Oh man, my first game was… PRO LESRING RING-OUT! :lol: But that wasn’t the one that made me really interested in the genre. The deciding factor was my second eroge - Tokimeki Check-In!, which I still love dearly.
As for favorites, it’s hard to tell, I’m sure I’ll forget something. Crescendo is obviously #1, but I won’t try to name only two other games I consider favorites.
Strangely enough, I got interested in eroge after reading the manga Genshiken. Back then I didn’t even know there were some translated in english, but I quickly discovered about Peach Princess when I started searching for info. My very first eroge was Doushin Same Heart, which is…well, quite underwhelming. Still, I didn’t give up, and played LWR, Princess Waltz and Yume Miru Kusuri shortly after. Those are the titles that really got me into this world.
Favorite Three:
I originally began in late 2006 or so making OELVNs on the Lemmasoft forums, eventually found I enjoyed playing more than creating + ended up loving it so much that I started learning Japanese so I had more eroges available to me.
My top 3 that are currently available in English: 1. Sharin no Kuni 2. CLANNAD 3. Ever 17. [Edit: Forgot that Cross Channel was translated, so it’d be 1. Cross Channel 2. Sharin no Kuni 3. CLANNAD.] I think I could recommend any of those to someone, and be fairly sure that they’ll at least find them to at least be worthwhile. My overall top 3 on the other hand are all very polarising titles, that are right in my strike zone.
1: Subarashiki Hibi. By far the best eroge I’ve played (only game I’d give 100% to), and would also take the crown for best writing/characters/songs/endings. Probably as close to my perfect eroge as you can get, although I don’t want to rule out a future release equalling or even surpassing this.
2: Saihate no IMA. In terms of raw scenario and setting, I think this is almost impossible to beat. Although the presentation is a logical outcome of the setting, the format is likely to put a lot of players off. In addition, even after reaching the final ending, a lot of important explanations are only hinted at, or otherwise left for the player to fill in. Although it has a lot of depth to it in other areas, above all it’s a ‘consideration’ eroge, as it’s necessary to piece a lot of things together in order to fully appreciate the other aspects. As a result of that, I suppose the only slight negative for me is that the second time through is much more meaningful than the first, but doesn’t have the same sense of discovery.
3: Mugen Kairou 2. Almost certainly inspired in part by Cross Channel (which I currently have in 4th), but edges it for far better use of the loop mechanism, better coding, and for having more bite.
What introduced me into bishoujo games…?
I’m going to go one big step farther and write how I began to purchase B-games…
My first title…? I guess maybe pirating X-Change 1, like 10 years ago or whenever… Back then it was just for… the visuals and … SFX really lol. That game and many similar games (and some H anime) I simply downloaded whether it was english or not, just cause I was a young teen interested in that kind of thing.
I never knew anything about the localizing company or much else about the game.
Around this time I was playing games like Baldur’s Gate 2 and Morrowind… And these games which I absolutely LOVED, had mods that were sometimes romances. When I realllly enjoyed them, I think it began to directly introduce me to that kind of game. Lots of story, choices that affect the outcome… good or bad.
Also, I started buying some anime in the early 2000s; and eventually I ran into Rightstuf.com when I began to order online instead of retail stores.
I also had gotten interested in mods or translations for my favorite games, which lead me to follow the fan communities, and actively keep tabs on the latest projects people were working on.
In the mid 2000s, I was browsing Rightstuf, when I somehow noticed “Phantom of the Inferno DVD Game”. I was intrigued. Only if a title really catches my eye do I buy it without researching it. It was a good price, and I thought the DVD game for your DVD player, was a really nice idea. (Not everyone has a game console, but most people have DVD players… Also, the cover art caught me.) So, I added it to my order and held onto the game after getting it, before playing it much later…
Around that time I ran into my first VN english fan-translations from Insani… Specifically Planetarian. I was moved by their work (and demo?); with their call to purchase the game legally (for something like 7-10$?); and proceeded to love the kinetic novel Planetarian… cry
Then sometime after, I played Nitro+'s Phantom DVD, and fell in LOVE with Ein. [NEVER had I been so moved by such a terrible set of events… My player froze at the end of Chapter 1, and I thought I had just gotten the BEST bad ending ever. Needless to say I was completely hooked on VNs then.] But, my interest was in non-H VNs, I still wasn’t paying for 18+ games. Bringing that content into the household was probably forbidden anyways… (btw I think I had read the “please support the official localization community message” JAST includes at some point.)
Fast-forward as I learnt about Hirameki and more VN fan projects. I bought most of Hirameki’s titles, learnt about Peach Princess, JAST, G-collections and began to watch their titles …
It wasn’t until the annoucement of “Yume Miru Kusuri” and “X-Change Alternative”, did I suddenly have a change of heart. I was blown away by the quality of game; art, music and reviews of Yume Miru Kusuri and X-Change Alternative. Already had I played games like Ever17, but at this point I finally ordered (pre-ordered?) Yume Miru Kusuri and Alternative.
