I'm playing Bible Black right now. Its better than I imagined based on what I know from the OVA. The plot is absurd like who would keep a ritual room in the school basement without cleaning up the mess? But so far its been fun. The occult references were nice. Saeki has a surprisingly accurate collection of books. Some of the artwork and sprites haven't aged well and the fetish content threw me off.

>what is the worst? The best western """VN""" is worse than the worst Japanese VN. Also a VN becomes 80% worse when reading a translation (compared to manga which is 50% and anime which is 30%), aside from the fact that only a small portion of VNs got translated, so if you're serious about VNs you have to start learning Japanese.

>>718 >>how many VN have you read? Like... 20? ish? >>what is the best VN you've read? I consider the entire Muv-Luv trilogy to be one single VN. I LOVE stories with time travel shenanigans and Muv-Luv has that and so much more. >>what is the worst? While Steins;Gate is the second best visual novel I've read, the sequel, Steins;Gate 0, has absolutely no goddamned reason to exist. If anyone's in search of good visual novels to read, here's a curated list: Personal favorites: >Muv-Luv Extra Shirogane Takeru has it all; friends at school, a childhood friend with whom he playfully fights with every single day, a passion for the virtual reality mecha battle game Valgern-on... He then wakes up one day to find someone in his bed whom he does not remember ever meeting. She soons moves in his house and hilarity ensues. Required reading before moving on to the sequels. That includes the h-scenes. No, I'm not kidding. >Muv-Luv Unlimited One day Takeru wakes up in an empty bed, wondering why no one woke him up. He gets up, dresses, leaves his house and sees [spoiler] >Muv-Luv Alternative [spoiler] The greatest visual novel of all time. >Steins;Gate (Play the original, not the ELITE version) Okabe Rintaro runs a "laboratory" with his friends in an apartment where they create nonsensical inventions and mostly just hang out. They figure out a way of sending messages back in time, (accidentally) changing the future with each message send. Time travel paradoxes, murders, government conspiracies and more await the unfortunate group of friends who are in way over their head. Steins;Gate is the most coherent story based on time travel ever written. There's a reason why many critics considered the anime (which is way worse than the VN) to be the best anime of all time. >Slay the Princess You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of the path there is cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world. Best played completely blind (really, don't even watch the trailer for it) >Ever17 A group of individuals become trapped in an underwater theme park. With water pressure threatening to destroy the entire facility, they only have 119 hours to escape to the surface. >Class of '09 & Class of '09: The Re-Up Were you born between 1996 and 2001? You can now experience your high school years again, but this time with a flavour of a very specific ironic humor that's only funny to zoomillenials! Classics: >Katawa Shoujo >Yume Miru Kusuri >Clannad Good VNs: >999 >VLR >ZTD >Snoot Game >Sekimeiya >Spirit Hunter: Death Mark >Spirit Hunter: NG >Raging Loop >Uta no Saya >Digital - A Love Story >Who's Lila? >The House in Fata Morgana >Chaos;Head >Chaos;Child >VA-11 Hall-A >Doki Doki Literature Club Not strictly visual novels, but still require most or at least a lot of your time reading: >Beacon Pines >Ghost Trick >Citizen Sleeper >In Other Waters >Sunless Sea >To the Moon >Outer Wilds (Okay, this one is a stretch, but I will take any opportunity to shill it. Play it completely blind for best results.) >Every single Ace Attorney game >Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

>>732 tjank you for your long answer. did you play the overseas version of uta no saya or the local one? (I heard the overseas version is heavely censored, is it true?)

>>734 I've only played the fan translation that released back in 2009, so I've no idea what the quality of the "official" translation is like. I did see that you can install a 18+ patch to fix the censored Steam version.

Do eroges count?

I got into visual novels recently! So far I have read (in order): >VA-11 Hall-A >first Higurashi >Saya no Uta >The House in Fata Morgana >Kotori's route in Rewrite+ Currently playing The Shell: Part 1, after that coming back to Rewrite probably. Really having a blast with all of these works. Fata Morgana was probably the best romance I have ever read, I was crying for 3 hours straight during the final arc. Unfortunately, spoilered myself the whole Muv-Luv Alternative, so I can't take recommendation from the above poster.

>>737 only if they're visual novel eroge

is OP's pic a good VN? looks intresting

has anybody played Butterfly Affection? made by the same guy as Teaching Feeling. it looks freaky in an interesting way and i'm curious.

is katawa shoujo a really good VN? It was made by 4chan, and like this website, we share the same ideas and elitism so I guess it is good, what do you think of it (those who played it)

>>742 i think i will not play it because romance is retarded and i have enough brain issues already

>>741 >Teaching Feeling. oh my cirno this is so gross. i remember i tried to play it maybe six years ago and i think it traumatized me forever. holy fuck i wish i have not googled it right now, i was relatively happy not remembering i have been that low, but now it's over. my life is full of surprises. one day i'll wake up remembering i am in an isekai. holy cirno

>>744 teaching feeling isn't all that bad. you can make it bad if you want but it can also be cute!

>>742 It is a work of art, I'm glad I played it.

>>746 the gape will come to steam in 2 weeks I think. will it be crnsored?

