And considering who’s among the “new characters” section in Shuffle Essence, Essence may give more focus to that area, I hope 
For those concerned with the translation, it’s passable. After playing for about an hour, the translation seems a little below Suika-quality. The grammar is actually pretty good, but there’s a number of awkward lines and odd translations, especially when idiom or slang are involved. It’s clear the game wasn’t proofread by a native speaker when different races (devil, god, human) are referred to as different “strains.” Like that one, a number of these mistranslations are amusing, while others just kind of make you scratch your head. I’ll give them kudos for effort–they did a surprisingly good job considering their obvious lack of a native English proofreader. Still, new fans are going to have a hard time taking them seriously when the writing lacks a command of idiomatic English.
As an aside, anyone notice that some of the sound effects seem like they were ripped out of an RPG? So far, I’ve noticed the HP/MP recovery sound (i.e., from a save point) as well as the lance thrusting sound.
In other news, Itsuki cracks me up. He has some great lines.
I like this game, it’s a lot of fun. Each of the girls have some issues to work through. It’s not too difficult to get all the paths in the game, basically a cross-hair game. (ie set your sight on one girl and choose her or a choice that will allow you to meet the girl you want to be with) Was VERY disappointed that the Teacher and Kareha weren’t winnable.
-Narg will be very happy with Lisianthus, even though it’s not true Twincest, it’s pretty close.
Maybe this will cheer you up (check the “new characters” section (fourth one going right):
I started playing yesterday though I’m not too far yet. I like the game alot.
One thing I notice (though it may not be that big of a deal) is mid-sentence expression changes on the characters. Don’t think I’ve seen this on any other eroge I’ve played. And I like this cuz it shows expression alterations in one sentence, instead of being stuck with the same expression for the whole sentence.
What I dont like is its over-dramatic with the sound effects, like it’ll randomly go “BUM BUM BUUUUMMMMM” when it really doesn’t need that much dramatic sound.
Though the story is decent and I enjoy it, definetely gunna play through all the paths I can. I’m gunna start out with the god-girls (I think Sia-chan is her name? I can’t remember). Then I’ll probably do Mayumi’s if she has one (my weird reason, her eyes remind me of a Siberian Husky, I’ve always wanted one =]). Idk what I’ll do from there on, though I’m eager to see what the paths are like.
So it’s a Renewal version? While I’m happy about the new girls I wonder if Mangagamer will offer it eventually.
But Wow 8 new Winnable girls (Granted 4 of them are already in the game so they’d need to add maybe 4-6 CG scenes for 3 of them, the other 1 could be won with a rewritten script. (Though I’d hope they’d add at least one scene to help differentiate it.)
(another thing to note is that there was a DS Sequel to Shuffle called Really? Really! that has 2 of the “New” girls in it, so I’m guessing they’ll be using some of the graphics from that game too)( Really? Really! link: http://www.project-navel.com/reallyreally/ )
=’(
Just saw that PC version of shuffle! doesn’t have a Mayumi path… Thats such a tease
Actually, Really? Really! is a sequel to Kaede’s scenario amd was originally released on the PC, the DS version is a port. There’s also a sequel to Nerine’s path called Tick Tack, but so far there don’t seem to be plans for any sequels to the other heroine’s paths, not yet anyway.
Finished the game just earlier, and it was well worth the money. A very nice light game with great visuals and nice music. If I had to complain about one thing, it would be that the game just didn’t use the setting it is in to the fullest. There’s so much, much more you could weave into the story considering the setting of the 3 worlds that are connected and the various cultures and their history, but the game barely ever does anything with it that you haven’t seen in several romance game out there. Apart from the odd mention and display of magic and supernatural phenomena, it doesn’t stand out from the average high school romance story that we’ve seen even this side of the pond. It almost seems like a crime to have a setting with so much potential, but not even scratch the surface of it.
It also feels relatively short, but of course that might be because the two previous games I played were KiraKira and Family Project, both which had very long stories. But the potential of the setting not being utilized anywhere near as much as it could (and in my opinion should) is my primary complaint. As it stands, it feels almost less supernatural than the setting in Da Capo did, which itself was extremely light in that department (but there it felt just right all things considered).
Still, a great buy that I’d recommend to anyone who like light stories.
Edit
Heh, even on the Mangagamer site, Da Capo is listed as “Fantasy” and “School”, while Shuffle is “Comedy” and “School”. As odd as it is, Da Capo definitely did feel more fantasy than Shuffle did, and it’s just a shame because so much more could’ve been done with Shuffle.
I’m almost done with Shuffle now. I already completed 4 paths (the game is quite short).
I’m a little disapointed… because I’m a fan of the anime and I wanted to see “psycho Kaede”. Unfortunately no Psycho Kaede in the VN… 
GIVE ME BACK MY RIN-KUN !
In other words, -1 review score for lack of yandere path.
What’s it on now, -100/10 =P
Well, the remake Essence + is supposed to add stuff to the routes. Maybe what you’re looking for is in that game.
I wanted that :
Shuffle is to yandere, what Clannad is to twincest.
It’s all lies I tell you! [color=red]LIES!!![/color]
The game never lied; it’s just that most of these people watched the anime first (I never watched the anime, so I was possibly slightly LESS disappointed than a lot of people here are) and we’ve learned to expect that when an anime adaptation of an eroge is made, the eroge is always better. As such, if you watch an anime adaptation of an eroge and enjoy it, you’ll enjoy the original eroge even more, right?
Unfortunately, Shuffle! is one exception to this rule.
I hated what the anime did to some of the characters though.
I’m just hoping that Tack Tack and Really Really are licensed now. I’ve debated importing and trying my “luck” with Japanese again, but Shuffle made me cry because of that. Surprisingly, I still like the game despite that head-ache.
I also had not seen the anime before playing the game but still was disappointed with the lack of yandere (though knowing of psycho-Kaede through tvtropes helped).
I played the game knowing absolutely nothing about it beyond the fact that it was popular and had an anime adaptation, and when I finished my main thought was basically ‘ah, so eroge has stuff like this too, huh?’ It was my first landmine, and the one I will always treasure the most =P Probably why I haven’t burned the fucking box.
EDIT: Note that I don’t hate the game. It didn’t really disappoint me all that much either because I had no idea what to expect. This is very different to stuff like Seinarukana and Tsuyokiss 2 that actively betrays your expectations.