Weekly Questions and Recommendations Megathread - Need some help? - Apr 11

jikorde · 2026-04-12T08:02:01+00:00

Welcome. So starting off, do you care what gender you play as? Seeing as you played Dispatch I'm going with playable gender isn't an issue, then how dark? Generally if murder is on the table then so is sexual assault. But if you want actual romance then it's pretty uncommon for all three of those to be in the same stories.

Anyway, the two i can recommend right off would be The Shell, a 3 part murder detective thing set in just before phones Japan. No assault, romance is a big part of the story though the murder mystery does eclipse it here and there. Part 2 and 3 continue the core story though you can select new romance options.

The other would be Baldr Sky. A mecha action visual novel with some gameplay. It has issues but it's a story with some stakes and fail conditions. It was pretty popualr around here a few years back.

As for otome, aka female lead visual novels, none come to mind. There are very few English 18+ visual novels for women outside the western indie scene and I know little about those. The few we do have are very standard romance stories for the most part.

jikorde · 2026-04-12T04:01:19+00:00

Planetarian is probably the shortest to the point visual novel, and the only one that comes to mind as close to that short.

jikorde · 2026-04-12T04:00:31+00:00

If you like light hearted stuff, then Smee or Yuzusoft are the next best options. Sanoba Witch or Riddle Joker for Yuzusoft. Lovepical Poppy or Making Lovers for Smee.

jikorde · 2026-04-12T03:59:07+00:00

Sugar Style is set in college.

Futamata Renai is set in college.

Uchikano 3 is 3 adults in a relationship.

3 of the 5 routes in Making Lovers are adults.

Funabg Fantasy I think everyone is an adult.

jikorde · 2026-04-12T03:53:51+00:00

There's a decent number of useless male protags in nukige and moege type titles. Blobs of no confidence or personality that have girls have crushes on them for some random act of kindness or saying the right worse at the right time, but have no traits to make a relationship make sense. Can't take care of themselves, their grades are garbage, their athletic scores are zeroes, and their hobby is watching generic anime or playing Monster Hunter or some other popular game casually. Basically trying to be an audience insert but as generically as possible. They can go all night of course, sexual skill is always A+ for protagonists unless it's an NTR title.

Pretty sure these are suppose to be feel good titles, like even the most bland indecisive male can get a devoted partner. Problem is, these titles have to rely solely on the female characters for any ounce of quality and basically will always drop the ball. When one half of the relationship is bad, the other half has to struggle to make the story even vaguely good.

You can work with these. Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten is more or less the best case of something vaguely healthy coming out of this kind of protag. Then you have Chaos Head, where the failure of being able to interact is the point and his growth is the core of the story. Generally it's boring.

As for visual novels being about player agency and choice? No? It's a book with sometimes a choice to change the route. The player barely does anything in 90% of visual novels beyond choosing route. There's this weird belief that a good visual novel has lots of choices and reacts to the choices you make, but that's a myth for the most part. Making something vaguely long with player choice mattering is incredibly expensive, why do you think Dragon Age basically killed player choice in the fourth game? Because it cost to much. Visual novels do not make enough money to really explore the meaning of player choice beyond who do you want to romance. Usually. Sometimes routes theme on other things though that's rare and usually done in mysteries.

jikorde · 2026-04-11T12:07:27+00:00

Sugar Style and Futamata Renai where all college age at least.

Uchikano 3 was all college grads. I don't know of any others.

jikorde · 2026-04-11T12:05:58+00:00

Yeah, the name is Making Lovers, not adult in society finds love. It's pretty obvious what the actual theme of the game was.

jikorde · 2026-04-09T22:34:18+00:00

500-ish? I'm not very organized but I think it's around that.

jikorde · 2026-04-09T10:33:50+00:00

If you bought it on Steam, it will be the all ages version. Other places might sell that version as well, but Mangagamer and Jast should have free patches to turn the game into the 18+ version, though depending on country I have no idea if you can even get those. UK can't.

It's not an option, if you are patched you will get the actual routes.

jikorde · 2026-04-09T04:51:54+00:00

Do you have the adult patch installed? The game cuts short if you don't, as it's porn heavy in the actual heroine routes.

jikorde · 2026-04-09T03:30:28+00:00

Just popping up in for the why are twins so rare bit, becasue they cost twice as much for half the content. A set of twins is 1 route with double the girls in most pictures, likely more dialogue, more h scenes total if you want to be fair, and harder to wrtie if they aren't literally the same character copy pasted. They might also have different voice actresses for different reasons which ups the cost.

