Recommend a VN

[Yukimi]

I think it's from the bonus vid form Fate/Stay Night. BTW, as it has been said before the game is good but the sex scene don't fit the game... it's pathetic the way they are introduced.

Apart from the games that have been mentioned, i also liked School Days (granted it isn't completely translated so I had to use Agth,..) because of the great variety of endings, the school setting (I like school settings), the animated sex scenes and some part of the story. I know for the most part the story or the text isn't awesome material precisely but it's not a complete romp fest like Do you like horny bunnies? I & II and it's fun to play with so many different endings and possibilities (Axe girl ending included). The worst part of the game for me was the protagonist and some small stuff like in one path you ended up being a bastard and being infidel by choosing the option to go for a walk (I was like O_O I was trying to be good this time). The sex scenes texts aren't the most original of the world either but at least the protagonist doesn't expulse buckets of semen. I thought it would be interesting to include this game to the list of recommendations because technically the HQ version is meant to be released uncensored in english this year thanks to the work of the fan-translation group Sekai Project. So yep an ecchi game with lots of sex with a set of likeable girls and tons of routes.

[Petermeter]

FFUUUUU- okay, listen, I've been going by "Silentcook" on the Internets since well before F/SN was ever released. It's a coincidence! Really! Delta thought it would be funny to stick me with that forum title!

I'm sorry, just kinda stumbled over the line in the game and thought it was familiar
And yeah, its from a bonus film they made for getting a couple of the bad ends in F/SN

[vaelant]

I've been playing the Higurashi VN, all I can safely say is the music and sounds are really well put in, despite the lack of voice acting. The character art isnt that great, but the backgrounds are photos. It's also not always clear on who's talking. But it's really eerie, must play for the fans of the anime

[Yukimi]

In Umineko I never had trouble about knowing who was talking in each moment but I haven't read Higurashi yet (although I have it in my laptop and it is in my to-do-list). The Higurashi anime was very good but pedople say that the story was best in the sound novel so I'm really looking forward to reading it.

[Shintai]

I propose a new rule, you cant recommend Fate/Stay Night. I love Fate/Stay Night, but obviously so does everyone else, and we don't need 20 posts talking about how great it is. =/

Just a thought. >_>

[DMGnome]

Yeah, new rule: posts must contain new information. I'm not ruling out people saying, "Hey, [person] recommended [VN] for [reason], and I would like to recommend [same VN] for [different reason]," but just "yeah what they said" isn't particularly helpful for anyone.

[Karpuzi]

Hey all,

First post and hopefully it's a good one! I'm new to VN's, I've just played this, "dont take it personally babe", and one other I'd like to recommend: Memo. http://www.artofdoom.com/memo/

It's short and sweet, has its flaws, but great artwork and interesting characters. Takes place in school, some similar themes as KS like student council and lunch time on the roof (is that a common Japanese thing?). No sexual content. I like this style of game, but it seems hard to find, especially since I use a Mac. Has anyone used a program like Wine to play games on a Mac? I want to start trying some of these "classic" visual novels.

[Mirage_GSM]

No wonder it's similar to KS... Look at the credits...

[vaelant]

In Umineko I never had trouble about knowing who was talking in each moment but I haven't read Higurashi yet (although I have it in my laptop and it is in my to-do-list). The Higurashi anime was very good but pedople say that the story was best in the sound novel so I'm really looking forward to reading it.

i havny played umineko yet, but with most VN's there's a box at the bottom with the name of who's talking at the top. In Higurashi, it doesnt do that, the text overlays the screen like a book, and the only indication on who's talking is if someone appears in the background as a new sentence is added. When it gets to the parts with keiichi and 2 others, there's no switching as both the others are up. Can be annoying, you need to pick out rena's "hao"'s if they appear and etc.

[BustRobot]

If I had to recommend a VN - not counting ones already recommended here - I'd recommend Katahane.

Being the strange, strange person I am, I played through it a couple of years ago with AGTH and a translation engine, and throughly enjoyed it anyway. The being said. there is a translation project well underway over on TLWiki that appears to be nearing completion, going by the "completed" percentages. Partial patches are avaliable.
http://tlwiki.tsukuru.info/index.php?title=Katahane

I'd also recommend the Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke o series. (They're yuri for those who may not know)
They're short (you can finish one in 4-6 hours) and hardly heavy on story, but the characters are excellent and what make them worth playing. To the best of my knowledge the first 3 games are translated, with projects on-going for most, if not all the others.