Upon recieving and playing said games I was not disappointed. And ever since I’ve purchased 18+ games as well as all-ages.
I now have a fair collection …
PIC
And am a great fan of quality bishoujo games 
EDIT: Oh top 3?
No long winded answer for this 
Utawarerumono
Phantom of Inferno
Tsukihime
(runner up : Yume Miru Kusuri)
Thanks, and Ys! Yeah, that series has a special place for me too; seeing as Ys 1 was one of my first games ever… I can’t wait till the Ys Origin english fan translation comes out, then I’ll marathon through the entire series!
A number of years ago I began to explore the Japanese internet. I found eroge. Was still a while before I found that other non-Japanese knew about them and played them too.
I learned Japanese so that I could read eroge and I learned Japanese by playing eroge. Wasn’t until 2007-2008 that I really started making significant progress in that fashion, although I could still read to some extent before then. Before that I downloaded numerous trial versions of eroges and clicked through them, trying to make some sense out of them. Even just looking at the pretty pictures and wondering how the story was unfolding was pretty enjoyable back then.
Top three:
#1: Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~
#2: G-Senjou no Maou
#3: Mugen Kairou 2
Top three available in English (note that I have read none of these translations):
#1: Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo
#2: Cross Channel
#3: Kazoku Keikaku
x-change 1 was the one that got me in
yin yang xca
ymk
princess waltz
I first found out about Kana: Little Sister on an awesome site called Home of the Underdogs. I forgot exactly when it was, though. Anyways, Kana was the first VN that I played, and while I still don’t know exactly how I feel about it, it certainly got me interested in the genre. My top three:
Ever 17
Crescendo
Saya no Uta
Lets see, I know the first eroge I ever played was Tokimeki Check In!, but for the life of me I can’t remember if it was 1999 or 2000, when I got it. I had been interested in anime and manga since 93’ ( I was an impressionable young teen and Deedlit from RoLW made a lasting impression, what can I say) and checked out websites dedicated to reviewing/previewing upcoming series. One of these sites had a review for Tokimeki posted, and after reading it, I figured I had to try it out…needless to say I loved it, and have since spent a complete ton of cash on eroge.
My top 3 games
I can’t remember whether the first game I ever played was Three Sister’s Story or Season of the Sakura, but once upon a time, I liked both of those. I have no idea what I’d think of either of them if I tried to play them again now. (I suspect they would not hold up well at all.)
My favorite translated works:
Yes, even though it was one of the first games ever translated, and even though I first played it more than a decade ago, Nocturnal Illusion is still my favorite English translated game. The graphics I’m sure wouldn’t be all that great if I were to play it again, but the music is still the best I’ve ever heard in any b-game bar none, and the story is also quite good.
Technically my first was Tokimeki Check In, however what I think set me down the path to trying out VNs was Vanguard Bandits since it kinda followed a similar concept. Of course when I was getting started on anime one of the first I watched was Tenchi Muyo and Universe (ah the days of Toonami) so that probably had some influence too. What actually brought the existence of VNs to my attantion was Excel Saga, this episode (it’s dubbed so purists be warned):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7S9NKI-kZk
Sadly I didn’t really look into the genre since at the time my only real experience with the concept of a “dating game” was Thousand Arms (I was in high school at the time so that was around 2002 or so), so I had no interest until after I had started college several years later and my brother recomended the Tsukihime anime to me. I watched it, thought it was okay, and then heard passing info that it was based off a dating game. Interested in seeing if there was more story than what I had seen in that adaptation I looked into it and soon after I came across Peach Princess and the rest is history.
Now for my Top 3. To be fair though, I’ll make a top 3 for official releases and fanlation patches.
Fanlations:
Official:
The path I took was a little odd compared to most of you from what I can tell. My first experience with something resembling eroge was a Flash game I encountered on the site Newgrounds. It was called SimGirls and was somewhat based on an anime from the early 90s (1994 to be exact, according to Anime News Network) called DNA¬≤. (Here is a video of a later version I haven’t played.) A couple years later (I think) I played another Flash game following the same kind of format as SimGirls that was called Ganguro Girl. If it were not for the JList “Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend” t-shirt I received as a gift from my step-father about 4 years ago (I think) that might have been as close as I had gotten. Interested in where he had gotten it (he got it from ThinkGeek), I came across the JList site and the rest is history. I finally bought my first true eroge in the summer of 2007 and have been playing since. My top three games I have completed (in no particular order) are YMK, Crescendo, and Kana.
