I see here and there in several threads that many are reading Visual Novels. Please, tell me what you’re reading and what you like and don’t like about your VN!
I’m still finishing Adabana from the club waaaaay earlier this year. 
I’m planning to finish it off when I go on vacation here in Dec.
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I have looked at that club! Not started reading the VN yet though.
What do you like about it? Do you recommend it?
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Currently have the mizuha kisaragi route of giniro haruka left partly unplayed. Was enjoying it so maybe this is a good sign to finish it.
Likes: mizuha
Dislikes: scenes without mizuha
Hard working women with dreams are pretty hot. Also I like how dedicated MC is to supporting her. Good dude.
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This one? Gin'iro, Haruka | vndb
I really like the VNDB description! Looks fun!
Yes, definitely sounds good! putting it on my way too long WantToRead list
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Yeet, das the one
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I have spent around 60 hours reading Little Busters! in the past month.
So far innocent daily life at a boarding school and funny anecdotes, reminds me of Lucky Star anime. Lots of mini games (baseball, fights) and small choices here and there, peak art style and BGM.
It’s also made by the creators of Angel Beats so I’m emotionally preparing myself for whatever is about to happen. Rin has been getting suspicious tasks through messages delivered by a cat.
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I’m currently reading 3 VNs. Should probably stick with one, but that’s no fun!
- Kirakira Monstars as an informal book club (I’m the only member in the book club though). It was nominated in the VN Book Club a long time ago and I thought it looked interesting, so why not. Cute monster girls doing cute things and saving the world, what’s not to like. Plus great music. My favorite character is Venedict, an ancient vampire in a body that looks like she’s in her early 20s. The way she interacts with the rest of the early 20s girls is hillarious.
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Vampire’s Melody because - more vampires! A young chef falls asleep in a hole in a tree and wakes up with a beautiful vampire 300 years later. I just started this, but it looks great so far.
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The Expression Amrilato. A girl is suddenly transported from Japan to a new world where everyone is speaking a language she doesn’t understand. The language is Juliamo, aka Esperanto. Through the game, you follow the girl in her new world as she finds friendship and learns Juliamo. I find Esperanto interesting, and learning a new language through Japanese is fun and frustrating. I’m having too much fun with this one.
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Steins;Gate - The most recent thing I finished. Surprisingly enough considering its reputation, and how much I enjoyed the previous VN in the series (Chaos;Head), this didn’t do it for me at all. The unique visual style is nice but my praise pretty much ends there. The cast got on my nerves, super slow pacing, and when things did pick up it felt shockingly by the numbers as a time travel story. Guess everyone has to have those things everyone loves that they don’t enjoy.
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Famicom Detective Club - Emio: The Smiling Man - A murder investigation VN on the Switch. My first experience with FDC, but it’s super cool that Nintendo brought it back. I’m on chapter 8 (of I believe 12?) and loving it. It’s pretty low-key and grounded, despite some light humor coming from personalities, it takes its characters and the investigation process seriously in a way that doesn’t allow for big shocking events to directly happen to our characters, it’s way more about the legwork interviewing a bunch of people. But it feels really laid back and cozy, pacing is impeccable, visual work is higher budget than VNs usually get, and it’s at a great level for me to read. I’m rarely ever looking things up in this VN at all, so it makes for a great thing to unwind with an hour or two before bed.
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Totono (You and Me and Her: A Love Story) - Just started this the other day so I can’t say too much, it’s a kind of meta slightly denpa thing? Gets compared to Doki Doki Literature Club but I’m hopefully going to like it more than that one. I’m in love with the art so far and the goofy characters are landing for me more often than not. Lines are super short, so this seems like it’d be a good early read for people, but unfortunately it’s kind of a pain to get a Japanese version and get it working properly. The Steam one is English only, had to set Japanese locale, etc.
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Umineko: When they Cry - I’m through chapter 1, waiting on the couple people reading in a club with me here to catch up before I continue. It’s still a good time to join us
I got like halfway into this VN in English some years back so I know that I love it. The only question is going to be, based on where it goes, if I land at “yeah that was really good!” or being one of the rabid fans who won’t shut up about how this is one of the best pieces of fiction in any medium every created by human hands, cause Umineko gets a lot of that 
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Sounds like something I would enjoy!
Bah… There are so many VNs like that - Japanese audio but only English text on Steam. I wonder why they don’t include the Japanese text when they publish VNs on Steam!
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Yeah I overall like it. It has a painting-esque art style which goes well with the folk tail premesis. It’s also short–100% clear time is like 8 hours for native speakers.
