How did I get here?

[N3VTr0N 10]

My existence on this forum might be a teardrop in the wrong ocean so I feel a little faintly by spam.. making a new topic.

Is there something you could recommend a guy who never played eroge? As the saying goes, you need to play everything in your gamers life.

 

I'm guessing this kind of games are produced by Japanese studios, right?

The eroge theme is often mentioned in anime movies. Do I need to learn Japanese before or maybe the games are released in English?

Do you know maybe whether there are any English online stores which are selling translated eroge?

[Harlequin 17]

I'm guessing this kind of games are produced by Japanese studios, right?

 

Most of them are, but not all. OELVNs ("Original English Visual Novels") exist as well. Katawa Shoujo is the most well-known one out there right now. It's freeware and a pretty solid starting point for someone who is new to VNs (visual novels).

 

The eroge theme is often mentioned in anime movies. Do I need to learn Japanese before or maybe the games are released in English?

 

No, you don't. There exists a good amount of officially translated and fan translated VNs already.

 

Do you know maybe whether there are any English online stores which are selling translated eroge?

 

MangaGamer

 

JAST

 

And various titles can be found on Steam as well. I'm kinda surprised you managed to find your way to this forum without knowing about any of this stuff beforehand though. Visual novels aren't really that "hidden" anymore, especially thanks to Steam. Or maybe it just seems that way to me.

 

Is there something you could recommend a guy who never played eroge?

 

I'm gonna assume you're interested in something that is mainly about romancing a female character. For now. Just remember that there are many plot heavy VNs out there, with all kinds of different genres.

 

Princess Evangile from MangaGamer maybe? I haven't read that one myself but it's probably good for the romance/drama/comedy.

 

Already mentioned Katawa Shoujo before, and that one is free.

 

Ef, which consists of the first tale and the latter tale.

 

My Girlfriend is the President. Lighthearted romance comedy.

 

That's just four examples. Can't be bothered with more, but you get the gist. Check out the Visual Novel Database sometime.

 

 

And this is assuming you don't want to pirate anything by the way. Just know that when it comes to fan translated VNs (of which there are quite a few), most people do in fact pirate the actual games. You won't see many that actually bother to track down the Japanese copy on some Japanese site - especially not for older titles.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Harlequin

[desi 53]

Sites that officially sell translated visual novels - JAST USA - Visual Novels in English, MangaGamer.com - Your Onestop Moe Download Store!, and you can find some on steam now.

 

Almost all the notable VNs will be produced by Japanese studios, but there are also OELVN's (Original English Language Visual Novels).. they usually aren't as good as the Japanese produced ones simply because most of the time they are done by amateurs with little to no budget... there are some notable ones like Katawa Shoujo though... which is a great point I can bring up next..

 

There are many VNs you can decide to read as your first VN. There are some that are recommended that you read later once you get more experience. When people talk about translations, they either refer to fan translations (usually someone that has knowledge of Japanese.. though some people try to translate with limited knowledge) that release an English patch for free or they refer to official translations (professionally done translations by MG/Jast/etc that you can buy online or download from here). Both types are on this site and you can definitely buy VNs from MG/Jast/Steam, etc if you want to... officially localized VNs aren't too expensive, but fan translated VNs you usually would have to import from Japan and they can get costly depending on the titles. So anyway, regarding what you want to read...

 

Since you mentioned anime before, I'm sure you've heard of Steins;Gate, Fate/Stay Night, Clannad, Kanon, etc.. all of these are the source material for the anime that have been released or are currently out right now. You'll definitely get a more well rounded experience reading the VN as it dives more into the details and they're usually better than the anime itself.

 

Here's a quick chart http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/visual-novels-general/images/4/4b/VN2015-02-13.png

 

You don't have to follow this to a T and I don't necessarily agree with all the beginner/starter VNs on there, but it's a fairly good guide in the sense that it gives you a good starting point in what you could be interested in.

 

https://vndb.org/ is also a good resource, try to explore a little bit.. most of the VNs on there are going to be untranslated, but you can use this site and the guide listed to try to look up VNs. I recommend not looking into it too deep as you can get spoiled, but you can at least look to see what it looks like, the interface, see if you would be interested in it, etc.

 

Beginner VNs that you can give a shot to see if you would be interested in:

 

Katawa Shoujo (it's an OELVN and you can actually just download it on their site for free if you wanted). Nice beginner VN.

 

Juniper's Knot is another OELVN, it's very short but pretty nice. Could give you a nice taste as what is to come.

 

Clannad is very long but worth reading. It's going to get an official release late this year or early next year with a much better translation, so be on the lookout for that one.

 

Fate/Stay Night is a great read.. again, a very long title and maybe not necessarily the BEST recommendation for a first VN, but one where if you're interested enough, you could start on it.

 

Really, it all depends on your interest. If story based VNs aren't your thing, you can find plenty of nukige as well (all porn and no plot). Almost all of the better VNs are a little porn with a lot of story or no porn and a lot of story.

 

EDIT: that :effort: and harle basically said the same thing.

Edited May 23, 2015 by desi
fixed link

[Chocolatemilkgod 16]

I'll be brief since both Harle and desi explained most things in detail. I suppose the point I wanted to clarify is what an 'eroge' actually is.

 

An eroge literally means 'erotic game', ie it will probably have some combination of sex, nudity etc. Now rather confusingly, despite this site being called 'erogegames.com' (or its sister site where you can pirate these types of games for free, erogedownload), what you'll actually find here are visual novels (VNs for short). The mix up in terms probably arises because A) many (but certainly not all) VNs are also eroges and B) because VNs without erotic content (so-called 'all-ages' VNs) were rarer when the industry was younger. Thus the two terms are closely related, but distinct. Anyway, enough of the semantics. What is a visual novel?