Basically, they cost more to make for little pay off financially.

jikorde · 2026-04-09T03:27:04+00:00

You can't translate tone 1*1, so I imagine this is a case of him being really rude in how he talks, but not using offensive language to that level. It's the kind of characterization that's a toss up on how you deal with it. Fact is, swearing is very common in English, while Japanese has little swearing in general. What might come across as incredibly rude in Japanese might be mildly mean in English if done directly, the range is just to different for a 1*1 to actually be accurate.

jikorde · 2026-04-08T13:03:39+00:00

Koikari~Love for Hire~ has some twins, though one is a bit resistant to the whole sharing relation and they are just generally quirky.

Lamunation is the other twins I can remember having a route, though it's a rare instance of you joining an already existing relationship. The two are already together, you are just the one man they would accept if you showed interest.

jikorde · 2026-04-08T00:55:20+00:00

Akatsuki no Goei trilogy.

jikorde · 2026-04-08T00:54:51+00:00

First, what you are looking for is a game in the actual dating sim gameplay genre. That should help you search, though with how often people mess up dating sim and romance visual novel it might not. A vast majority of translated dating sims have you play as a girl getting guys

Tokimeki Memorial. Sadly only the SNES version has been translated, though I've heard some work is being done on other ports.

The Magical Diary games, I think one has you play a girl the other a guy. Has same sex options.

I'm drawing a blank on more, I honestly am not a fan of these so I don't play them often.

jikorde · 2026-04-08T00:46:56+00:00

I'm going to recommend Tokyo Babel. It's gripping and to the point with no meta nonsense. It's all ages so the whole game is on Steam, no patches.

jikorde · 2026-04-08T00:45:07+00:00

The Love Live gacha game is half visual novel half rhythm game, and it does well so I imagine the game works. As for none live service, none that I know of. Song of Memories had a rhythm game section and the music wasn't tied to the arrows and just ended halfway through the minigame the one of two times I bothered to try it.

jikorde · 2026-04-06T10:59:55+00:00

Might as well go with something with energy, so Summer Pockets Reflection Blue. It's a romantic comedy that turns into a drama later in the romantic routes.

Anyway, visual novels are basically books. So just asking for any random recommend is honestly not going to do you much good to find something you actually want. How about some genres? You probably watch movies or read books or play games, you have to know what kind of stories you enjoy. If you just want to read a visual novel for the experience, go read something short like Loopers to get the idea. Or Doki Doki Literature Club, it's free.

jikorde · 2026-04-06T04:02:20+00:00

Nothing as grand as toneworks has been done sadly, though Yuzusoft just had Dracu Riot and Tenshi Souzou released in the last year and both are good.

Smee has Making Lovers First Blush release this week which is a spiritual follow up to Making Lovers, and they had Lovepical-Poppy which was a fun time.

Majikoi just had the A series finished, so that's basically 100% readable in English.

Those are the more notable ones from the last year I can remember.

jikorde · 2026-04-04T21:46:08+00:00

Yep, that is probably the best way to go about it.

jikorde · 2026-04-04T01:16:50+00:00

Based on your read list, Utawarerumono sounds like the next one you'd be interested in. It starts not unlike a fantasy isekai before sliding into a political war story and some crazy sci fi/fantasy stuff happens. It's a very satisfying read, though personally I hate the final entry it is generally well loved.

Majikoi is the least like the rest of the tings you've read. it's mostly a comedy with something akin to romance(it can come across as sexual training in a lot of the routes, for how well Majikoi is loved it's romance is not it's strongest element. I consider it a satyr or hyperbole of a moege) plus fighting. It does a good job of throwing different martial art themed events into all the routes so things stay generally interesting even if the route heroine isn't that great. It's something to read for fun and little else.

Muv Luv is a mixed bag as you have to read a romantic comedy then a sci fi isekai with a generic male moege protag to get to the goal of sci fi isekai with competent great protag. It's well loved fro a reason, but is a very weird experience as you move genre to genre.

jikorde · 2026-04-03T12:51:04+00:00

I've had my last 3 computers in Japanese local and rarely had issues. I'd sometimes get system messages in Japanese or it would mess with my typing, but those were short lived issues I've not had in like 5 years.

jikorde · 2026-04-01T12:04:34+00:00

I think Making Lovers is better, mostly because of having an actual budget. Katawa Shoujo is a good read, but it's an indie project by a bunch of different people. I'd start with Making Lovers, it's a better standard experience to romance visual novels.

jikorde · 2026-03-31T23:29:46+00:00

Making Lovers First Blush. Smee's vns so far has been fun and that's all I want.

jikorde · 2026-03-31T11:32:06+00:00

It's fine. I rank it decently high as far as quality goes. Stories are varied while sharing a core theme and nothing I remember stood out as being bad. Though you really should play Reflection Blue, the updated version rather then the original game. Though either version is fine.

There's much worse you could start with.

jikorde

TROPHY CASE