Need help finding/choosing titles

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

I recently got into these through tsukihime back in nov last year, and since then i’ve come across some really decent/fun titles. But having trouble finding any more decent ones which aren’t just purely porn. Not against it, if it’s presented correctly, but that’s entirely not my purpose for playing these. Here’s a list of what i’ve played:

Wind a breath of Heart
Private Nurse
Clannad
Heart de Roommate
Bazooka Cafe
Wanko To Kurasou
Brass Restoration
Yume Miru Kusuri
The Sagara Family
Men at Work 2
Tears to Tiara
Tsukihime
Snow Drop

Also haven’t played but have my eye on

Hourglass of summer
Edelweiss
Pia Carrot He Youkoso
Fate-stay night
Figures of Happiness

But am not really feeling any of them so I haven’t gotten them.

I am a bit of a wuss, in that I don’t really want any really horror/bad end ones(if there are bad ends for characters, that’s fine as long as the good end isnt the bad end if you catch me). And would perfer ones which are sorta upbeat and don’t just kill off characters for emotional drama. Especially sick girls. Unless it’s a side character(and not the obvious main girl most have) I don’t want any sick girls with a unknown illness. Frankly whoever invented that style of character needs to be dragged out into the street and beaten with anime hug pillows filled with lead. Frankly killing off heroines, to me, is just a excuse to try to make our emotions run wild, and they couldn’t do it otherwise.

I don’t mind drama, in fact a good amount of drama makes the end more satisfying, as long as it’s overcome.

But to make a short list of DO NOT WANT, that I haven’t listed

  1. Sexing everyone up. 1 girl per path, real relationships. No more unless it’s some sort of plot point.
  2. Way too much sex. IE every few seconds your assaulted with another sex scene that serves no purpose at all to the plot.(if it’s at the end of the story and is there and fits the mood, it’s fine, i liked bazooka cafe, but that was sorta pushing it.)
  3. This only applies if its for every route(one route out of like 6 would be acceptable). A domineeringly perverse character. I really don’t want to see him starting turning the girl who up to 10 minutes prior was a virgin, into a sex fiend who just wears strange dildos around in public or doing things like that. Just no. It’s stupid, especially when the character wasn’t even this way prior to him doing it, like he suddenly was possessed.
  4. Fake Branching stories. IE ones that give a illusion of choice and branches and possibility, but after going through it on your 2nd/3rd time, you see how there was basically NO individual character interaction. And the choices you make aren’t really important at all besides a few invisible points toward the girl and no story change. I loved clannad because each path you go down had a lot of shared elements, but there was a lot of focus on each character on their path. I don’t mean for it to be like entirely different games for each character, but enough that each character and their path are at least different enough to play through em. I’d rather just have a linear game then that tbh.

4 is ignorable though if the end for each character made up for the lack of freedom, Snow drop is a huge example of DO NOT WANT. You get a bunch of choices, but you basically get no freedom in what you actually have to do, to get the games endings, and then the choice you make has no indication on which one you built affection with but rather the one you feel like choosing at that moment

#2

I’d recommend:
Snow Sakura(fun romantic-comedy)
Crescendo

#3

With the criteria you have listed, I highly recommend Crescendo as well. Snow Sakura mostly fits your requirements as well. The problem is, in Snow Sakura a very large portion of the game is shared between all the characters before truly branching out in to different routes, which sort of goes against your fourth rule. As for your exception to the fourth rule, it is kind of hit and miss. The girl on the cover of the game (Misaki) has a rather bland route, but at the very end when they show what has happened to the characters in the future, I really liked it. Your cousin in the game (Saki), on the other hand, has a really good route up until the very end part, which was kind of boring.

#4

I see, my friend was actually talking about crescendo, guess I’ll give that one a shot. Snow sakura looks pretty decent as well. Beyond those two, are there any others? I’d be willing to slack a bit on my guidelines if they were good games, I’d like to have a big selection to choose from because my money atm isn’t very… let’s say plentiful =P

#5

I would say that “Fate/stay night” is a good or even excellent game. However, considering your aforementioned personality, I don’t think you’d be able to stand the pathos in Sakura’s route.

#6

Well I liked the FSN anime, which is why I had the FSN game on my iffy list of things, I’ve heard that it’s really great, but was unsure about how the other routes are.

#7

The anime is nowhere as dark, depressing and, heart-wrenching as HF.

#8

Hmmm, let’s see… I’ve heard lots of good things about Figures of Happiness (which you mentioned you had your eye on), but I can’t give a whole-hearted approval yet since I have yet to completely play through any of the paths.
If you are willing to sacrifice a bit of story quality, as well as turn a blind eye to the available harem routes, then the Come See Me Tonight series is fairly decent. (The majority opinion on the board seems to be that the first one is better than the second, and I tend to agree.) There are a fair bit of ero scenes in the games (six per girl in the first game, not including the ones you get if you choose a harem route), but they didn’t feel forced to me.
As much as I would love to recommend Kana - Little Sister to you (since I recommend it to pretty much everyone), it highly goes against what you stated you are looking for in the way of suggestions.

#9

Heh. If he doesn’t want girls dying on him, I indeed don’t think “Kana” would be a good idea. Or, you know, “flutter of birds”. :wink:

#10

That game had some very sad endings… but personally I think everyone should play it, regardless of what they like or don’t like. I don’t think it’s much good for someone who prefers English titles though.

I can’t help much in this thread because I’m the sort of person that doesn’t think eroges are good if they’re not sad. =P

#11

Miama and especially Tsubaba. :frowning:

#12

I just got my copy of hourglass of summer, and posted a order for crescendo and snow sakura. But I’m a bit confused about hourglass, it’s like a dvd but it like… won’t play on my PC… I tried vlc and wmp but i get like massive lag in subtitles in wmp and in vlc it doesn’t transition the backgrounds during the clips…

I don’t have a real dvd player in my room am i going to have to get one for it to work?

#13

Do you have a PS2 or other console that plays DVDs? You can play the game on those, too. If not, a cheap DVD player is only about $30.

#14

I’ve heard that Hourglass of Summer has a good story. However, I don’t think I could ever tolerate the horrendous format of the game.

#15

I suppose I can bring my ps2 into my room, I just don’t want to play a VN out in the living room with all my roomates walking around being annoying.

#16

I heard it had on the other hand an incredibly annoying (as in “stupid”) main protagonist!

The DVDPG edition of “Hourglass of Summer” is non-adult, though, so you can safely play it some place where other people could freely walk in. :smiley:

#17

Well it’s not as if i’m afraid of them seeing me watching something adult. It’s really just them bothering me while i’m trying to enjoy it. They can’t sit still for 10 minutes. It was bad enough playing lost odyssey. my hdtv can’t fit in my room, which is why i keep my consoles out there.

#18

The story is good and the main protagonist is stupid :smiley:

#19

Alas. Why are many ren’ai protagonists so? Or is it that they’re typical teenagers in such situations and I’m just so much older I find them so stupid?

#20

Because one of the easiest ways to make a ren’ai game’s plotline work is to use an idiot plot - specifically the variant where only the protagonist has the idiot ball. More specifically a certain subtype work much better with idiot plots: the ones where the protagonist is surrounded by girls who already want him at the start of the game, yet is completely unattached. Even if the girl in question is the osanajimi, he will be kind of blithely oblivious as to the fact she has been trying to get him for years.

After all, if he DID know, surely either he would have already become attached by the time the game begins, or he would have already decided he didn’t want to get with her. Which somewhat defeats the point. Never mind the fact that all these girls are throwing themselves at him is totally obvious within ten minutes’ worth of screentime to the reader.