It’s the closest VN to an actual game that’s been translated relatively recently. There’s also Raidy I/II and Brave Soul, in the RPG department.
And if you want to talk about really old games translated ages ago by long-defunct companies, there’s Knights of Xentar (one of the Dragon Knight games, a once-famous series), Mad Paradox, and Cobra Mission, all (really old) RPGs, and True Love and Maid’s Story, both stat-based sim games. And a really old game named Marble Cooking, some kind of weird puzzle game released by … I have no clue.
None of the really-old games are the sort I would want to bother with anymore. Brave Soul I really have been meaning to get into, and Raidy I never played.
I hate to say this, but having finished Fun Translations’ Words Worth patch: the game was never translated; it was for the most part rewritten. One glaringly-obvious non-spoiler example: Bellabella, the flirty enemy sorceress (renamed Belladonna in the patch), essentially attempts to seduce the protagonist Astral (renamed Astro) whenever they cross paths. At one point, she is insulted when he remarks that he’s not interested in an old hag. In the Fun Translations patch, she is instead put off by the protagonist’s suddenly hitting on her and she accuses him of sexual harassment. Ummm… Really, now?
I should note that none of the graphics have been edited (and a good chunk of the game’s text is in the graphics), so knowledge of katakana is a requirement if you expect to make any sense of your inventory menus. Fun Translations was charging people for this? It’s no wonder that they went out of business. I’d like to play the other titles they localized, (Fortuna, Nineteen, and Metal Princess), but I think I might be dodging a bullet given the quality of Words Worth’s localization.
In all fairness, the CGs in Words Worth are gorgeous - especially by 1999 standards (it looks like it was made yesterday). The gameplay graphics, on the other hand, are atrocious. The music is quite catchy despite being MIDI. The story is underwhelming and the endings are a joke (there is only one actual branch point in the game, and that’s during the epilogue, leading to the five different endings). All in all, it’s a very mixed bag.
On a related note, the anime adaptation is a horrible retelling of events. Of the 22-some-odd sex scenes in the anime, 19 of them were simply made up. It doesn’t help that two of the three scenes based on the source material are only partially faithful - the second half of both are rewritten, which drastically changes the relevant characterizations. It doesn’t help that one of these is the equivalent to having Luke Skywalker rape Princess Leia in A New Hope. While I’m opposed to censorship, in this case, I think there’s no real loss that the anime is banned in Canada (to think, a faithful adaptation would have crossed the border just fine). It’s a real shame…
Yeah, there have actually been a considerable number of games with actual gameplay released over the years.
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Princess Waltz, for example, that one’s only a couple of years old. Little My Maid also has a whole meter thing going for it, so it has some sim elements.
The discussion turned to translated VNs with gameplay and no one mentioned Sengoku Rance? It’s the most popular gameplay-focused VN on VNDB.
Other good gameplay-focused titles:
Aselia the Eternal is very good, but JAST is localizing the all-ages version.
Brave Soul is solid, but not amazing.
Yumina the Ethereal: I have high hopes for this one. It’s Eternal’s first and most highly regarded title, and was developed by the minds behind Aselia the Eternal.
Utawarerumono: Highly regarded, and the gameplay is decent. I have little comment on the story, as I skipped through the text when I played it.
Daibanchou - Big Bang Age: By the makers of Sengoku Rance. It has more story to it than Sengoku Rance, but the gameplay is somewhat less refined.
Unfortunately, while we’re finally started to see some high profile gameplay-focused titles translated, the vast majority remain untranslated. Eushully, Alicesoft, and Softhouse Chara are three of the main top-tier developers of gameplay-focused titles, and of the three only a few titles from Alicesoft have been translated.
I was going to mention Princess Waltz, but the guy said he didn’t want a just a visual novel and, while it does have the gameplay aspect in the battles, there are virtually no actual choices in 'Waltz. (I still loved the story and characters, but more of a branching VN design would have made it even better)
That’s why I skipped it and some other titles. It and those others are essentially visual novels with a gameplay mechanism tacked-on (and I do mean it like it sounds). They have no bearing on the visual novel except to act as gatekeeper points; you must defeat the “gatekeeper” point to continue the story. Beyond that they have no interaction with the game nor does the game have any interaction (exept in PW in chosing the character) on the gameplay. You could strip out the mechanism and there would be no impact to the story.
Well, that’s one perspective you could look at it from.
The other perspective is that the gameplay added some variety to what would otherwise be a very droll title.
Eien no Aselia does exactly this and it does it well, only the version JAST is about to release is the all-ages version, not the original.
Yumina the Ethereal might as well, but I can’t determine how well since I haven’t actually played the game. It doesn’t seem to have the same level of story as Aselia though.
I have a higher opinion of the battles in Princess Waltz than Jinnai - they did contribute to the story to some extent … that is to say the narrative of the battles did, and they were a fun enough mechanic that it was worth doing, (and you could play in story mode if they became too difficult, so they aren’t really “Gatekeepers” to the next leg of the story, since the game gives you the option of defeating them with ease if you want). That said, I would have liked to see more choice - as I mentioned before - and maybe some kind of story result if you lost the card game other than simply having to repeat the fight. Funny, though, I actually liked the game better before it descended into the sex scenes … they seemed to become too important in the second half of the game.
Well, PsychoG13, if we’re talking about the same levels of erotic content and a branching scenario with multiple endings, then I’d say X-Change Alternative might do the trick? Not as fun as Sagara Family in my opinion, but decent enough.
I’m not still not entirely certain you specifically asked for that amount of erotic content, though. Anyway, I’ll throw a Yume Miru Kusuri suggestion here. It has about half as much erotic content as the Sagara Family, if I remember correctly, but the story was quite interesting (somewhat depressing). The art is meh, but, once you get used to it (it won’t take long), it shouldn’t bother you much.
“Kira Kira Curtain Call” is a lot of fun as well, though with that and “YMK” you’re really getting into games with more story than erotica. (KKCC is light hearted - for the most part - and a lot of fun, but has very little erotica)
I did not suggest Kira Kira / Kira Kira Curtain Call (even though I want to do so sooo very much), because there’s minimal ero and in KKCC’s case there is no branching at all. YMK on the other hand had a lot of erotic scenes for a story-based game.
Do people consider Professor Cherry good? I liked it, being a Sagara fan. More focused on fewer characters tho. And you have to like the student/teacher angle.
at least from my taste.