the Director's Cut so I didn't feel like starting over.

Also it's totally cool to not play Nekopara. The shallow plot is an excuse for catgirls being moe and the lewd animated h-scenes >_>
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Itachi157 posted...

What's up with the "Bayesian rating" on vndb?

How does that differ from just the normal rating? I tried googling it and the Wikipedia page wasn't really enlightening.

Normal rating is just the average of all votes on the VN. Pretty simple.

Bayesian rating, I don't know all the exact math behind, but the idea is that scores are generally pulled towards the overall site average. VNs with fewer votes are affected significantly more by this. This means a VN with very very few votes will score near the overall average of the site regardless of what the actual votes were (eg https://vndb.org/v16435). VNs with a ton of votes will have their average and bayesian ratings more or less the same.

The reasoning behind this method is basically that you'd expect VNs to, on average, be pretty close to the average VN score. So when something has very few votes, you still score it relatively close to the average because the sample size is low and it might just be a few guys with weird taste that you don't want completely representing the VNs score.

Like imagine some random obscure thing that only one person ever read and they rated 10/10. It would be sort of silly to regard this as the highest rated VN and that's basically the thing bayesian helps solve.


Personally I don't like it since the population of VNDB is mostly english readers, meaning scores on the comparatively less-read untranslated VNs are kind of worthless since they get skewed towards the middle. Then again I don't really look at vndb ratings very much in the first place
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Is Torment related to Planescape: Torment? I remember hearing that Planescape Torment was one of the greatest RPGs ever. Never played it but I did play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and the expansions which I heard were similar (though I only beat Baldur's Gate 1).

The only thing I really remember from Nekopara was the MC opening some sort of cake shop/bakery and somehow the catgirls got shipped to him.

kirbymuncher posted...


Alright, thanks it makes sense now. I can see why they'd use it and also why a lot of untranslated stuff hits around 6.5ish.

Generally I don't pay too much attention to ratings either but I'll usually glance them over.

I found most people use 7 as average where to me that's solidly in "good" territory.

Numenera is a spiritual successor. I know when Black Isle Studios, the studio behind Fallout and Torment, went under, the staff scattered to various other studios. I believe InXile has a few and Obsidian has some too, so they're considered reincarnations of sorts.

The initial two catgirls in Nekopara shipped themselves to MC's bakery when he moved out of his family home because they wanted to stay with him.
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I'm still not sure what possessed me to play Nekopara. Where did I go wrong?

Also Volume 0 was the best because it was just the cast doing stupid shit. None of that weird stuff that the rest have.

ArthasReborn posted...

The initial two catgirls in Nekopara shipped themselves to MC's bakery when he moved out of his family home because they wanted to stay with him.

Those are some loyal catgirls.

Popcorn_Fairy posted...

I'm still not sure what possessed me to play Nekopara. Where did I go wrong?

Also Volume 0 was the best because it was just the cast doing stupid shit. None of that weird stuff that the rest have.

I played it ironically and now I can't stop.

Itachi157 posted...

ArthasReborn posted...

The initial two catgirls in Nekopara shipped themselves to MC's bakery when he moved out of his family home because they wanted to stay with him.

Those are some loyal catgirls.

When you think about it it's kind of weird as hell because MC found them abandoned when they were kittens and cue like a year later when they were fully mature due to cat year shenanigans he sleeps with them.

Holy shit this seems way worse now that I typed it out.
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Are the catgirls different breeds of cat or are they all just one basic type.

I'm just wondering what a Persian cat catgirl would look like

http://cdn1-www.cattime.com/assets/uploads/2011/12/file_2676_persian-460x290.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Shaded_silver_Persian_Cat_Missionhill_Cosmic_Rainstorm.jpg

They're all based on different breeds.

Chocola and Vanilla are unknown, I guess because of their unclear parentage. Azuki is a Munchkin, Maple is an American Curl, Cinnamon is a Scottish Fold, and Coconut is a Maine Coon. It's kind of reflected in their designs like Azuki being the smallest despite being the oldest and Cinnamon having those distinctive ears.
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I looked them all up; I think I like Cinnamon the most. This is based on just the pictures.

Maple is the best.

The best thing about Nekopara is there's a catgirl for everybody. My favourite is Coconut.
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Oh man, Root Letter is on Steam now
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ArthasReborn posted...

Oh man, Root Letter is on Steam now

Have you played this? I remember seeing it on the PSN store a while back but didn't think much of it or really look into it at all

I've heard it's extremely awful and I've also seen spoilers for it and they seem ridiculously stupid



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Goddamn, those are some harsh reviews. It's been on my PSN wishlist for a long time but I'm getting second thoughts.
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Yeah my friend was like Root Double and Root Letter were on absolute opposite ends of the spectrum. Root Letter is supposedly absolute trash
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hmm
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Still holding out hope they translate the New Game VN
I need my Hifumi
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Is that the anime about game development with the purple haired girl?

I kind of stopped watching anime when I got more into reading VNs, basically the gap has kind of been filled though I have been wanting to get back into watching it more.

In the past couple of years or so the only anime I've watched as it aired was JoJo Part 4 (no way I was missing that).

I watched One Punch Man too but that was shortly after it was already over.

Doesn't pretty much every anime have an obligatory tie-in Vita VN?

mangagamer's TLing this romance VN where the gimmick is that you can just confess to the girl whenever, iirc if you wait too long you get confessed to instead

or alternatively you can apparently confess before basically anything has even happened and then you get this
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Itachi157 posted...

Doesn't pretty much every anime have an obligatory tie-in Vita VN?

a decent number of them do but there's way more that don't. There's a lot of anime each season after all. It's probably just anime that sells particularly well or something, I don't know for sure how they decide which ones to do. They're usually just random sidestory stuff though I never really expect any of them to be partiuclarly good
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kirbymuncher posted...

mangagamer's TLing this romance VN where the gimmick is that you can just confess to the girl whenever, iirc if you wait too long you get confessed to instead

Is this the one that's called like "If you like me, just say it?" or something like that?

The Kaiji zawa sound effects sound like they would indeed fit in pretty well there.

Also kirbymuncher you read all of Himawari right? I did all three routes and just have the side stories now. Just wondering if they ever go into what the hell that post-credits Cosmos conversation really means. I would think she's joking around and pulling a Ginga but the mood seemed dead serious Of course don't read that if you hadn't finished it or w/e.

Planning to do Aqua After after this.

I read it but not the side stories or aqua after, I'm pretty sure there's more elaboration on that scene in at least one of those

Itachi157 posted...

Is this the one that's called like "If you like me, just say it?" or something like that?

yep
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The side stories (or at least the one I'm doing) is a little dull so far, but I want to fill up the rest of the CGs.

Aqua After might be a little weird with the art style change but whatever

Which visuales novel has the sexy?