On an extra note, the first game I played where one of the goals was to bed the girl was the classic BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD). I fondly remember staying up much later than I should have in high school and connecting to the local BBS on a dial-up modem to try and advance my character and win over the barmaid Violet. I even managed to win over a player character run by someone else who visited the board at one point.
Having liked the Tsukihime anime I found that it was based on some kind of game, and by end of 2007 I finally got to play it. And quickly got completely hooked in it, and soon after in the VN format in general. My second experience were the al|together 2006 games, and after that F/SN and Utawarerumono. And though I played some other things in the year, it was at the start of 2009 that I started playing VN almost full time by moments.
Top 3?
Tsukihime
F/SN
hm, Saya no Uta maybe
I had heard about B games for years - as most people who enjoy anime have - but had the familiar kind of assumptions about them and the people who played them for the longest time. Then one day I was on J-list browsing about for the fun of it and got caught up in reading the synopsis of a few games and thought “huh, this might be worth checking out.” So I found a copy of Hitomi online and gave it a shot. And you know, it was awesome.
There was something about playing the protagonist in this choose your own adventure manga that appealed to me - not to mention it was just dark and sexy, which I enjoyed - so I started looking for others. We had an adult movie and video game store now down far from where I lived, so I rented another game - don’t recall which one that was - and gave it a shot … and while it wasn’t as good as Hitomi, I really enjoyed it. It was different and it took some of what I really liked about crpgs, the character interaction, and brought just that to a game medium.
I think the 3rd game I ever played was Kana … and once you’ve gone Kana you can never go back. So I was hooked and haven’t looked back since.
Top 3?
Didn’t we already have this topic? I somehow recall having posted this a few times already…
Anyway, my first exposure to galgames was in '92 when I gained regular Internet access. I don’t recall the name of my first game (some DOS/V game of that time), though I have faint memories of some card game. I wasn’t hooked, though, probably because of my lack of Japanese skills, making me not understanding much --not that games of that era had much plot anyway, but… 
It wasn’t until '94 that I played an erogame that I enjoyed it enough to remember its title, Battle Team Lakers, though I still didn’t have any special wish to look further into the genre. Then, in '96, I was browsing the Anime Genesis images gallery when I stumbled onto Tokimemo (what else? ^^;;;; pics. The long red-haired girl caught my attention and I downloaded the pictures. Little did I know that by doing so, I was putting my soul into a dreaded world… Some weeks later, by a weird coincidence, I found out a page telling me Tokimemo was in fact a game. Out of curiosity, I made some little research about the game… and bought the PSX version at eBay, sealing my own fate.
…or not. If I liked Tokimemo and entered a frenzy fan state because of it, it wasn’t what truly converted me forever to the beautiful girls religion. No, the real culprit was…
Some weeks after buying Tokimemo, I learnt about another game in the same genre on a homepage. You all guessed right: it was Sentimental Graffiti. Thanks to the page’s detailed informations, I fall in love with the gi… game :oops: and decided to buy it. Later, I went from pure console galgames to PC erogames ports, then to PC erogames. The rest is History.
But, it’s been 18 years already since I first played a galgame, heh? Nearly two decades already.
As for the ranking, it’s tricky so I think I’d cheat and choose:
I’m surprised that Demonbane did not make it to Olf’s top three.
My first eroge title would be Critical Point (unless playing Variable Geo on arcade machine counts), which I received as a gift from a friend. Then I started surfing PP site, and found out about GC site also.
My top three titles are
Critical Point
Nocturnal Illusion
Snow Sakura or Shuffle!, it’s a tie
Blame Reica. A 10-scored game has to be perfect (according to my standards), after all.
As a note, Azifu isn’t my favourite galgame character anyway, though she’s 3rd (tied with a few others).
While it’s a lot easier to dis the games one hates that praise what one likes, here are my top three faves–and I’ll be brief:
KANA-Came for the incest, stayed for the story. Used the tissue on my eyes.
CRESCENDO-Wherein I discovered an affinity for school nurses with guilty pasts.
LET’S MEOW MEOW-LONG LIVE THE MEOWTIS EMPIRE!
Strangely, I found B games through Wikipedia. I was messing around one night when something linked me to a page on Kana. I have a huge weakness for little sister incest, so my reaction was basically, “Holy shit, they make games like this? Must Have!” I think I got about 8 games in my first order, most of them pretty mediocre, although Kana had me crying like a baby for hours. I had to finish it in one sitting since I couldn’t bear going to bed on a bad ending.
I’m probably unusual in that I got into B games before anime/manga, which I didn’t start getting into til a couple years later, (off links from this board, in fact). Of course, I now have a 4 foot high stack of anime next to my computer waiting to get watched.
Top 3:
Uhhh… I don’t think I can remember my first… I got to VNs after watching nothing but anime for a couple of years. I haven’t seen much anime since I started playing VNs, though…
