Katawa Shoujo Forums

Eh, the Ever17 translation isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Most of the time it's just meh. Every now and then you run into a line that makes you raise an eyebrow, but that happens in other VNs, too, and not as a result of translation errors. (Nasunasunasu)

Agreed. I've seen and read far worse than the Ever17 translation. Given the massive amounts of text and the complicated subjects, I'm willing to forgive a few clumsy lines. There were only one or two lines where I had to guess the intent from context

Most of the problems with the Ever17 translation are actual errors anyways and not engrish, but rather someone screwing up the script on a page or using an autoreplace on a script file and replacing things they weren't supposed to. But yeah there's nothing particularly illegible.

Muv Luv is good, although only part of it is a school dating sim(you may have to hunt around a bit for the translation patch since the project was actually canned after it finished). Yume Miru Kusuri is alright although it was a bit too sex-oriented for my tastes. Key has some ok stuff also but their plots tend to be very sameish and cookie cutter. I find most of the actually good VNs tend to be more in the science fiction and fantasy genre and less in the school harem drama(mainly because most of those are really done to death).

Oh, right, Cross Channel. That's another good one you might want to look into(it isn't QUITE school harem, although it happens in a school, is dramatic, and involves one guy and several girls).

Am I the only one that realizes that this completely transformed into a "Recommend me a VN" thread rather than mentioning titles similar to KS?

..Haha, s'all good, anytime is a good time to discuss great VNs worth mentioning. Just to let you know, I notice quite a few users that shy away from other VNs with sexual content as they equate eroge = sex romps. Let me tell you that that is NOT the case. Granted, a good number of the officially translated eroges out there are nukiges (sex romps if you will) but there are many, many story-oriented eroge with ABSOLUTELY GREAT stories. They tend to depict their sexual elements in an artistic or tasteful fashion. So please, please don't get the misconception that visual novels with sexual elements are mindless porn.

Heres my list of either my favorite(*) VN/eroge or titles I'd reccomend:
*Ever17- Visual Novel. It's main selling point is the underlying mystery element, with the revelations awaiting in the final true end route, so you'd definitely have to complete the .
*True Remembrance - Visual Novel. A relatively short read, 5 or so hours at most. Don't let the low production values keep you away, it's small tale of personal hardship associated with painful memories, and love, more than makes up for it.
Yukizakura - Eroge. Main selling point would have to be Saki, she's such an awesome heroine. Next would be the comedic Uncle and Sumiyoshi. Other than that, the other characters are so-so- and the routes are rather cliche, dull, or both.
Shuffle! - Eroge. Not sure why this title is so insanely popular. Came off as a generic harem school life set-up to me. But hey, if it's so well-known, others must see something in it that I don't, so I'll throw that in the list here.
*Clannad - Visual Novel. Only good for you if your the type of reader that gets appealed to in an emotional level. Wonderful, wonderful read that spans themes regarding family, friendship, community, and love. To this day it continues to have a personal effect on me, but as for others you'd have to play through the whole game to truly get the best out of it (which can be a tedious process that can go up to 50+ hours).
*Sharin no Kuni, Hiwamari no Shoujo - Eroge. An uplifting tale of human behaviorisms/tendencies, overcoming personal hardship, childhood love, and society. I'd recommend anyone to give this title a try.
**Muv-Luv main trilogy Muv-Luv Alternative is personally the greatest eroge/VN of all time (again, note that I said personally, so I'm not being unfair by stating this objectively or anything of the sort). There'd be far too much to talk about if I attempt to mention whats great about this title. However, you really, really need to play the first two in the trilogy. Extra->Unlimited->Alternative in that order. Otherwise, most of the twists won't work out for you and the details would lose a lot of their substance. I can't really recommend thisseries to anyone, as it:
(A) Undergoes a huge shift in genre with each title, so you'll be turned off if you don't go into the series with an open mind
(B) Length of the entirety of the series (If you're thorough with the routes in Extra and Unlimited, by the time you finished Alternative, you've invested
80+ hours into the series)
Other than that, it's by far an incredibly rewarding experience.

There are a few other titles I'd like to mention, but a few of them don't have a translation or that I'm trying to spare you from my lengthy rambling. If its tl;dr for you, just check out my list in vndb.org, others lists in the aforementioned site, or just check out vndb's database. With that being said, I apologize for the wall of text ^^''

hayate135 wrote:there are many, many story-oriented eroge with ABSOLUTELY GREAT stories. They tend to depict their sexual elements in an artistic or tasteful fashion. So please, please don't get the misconception that visual novels with sexual elements are mindless porn.

This statement confuses me. I can only think of one translated VN that had even close to tasteful sex scenes, and a couple untranslated ones. One of the main problems of story-oriented VNs is that there's terrible porn crammed in them, Sharin no Kuni from your list is a good example. Would you care to name a VN with tasteful sex scenes or elaborate on what you consider "tasteful". Protip: anything you can't show to your mom is not tasteful.

Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle

It's made using RPG maker, but plays kinda VN-ish with story paths and multiple endings. (Most routes don't involve any combat at all)

I lump it together with KS because it's a freeware English-language romance game that ended up devouring my time.

Aura wrote:

hayate135 wrote:there are many, many story-oriented eroge with ABSOLUTELY GREAT stories. They tend to depict their sexual elements in an artistic or tasteful fashion. So please, please don't get the misconception that visual novels with sexual elements are mindless porn.

This statement confuses me. I can only think of one translated VN that had even close to tasteful sex scenes, and a couple untranslated ones. One of the main problems of story-oriented VNs is that there's terrible porn crammed in them, Sharin no Kuni from your list is a good example. Would you care to name a VN with tasteful sex scenes or elaborate on what you consider "tasteful". Protip: anything you can't show to your mom is not tasteful.

