Recommend a VN

[OtakuNinja]

I get tired just from watching Nayuki in the mornings. I wonder if I'll ever reach the end... How did I even manage her route a year ago? =o=

[Flutterz]

I get tired just from watching Nayuki in the mornings. I wonder if I'll ever reach the end... How did I even manage her route a year ago? =o=

Well, yawning IS infectious.

I just have 1 chapter left in Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru, and then I'll probably play Kono Oozora ni, Tsubasa wo Hirogete. I have something else planned next on my VN list, but that list is on my computer at home and I'm on vacation.

Oh. and I'm at 1150 kanji.

[OtakuNinja]

I forgot some of the katakana during summer vacation.

Why is there no Kaori route?

[marian11]

If I loved Yume Miru Kusuri and Katawa Shoujo , will I like Deardrops ? Also can Deardrops give you the feels ?

[OtakuNinja]

I finally got the Shiori route! It was just pure luck - whenever I tried in the past, I got Makoto's or Nayuki's.

[Nobody in Particular]

If I loved Yume Miru Kusuri and Katawa Shoujo , will I like Deardrops ? Also can Deardrops give you the feels ?

Deardrops is decent, but don't expect anything spectacular. I'd recommend that you do Kira Kira beforehand too. It isn't essential in order to play Deardrops, but there are a few references and cameos that you'd miss out on. It's also better.

[LorSquirrel]

Not sure if this really counts as a VN, but HeartAche 101 is pretty fun if you arent looking for something as serious KS then HeartAche's cutesy slice-of-life type of writing might be worth your time. Only annoying part for me is the fact that the creator really likes re-playability in games, but the only way he seems to think a game can be re-playable is through randomness in game mechanics (even though i've played through Lilly and Hanako's routes like five times) so he added in a board game type thing and stats (They aren't terrible but they aren't really that good either).

[Flutterz]

I've just finished Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru, and it was great. It starts off feeling very similar to Higurashi but after a while the story clearly becomes completely different, and even the chapters themselves have different themes from one another, so despite the fact that the story mostly takes place within the same 2 days, it doesn't get repetitive. Of course it has quite a few references to Higurashi, but they aren't vital to the story, so you don't necessarily have to read that first.

Next up is Kono Oozora ni Tsubasa wo Hirogete.
EDIT: Looks like it isn't, because it requires a minimum resolution of 1280x720, and my netbook only goes up to 1152x864. :/

[Koi]

If it counts, I'll have to say Dangan Ronpa. And the obvious ones like Umineko and Higurashi. Yes yes, you've all played those before me anyway

[Dyspraxia]

If it counts, I'll have to say Dangan Ronpa. And the obvious ones like Umineko and Higurashi. Yes yes, you've all played those before me anyway

I also like Dangan Ronpa
One of game with "courting" <impressive> my heart "dokidoki"
Now currently waiting for English Translate for "Dangan Ronpa 2"
My fear is need to wait for it to finish translate,<need wait long time>

[Xanatos]

Fading Hearts.

I recommend it not because it's good or engaging...But because it's so amazing bad and inept and stupid, it just becomes hilarious. It's kinda like if The Room was a visual novel...Written by people who don't understand how humans work. Also, the game takes place in not-Japan because the writers don't know shit about Japan but the locales have names plainly meant to sound Japanese. And take a look at this top-notch writing...






Note: The guy in that last screenshot? Yeah, there's a whole conversation where he talks about how he'd make a "realistic dating sim". He then proceeds to describe mechanics and aspects of the very game in which he is a character. The VN actually goes meta to praise itself...

And there's this RPG battle system where every enemy is a giant purple monster-shaped blotch on the screen. Then there's some bizarrely complex job sim element with all kinds of big titles for stuff...Like "Advanced Software Engineer" and shit. $5 and my firstborn's life, the writers were a bunch of CS majors who never found use for the degree.

There's not even h-scenes to redeem it. Only the unintentional hilarity.

[OtakuNinja]

If it counts, I'll have to say Dangan Ronpa.

The anime just started airing. :3

[Koi]

The anime just started airing. :3

Yay, now I can watch my favorite characters die...animated.

[gekiganwing]

Fading Hearts. I recommend it not because it's good or engaging...But because it's so amazing bad and inept and stupid, it just becomes hilarious.

You could talk with the devs on their forum... I bought Fading Hearts a couple years ago after reading its reviews on RPGFan and Gamertell... and never quite got around to reading it. I provided them with gameplay/story feedback on an early build of Infinite Game Works, but I didn't make time to read it again.

Most of the recommendations that I make are based on stuff I read between about 2002 and 2010. To put things in perspective, I was really enthusiastic about reading VNs in the mid 2000s, but I was not especially active on forums at the time. Over the last six months, I've barely read any VNs other than Hakuouki, but I have been posting quite a bit on Lemma Soft, Reddit /visualnovels/, and other forums.

[Haitaka]

The "Games that are similar to KS" thread has kind of been hijacked, so here's an attempt to remedy that. (If the devs are okay with the new direction of that thread, then by all means lock this one.)

I'm going to get the classics out of the way:
-Fate/Stay Night. A mostly normal student named Emiya Shirou gets dragged into a war for the Holy Grail. Great plot, great characters, great music. The H-scenes can be charitably described as "bad." Most people here have probably played it, and the ones who haven't have almost certainly heard about it.

-Ever17. Six people are trapped on an underwater theme park, and they have 119 hours before it implodes and kills them all. Great sci-fi with a truly amazing plot twist. The translation is perfectly readable, although marred by occasional typos, some really weird mistranslations, and a sloppy find/replace job for Youth=>Kid that results in sentences like, "So, what do Kidink?" No explicit sex.

And something new:
-don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story, which is available for free here. (Yes, it's written in all lowercase.) You play as new teacher John Rook. The school has a new program allowing you to view your students' social network activity, both public and private, which they say is meant to prevent cyberbullying. It's your job as a teacher to guide your students through the troubles of high school. The story deals with issues of sex, sexuality, bullying, acceptance, etc. It's short and sweet; it'll probably take you less than two hours. The plot twist is a bit strange, and the ending gets a tad preachy, but I enjoyed the story. Fairly linear storyline--there are a few different endings and two different middles, but the endings branch off right near the end. One easily avoidable topless scene which contains nothing plot-relevant.

I'm downloading your last recommendation right now-that'll be my second VN after Katawa Shoujo. So thank you! ^^