I’m looking for Visual novels to help practice reading in Japanese. I’ve already got the Ace Attorney series and am slowly making my way through it. I also recently realized that Night in the Woods and Stardew Valley are also available completely in Japanese and have been playing those as well.
I’m not particularly picky when it comes to genre. I’m really only looking for opportunities to practice reading! Any reading level, as long as it is available fully in Japanese. Also, please no ecchi/hentai.
Some Visual Novel recommendations from me (especially entries in bold text):
Little Busters - It’s really great VN, and Steam version allows to switch between English and Japanese with keyboard shortcuts.
Go! Go! Nippon, it is designed specifically for Japanese learners, with various combinations of English and Japanese text available.
Love’s Sweet Garnish (恋ニ、甘味ヲソエテ)
Sabbat of The Witch (サノバウィッチ)
Wagamama High Spec
Aokana - Four Rhythms Across The Blue - (蒼の彼方のフォーリズム)
Maitetsu (まいてつ)
The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart (ノラと皇女と野良猫ハート)
Planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ (Planetarian ～ちいさなほしのゆめ～) - that’s short but really beautiful title from KEY.
STEINS;GATE
Symphonic Rain
Also, most of the Visual Novels on Steam are released there as “all-ages” versions, with ero/hentai stuff cut out, so actually if you want to avoid that stuff, Steam is your best bet
It also depends on what you consider “ecchi”. From the VNs on this list I’ve only played Go! Go! Nippon!, Sabbat of the Witch, Planetarian and STEINS;GATE, but all except for Planetarian had at least one scene that might be seen as fanservice. In Go! Go! Nippon!, there are two short scenes where the main character walks in on a not fully dressed girl. Even STEINS;GATE contains a shower scene. And I haven’t played Sabbat of the Witch without the adult patch, but one of the girls has a sickness/curse that makes her horny at random times, and I assume they didn’t rewrite this whole part of the story for the unpatched version (it’s fascinating how they managed to merge the “ill girl”-trope with fanservice).
That said, I liked all four games - but I also have no problem with fanservice and beyond.
I also just saw that only the free version of Planetarian has Japanese listed as available text.
And if you are planning to use a text hooker: I have just tested my Textractor + Chiitrans Lite combination with Go! Go! Nippon!, Sabbat of the Witch and Planetarian - I didn’t get it to work on Planetarian, but it works with the other two.
I haven’t played that many Steam VNs, but I have enjoyed
Amnesia (the VN, not the horror game Targeted Audience: women)
Hyperdimension Neptunia -series (Re:Birth 1 was best so far. It has also quite a lot of RPG elements. Quite a lot of fanservice-jokes targeted at guys, but no ecchi. In retrospect I think I needed to download a patch to change text to Japanese…)
Danganronpa (Almost forgot this, but if you liked Ace Attorney, you might like this as well!)
I don’t have a lot to add to what everyone else has said since I haven’t played a lot of vns, but I know that The Expression Amrilato let’s you choose Japanese because I’ve played it.
@Sinyaven@ematan@Ditto20 Thank you all for the suggestions and warnings! I can handle some fanservice, I’m just hoping to avoid explicit content as I live with my younger siblings and I don’t want them to accidentally come upon it haha I’ll be looking into all of these titles
You’ll be limiting yourself with just steam, but definitely pick up some of @adamstan’s suggestions, especially Little Busters. Chusingura was a surprisingly good one I picked up recently I think all the h-scenes are cut out (there’s a lot of fan service though). Here’s my vndb list if you want to dig through it for more.
Targeted Audience: women)