I completely agree with you, I apologize actually as I was rather half-assed and incoherent with what I was trying to say. 4AM more often than not doesn't allot me an optimum state of mind. I intended to use "tasteful" as in leaning more towards story, with sex -although being implemented within the game- not being a focus, so yes that wasn't anywhere near the correct term.

Other than that, yeah, 98% of the time its either poorly written, cliche, or awkwardly forced for the sake of allowing the reader's potential favorite character to have an h-scene.

Aura wrote:This statement confuses me. I can only think of one translated VN that had even close to tasteful sex scenes, and a couple untranslated ones. One of the main problems of story-oriented VNs is that there's terrible porn crammed in them, Sharin no Kuni from your list is a good example. Would you care to name a VN with tasteful sex scenes or elaborate on what you consider "tasteful". Protip: anything you can't show to your mom is not tasteful.

Hmm... So does that mean the sex scenes in KS will be something we can show to our moms?
If so, they are probably going to be... interesting.

If the sex scenes of Katawa Shojou are going to be something you can get the nerve to show to your average mother (my mom is quite open-minded) then they are going to pretty lame as sex scenes... what a disspointment in the sex department. And that definition of tasteful isn't one I'd ever use personally.

to both above: My post above included no implication to any direction regarding KS's sex scenes. Don't read into things that are not there.

kosherbacon wrote:Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle

I recommend this to the fullest.

Yukimi wrote:If the sex scenes of Katawa Shojou are going to be something you can get the nerve to show to your average mother (my mom is quite open-minded) then they are going to pretty lame as sex scenes... what a disspointment in the sex department.

Just means you won't get to slash each other with knives, dig out the meat and stuff the wounds full of poo. stuff like that.
Besides, poor Hisao has his condition to think of

Anyways, ero-scenes in visual novels are best when they make you chuckle at unexpected seafood references and mollusks, so it's fine if they're not sexy.
"It's like the best jelly in the world."

There are 3 major things that create a bad H-scene in a VN:

1) Bad storyline/fork for the sake of allowing the player to make happy fun time with any girl he wants. Harem VNs are the most notorious when it comes to this, but thats kind of their point.
2) Bad scripting for the H-scenes, where they fall into the very abused trope of the girl getting off on being embarrassed. That, or constantly making comments like "It's so warm," "You're so big," etc. I realize they're trying to emphasize certain points because it's not actually animated, but it ruins the suspension of disbelief. Most VNs that do this have almost copy-pasted scripts for all the potential girls.
3) The male lead constantly producing 5 gallons of cream, even when he's already climaxed 5 times in the last 20 minutes, from a 2-foot rod that still somehow hilts even the virgins. There's a category for that called Hyper, and it only belongs in sci-fi or fantasy settings that justify it.

That being said, there are many that don't actually fall to one of those tropes, or do so to a lesser degree.

Kira Kira hits #2, but only on the first h-scene with each girl. It is otherwise a prime example of what a high school VN should be.
Ever17 is non-erotic, and VERY good.
Snow Sakura avoids almost all of it, which is why it is considered to be generally so good.
Shuffle! falls VERY heavy into #1. I think the reason people like it is because of how well drawn it is. Every fork ends with the same problem, just re-flavored for the girl in question.
Yin-Yang actually manages to steer clear of all 3, and is quite good, but it contains transgender and, along one fork, herm. Be warned. The story is very good but the branches are very predictable.
True Love is an oddball in the world of VNs, and actually manages to avoid all 3 pitfalls, but has very little actual story to it. Play if you want more of an actual game instead of a "Choose You Own Adventure."

Hi first time poster here at KS, Now to answer your question ( I hope it's not to late) a good one that I came across
that is a lot like KS is G-Senjou no maou.

Now to be fair I haven't played a lot of other games and it's kinda because if I'm gonna play a game I wanna play a game.
A visual Novel to me is different from games and when I see game aspects like RTS fighting styles and Battle moments
I am instantly turned off by it. Please let me know if I am seriously under estimating these kinds of games though.


Anyway about the game I recommended Id say it's a kind of mystery game with where you choose your options in the
Same style as KS. That being said the story is gripping and in my opinion is well told for it being a VN.
Not much hentai, but that doesn't mean that there's none. It depends on your choices.
Now after all that the flaw I found out when I was playing the game is there's only not many choices but that's ok too.
There's multiple endings including bad ones.
The toughest part to get through though is also it's best part. Like I said the story is really well done but it is long.
One sitting is not gonna be enough for this game. Not if your gonna read it. Let's put it this way, I held down the skip
button once just to see how long it would take and it took a long time. I felt like it literally took hours just to skip the story.
Well written but if your looking for a quick game then this isn't the game for you. Also once you locked your ending. That's it,
your done playing. Just sit back and enjoy and hope for a good ending. By the way the stories for your locked path are not short
either and like I said once your locked in it's nothing but reading.

That being said the game still holds up rather well. If your looking for a story to get sucked into this one is pretty good. If
your looking for a story to interact with more then experience. This game isn't for you.

Wow felt like I just put a review on this game or something. Oh well hope it helped and once again sorry if this suggestion is to late.

Erm, except for "it's a mystery story," pretty much everything you said is applicable to almost any VN. Could you describe it some more? Characters, synopsis, etc.?

Don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, or if this is on topic.
There's a Data-base website of free visual novels ranging from "Lol-wtf" genre, to "damned beautiful."
Just gotta google