 

A visual novel is a game with a significant written portion (the novel aspect) accompanied by art (the visual aspect). Most VNs will also have some kind of sound with them, usually some music (aka background music, or BGM), and some of the higher fidelity ones may also have voice acting for what is written and other SFX. Now to make another distinction; not all VNs are eroge, but those which are eroge can have a lot of story to them. Think of them a bit like Game of Thrones (or whatever movie/TV show you want that has nudity or sex scenes in it); they might have sex, but that doesn't mean the story isn't good. In fact, if done well, it can make the game more mature (mind you this isn't often the case, but anyway...). On the other hand, eroge that is almost entirely about the sex/nudity/hentai is called nukige.

 

I suppose what my rambling is trying to get across is that VNs/eroges are varied, and many of them can have really good stories with or without sex scenes. As I read VNs for the story, I don't touch nukige with a 10-foot barge pole for example. In any case, VNs are predominately Japanese in origin, but they have started to gain a bit more traction in the west. Games like Phoenix Wright (which admittedly is Japanese in origin) are VNs which are pretty popular in the west, for example*. In addition, VNs written in English are becoming increasingly common, and they're called 'original English language visual novels', or OELVNs (because someone couldn't just call them EVNs...).

 

In fact, you can go check out this

really awesome OELVN project on this forum that I am totally not in any way associated with and am therefore completely without bias.

 

The majority of VNs/eroges are from Japan and written in Japanese; HOWEVER, thanks to the efforts of both fan and official translation projects, there are a great many that are available to read in English! The three main 'official' translation groups are:

JAST

Mangagamer

Sekai Project (Steam)

 

These guys officially licence the VNs (most of which are from Japan) and sell them. JAST and Mangagamer often focus on eroge/nukige as that's what the market for these types of games has been up to now (although it looks like the wind might be changing). Sekai project is a much newer company that is translating a variety of VNs, some with a larger focus on story (which earns my vote). They also published a number of other VNs including some OELVNs, some of which are free to play.

 

There are a multitude of unofficial groups (of varying quality of translation) that have translated a variety of VNs/eroges. You can't easily buy these things officially (since you'd have to ship the Japanese version of the game to wherever you live... which is quite expensive), so most of the time people just pirate these. Check out the VN database (I sorted everything according to highest rating) for ideas for what to read. Anything with a Union Jack next to it either has a translation project for it or is already translated. You can click on each visual novel for more information about it, ratings, the state of the translation etc. As mentioned by desi and harle, I'd probably recommend Katawa Shoujo as a good starting point. It is an OELVN and is COMPLETELY FREE to play, download etc. No ad revenue bullshit or anything either. It's an eroge so has sex scenes, but they're pretty lite (and can be turned off if you want... or alternatively you can skip through them with the power of the cntrl button). Its main focus is the story, and although not perfect, is a really good introduction to how many VNs play. If you wanted to play a VN-strategy hybrid, you could try something like Sunrider, which is also completely free to play although the third and final part of the game isn't released yet (and it's a bit lighter on the story front).

 

If you have any questions you can go ahead and ask, we're pretty patient around here

 

* Some 'purists' might disagree that Phoenix Wright is a VN, which is BS. To me, VNs are anything with a large written aspect often with background art and music. Phoenix Wright is a VN-adventure hybrid, pure and simple.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Chocolatemilkgod

[OneManArmy 82]

I wrote a comment as well but unfortunately I forgot to post it and now it makes no sense whatsoever because you people already said everything I wanted to say. God damn it.

[N3VTr0N 10]

First of all thank you for your efforts. Now I have a good view of what an eroge is and where to find it.

When I saw the "Visual Novel" term what came to my mind was the "Light Novel". I presume these two have lots in common in exception VN being interactive?

I am hoping of wasting some time by playing.. yeah, a romance game which would have different endings based on the player choices and while I don't mean ero scenes, these aren't necessary for me.

 

As a starter I will try desi recommendation chart.

Will see if it proves to be addictive enough for a person bored of life.

[Harlequin 17]

lol desi, you were much more comprehensive about it than me anyway, so that's better.

 

When I saw the "Visual Novel" term what came to my mind was the "Light Novel". I presume these two have lots in common in exception VN being interactive?

 

They're both very wordy. That's about the only thing they have in common unless I'm forgetting something. Light novels come in physical volumes, like manga. Visual novels are something that you only play/read on your PC/Mac/whatever.

 

Most of the time, visual novels have character sprites, background art, music, sound effects, voice acting, choices - sometimes gameplay, like in Kamidori Alchemy Meister. However this can differ at times. Not all visual novels have choices for example. Those without, we call kinetic novels (example: Higurashi). It is common for visual novels to have choices in them though, yes, and that's what you seem to be interested in right now anyway.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Harlequin

[N3VTr0N 10]

I'm playing G-Senjou no Maou now - the first position from desi' chart.

Despite the fact I don't feel like my choices have any impact on the plot, the plot itself is intriguing.

Now I'd compare playing eroge to reading a book, but... I wonder which one is better? I don't know If I have enough patience to experience every possible ending as this requires good memory and lots of saves.

I consider eroges as a good way to eat some time, plus I am actually reading something deeper in English, thus widening my language skills.

Once again, thank you for the introduction.

[JackyMark 12]

If u want to dl non-trans VN, check out anime-sharing site, but i still recommend u to stick with this site cuz it's being checked daily for expired link (yes, anime-sharing has a lot of expired sites) u can say erogegames.com is the best site that u can get eroge and VN

*thumb up*