It’s been a while since I picked it up, but IIRC it has voice replay which is nice, and language change in menu. Texthooker hates it though, I have to find a new hook everytime I boot it up.
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It is indeed! 
I hope someday my Japanese would become good enough to use it to learn another language…
Still quite a way to get there… But, on the other hand, there was a time when I couldn’t imagine being able to use English to study another language – and yet this is exactly what I’ve been doing for quite a while now
Anyway, best of luck to you! 
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I am currently reading オトメ世界の歩き方. The VN is pretty nice so far, I really like the art. The MC is voiced by one of my favorites too. There’s a lot of military terminology throughout that I’m not really used to so that slows me down but the slice of life moments are easy to read.
I also finished リルヤとナツカの純白な嘘 the other week. The VN started off really good but the last chapter was kind of weird. The ending ended up being okay but feels like the writer went crazy in the final chapter. Outside of that, the music was good and I loved the art style in that one too. I think I would recommend it to most people. Other people I’ve talked to seemed to like it a lot more than me.
Its mainly a licensing issue from the people I’ve talked to. It costs more money for them if they want to include the Japanese text with the English version.
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I’m glad to hear that you liked Lilja and Natsuka! It’s on my way too long “want-to-read-soon” list.
I have been using LunaTranslator lately. It works with everything I have thrown at it so far. I use it as a text hooker, I don’t use the machine translator part of it.
Thank you, and same to you! Even a clumsy cat can use dictionaries to learn both Japanese and Esperanto
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The hurdles might keep you away anyway, but to be clear I referenced denpa and DDLC without really expanding so in case you or anyone isn’t familiar, the school life friendship stuff going on right now isn’t going to last. I don’t know the details because I JUST started and have stayed pretty spoiler free but it’s being set up to subvert the usual romance VN experience. DDLC became an outright horror game which I don’t think is quite the case here? But I’m expecting an unpleasant turn for everyone.
But yeah agreed, it’s such an inconvenience finding out if every single game and VN will let me use Japanese or not.
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Reading ATRI -My Dear Moments- | vndb and not really enjoying it
Was going to use Texthooker but when I saw that it was possible to have EN + JP at the same time I got lazy and decided to just roll with that. I think that it does make me less engaged in reading it though.
What I don’t like:
- too much focus on the guy liking the cute girl and the girl being super cute. That of course can be a reason to like this VN for someone else
- the narrator is not voiced
I like the music and the story, though not very realistic, is okay interesting and gives food for thoughts. I was getting a bit tired of the VN recently but a twist just happened so I’m hanging in there. Also it’s supposed to be on the short side (13 hours). I’m already way past that but I do try to read in Japanese before I read in English.
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Recent ones
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ヒラヒラヒヒル. I like this one. Same publisher as ATRI and 徒花異譚. Dealing with degenerative changes (i.e. zombiefication) and mental illness. If it were to be more real, I might interpret topics slightly differently, though.
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STEINS;GATE 0. I generally don’t like it, especially the beginning, because of a certain over-stereotyped character. And also the portrayal of war and covert ops. It’s not that bad in the end though, but not exactly a like. Music is good. In contrast, I generally like Steins;Gate, because of the slow and chill pace, and keeping the covert ops to the minimal necessary. I also like the music in any case (and so I started learning new songs for piano).
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Christmas Tina. I am not sure of the beginning cut scenes, but now I generally like it. I set the language to Simplified Chinese. Interface and subtitle language changes, but the audio still mostly the same – Japanese or Chinese, depending on the speakers. Both the country pumpkin and immigrant aren’t bad. I can’t say I expect much, though slightly hopeful about the development. I didn’t use a text hooker for this one, just a lot of smartphone-finger lookup effort.
Regarding ATRI, I didn’t like it that much – too chill for my taste, and a little drama near the end, but still not really…
I like 徒花異譚, though.
I tried Chaos;Head Noah briefly, I decided not to play it and refunded (on Steam). I didn’t like weapons and MC characterization, not sure if I should keep at it then…
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A good portion of Hikari Field’s releases on steam are in Japanese. Would be nice if more than a few of the English releases had a language setting.
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My only experience is with the anime.
It has a certain charm to it.
Yes, you need to have a powerful “suspension of disbelief” reflex in order to accept the storyline.
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Prior to reading this thread, I thought VN is the same as Manga. 
Then after reading through, saw “Famicom Detective Club” mentioned and I remember it was there in Nintendo switch in my US region account. I think it was in English? Let me check again.
What is the best medium for VN usually? Or all medium are basically the same?
For example “Famicom Detective Club” in Nintendo switch, is it also a game?
Sorry, I don’t know anything about VN.
Thanks in advance for explaining .
-wawan-
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