[Suriko]

I like the Hanabira series (just ask the other devs...), but uh, the characters are not what I'd call good, much less excellent. The series is just fluffy (at times outright stupid) yuri with cute art.

Katahane is supposed to be very good, but I haven't read it, so I can't vouch for it personally.

[Censuur]

I see a lot of people recommend ever17, I tried the game at it was absolutely awful, I couldn't get past the intro where some kids are wandering around absolutely clueless doing nothing but repeating on and on about how they're clueless and confused in completely unbelievable social situations (some kid gets punched by a character wearing a mascot suit, he reports it to an employee but it gets completely ignored etc)

It got so bad that I finally just said that if the damn kid expressed his confusion one more time I would trash the game, 10 seconds later the game was in the trash

Now, based on the recommendations here it sounds like it might be worth bearing through it to get to the good part, so what would you recommend? Should I sit through that horrible intro? Does it get better afterward?

[Roy-Kr]

In Umineko I never had trouble about knowing who was talking in each moment but I haven't read Higurashi yet (although I have it in my laptop and it is in my to-do-list). The Higurashi anime was very good but pedople say that the story was best in the sound novel so I'm really looking forward to reading it.

i havny played umineko yet, but with most VN's there's a box at the bottom with the name of who's talking at the top. In Higurashi, it doesnt do that, the text overlays the screen like a book, and the only indication on who's talking is if someone appears in the background as a new sentence is added. When it gets to the parts with keiichi and 2 others, there's no switching as both the others are up. Can be annoying, you need to pick out rena's "hao"'s if they appear and etc.

Wasn't a problem in Tsukihime, Fate or Umineko, which all fill the screen with text and have no name bars.

I'd also recommend the Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke o series. (They're yuri for those who may not know)
They're short (you can finish one in 4-6 hours) and hardly heavy on story, but the characters are excellent and what make them worth playing. To the best of my knowledge the first 3 games are translated, with projects on-going for most, if not all the others.

I started reading the first one not too long ago and quickly lost interest when it turned out to be just sex and pillow talk.

[Mirage_GSM]

I see a lot of people recommend ever17, I tried the game at it was absolutely awful, I couldn't get past the intro where some kids are wandering around absolutely clueless doing nothing but repeating on and on about how they're clueless and confused in completely unbelievable social situations (some kid gets punched by a character wearing a mascot suit, he reports it to an employee but it gets completely ignored etc)

It got so bad that I finally just said that if the damn kid expressed his confusion one more time I would trash the game, 10 seconds later the game was in the trash

Now, based on the recommendations here it sounds like it might be worth bearing through it to get to the good part, so what would you recommend? Should I sit through that horrible intro? Does it get better afterward?

Definitely. Rest assured that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything* that happens, even for the mascot character and for the attack being ignored.
Ever 17 raises more question than it answers with each playthrough and answers them all on the final path. And the answer will blow you away.
It will take you a long time to get there though. Even skipping through scenes you know, a playthrough can take several hours.

*Okay, I admit there is one question that they didn't answer to my satisfaction ('Lifereadings'**), and it still bugs me today, but I'm willing to overlook that.

**If someone thinks he has a satisfactory explanation, please don't post it in the thread, as it would massively spoil the story.

[censuur]

Well the problem I have with ever17 and a lot of other VN's is that the characters don't behave like human beings, they behave like actors in a play, when people behave as utterly unrealistically as they did for the first portion of ever17 I find it impossible to immerse myself in the story of care about the characters

I prefer the kinds of stories like Soul Link, where the characters each have a clear goal and everything they do leads to accomplishing that goal as best as they can (despite you actually knowing their goal or not, all their actions lead toward a single goal) rather than characters wandering around trying to figure out what they want to be doing with themselves

Two of the characters just absolutely killed ever17 for me, one was the "main character" that arrives on the island and does nothing but act with complete disinterest for the event he is attending and then another that simply doesn't have a clue what he's doing and just wanders around being everyone's bitch for over 20 minutes into the story

In the end though, I guess what I'm asking is do the characters ever get actually motivated to accomplish something or will they just wander through the story regretting their fate and being carted from one "fated" event to the other without the characters themselves really impacting the events in any significant manner