>>738 I forgot to mention I also played Love at First Sight, it was super cute. >>741 Really like the artwork... and the game seems perfectly psycho. I see it is on f95. I don't trust that website, need to setup a virtual machine to play VNs from there.

i honestly haven't played many VNs. where on the seven seas can i find them with translations?

>>752 These days? Steam. There are a few games that have fan patches, like Steins;Gate or Higurashi. https://sonome.dareno.me/projects/sghd.html#installation https://wiki.07th-mod.com/Higurashi/Higurashi-Part-1---Voice-and-Graphics-Patch/ I'd start with Steins;Gate and install the above patch or with Raging Loop (no patch needed).

>how many VNs have you read? 76 according to my VNDB >what is the best VN you've read? Muv Luv Alternative/Muv Luv trilogy. Someone said this up thread though, so to be special, and my favourite changes with the wind between these two anyway - Mahoyo >what is the worst? I tend not to play or watch bad things, so luckily most VNs I've read are good. But Root Letter and Narcissu suck. No idea why the latter is popular And to blab about Mahoyo, my goodness is it a beautiful game. I mean in terms of visuals, yes, but it's writing (I didn't read it in Japanese, but God bless the translator) and themes felt like a dream to read. It made me laugh, smile and cry, it felt like it was made for me. I remember watching Doremi as a child and wishing I could grow up to be a witch kek, Mahoyo was like Doremi for adult-me. Also I want to marry Soujuurou, plz give him a figure when the movie comes out, and a body pillow too Kami-sama!!! And and, does anyone else wish more VNs had visual styles like Muv Luv where the characters fully interact with the environment? Like, if a character is in a doorway, their sprite would be in the doorway, not plastered on the screen. I've never seen anyone talk about this specifically, but I wish more VNs did it

>>725 I raw dog it and read untranslated novels without knowing or ever planning on knowing Japanese. I'm used to this kind of thing, when my family fled to the US I didn't know a single word in English so I just watched cartoons without understanding the words.

>>742 Emi best ass

VA-11 Hall-A is my favorite visual novel there are a lot of different endings you can get and overall the bartender type game is very relaxing.

Everbody shut up I'm about to rant: I have troubles (big troubles) finishing any kind of vns. I always end up hating the stupid main character or being annoyed about gated endings. Don't force me to replay your game or else I'm not even going to finish it. If I like it, I'll replay it. I still remember how 999 and AI:The Somnium Files just forced me to restart the game without showing me an ending because I was about to get the true one on my first try. The last vn that annoyed me was Raging Loop by graying out options. I've finished a Tsukihime route a few months ago but dread going back to it because I know all the endings won't be available to me on a first playthrough (or so I've heard a long time ago). I also don't like vns who have a high amount of bad endings but just a handful of good ones, as playing the game feels like walking on a mine field. I don't mind bad endings if they're treated with as much respect as the good ones, but don't make it a trial and error kinda thing. Sometimes I wish somebody made a visual novel where you could actually roleplay as your character, I think that would be really cool. I also wish visual novels had more choices in general, I've had more fun playing games with fluff dialogue choices like Dragon Quest or Persona than with a lot of vns. Better writing is definitely needed since they're basically books in video game form. Vndb also needs to be less strict with what it considers to be a vn. Also, please, release them in more languages. There's a game I've always wanted to play that only had a fan translation in my language but was a pain to download, and now that there's an ultimate version on steam, there isn't even a fan patch for it. And that pisses me the frick (I said it) off. All in all I think it's a genre with a lot of potential but with a huge compentecy crisis as it's been carried by the same few dozen games since forever it seems. And you know what's worse than all of this? It's that I had a great point to make (the best, some would say) and that my memory has gotten so bad that I forgot about it. Anyways, my favorite visual novel is Snatcher, it's unfiltered westaboo Kojima retardation kino from before he sold his soul and creativity to Moloch to get a taste of the hollywood life he's always dreamed of. Rant over thank you every nyan.

>>718 I've been into VNs since 2020 but recently most of my attention goes to short-form indie stories. I think playing Narcissu in february this year really contributed to this but damn I love stories as short as 10 minutes of reading that are made by max two people and amateurish to the core but I guess that's what makes me like them so much. And they're great japanese practice too! The picture is from a game ...in white by a small doujin group ZIGZAG. It's very short you can only play it in a very tiny window and it rocks

>>1131 This game left a strong impression on me. I still listen to the soundtrack and look out for anything with a similar atmosphere

>>718 God I love VNs, my favorite genre along fighting games and shmups. Finished Nekopara Extra yesterday and right now I'm playing SugarKiss >how many VN have you read? 50 according my VNDB >what is the best VN you've read? >inb4 "it's not a vn" I don't care, it's on vndb so I'll count it but I have a really soft spot for Blazblue Centralfiction. I love this series so much. I also love Narcissu 2, specially Himeko's epilogue, it resonated with me. >>951 >Narcissu suck. I don't like you >what is the worst? https://vndb.org/v24414 This one, I know it's short but ehh didn't liked it.

>>1309 >God I love VNs I know >based Japanese knower

>>1311 >based Japanese knower Thank you! I may still struggle with some parts but I prefer it this way. It's part of the process

>>732 Let me add some recommends: >Tsukihime >Fate Stay/Night >CROSS†CHANNEL >Dra†Koi >Fate/Extra for more NASU