General

[quote=Plenair]Japanese visual novels are basically dating sims without the gameplay part, if you consider it gameplay, and they're basically unanimated harem anime. They all got that generic bug-eyed anime art style too.[/quote]

grisaia is basically focused on interactions between good characters with barely any choices. it's basically a light novel thats animated lol
the translation for this game is also very, very good. the english is fluid and there are no awkward lines. theres even a scene where some of the characters created a "word game" which is almost literally impossible to translate, but the translator did a very good job

@Plenair So, have you read any good VNs? I've only looked at a few myself, but something like Ever 17 was great because it takes advantage of the medium to do something that an anime can't execute well.

[quote=Plenair]Japanese visual novels are basically dating sims without the gameplay part, if you consider it gameplay, and they're basically unanimated harem anime. They all got that generic bug-eyed anime art style too.[/quote]
I prefer to think of VNs as a different medium of story telling. Even though I don't lack imagination, I do appreciate not having to create my own visuals or imagining my own BGM when reading a piece of fiction.

[quote=Amuro]@Irony Thanks for the info! Had no idea the project started moving again. At some point, progress was stalled at 90-something percent for so long that I stopped checking for updates. I also had no idea the translations were "god awful", which is kinda tragic considering it was supposed to be very eloquently written in Japanese. I think the fanbase is fairly small too (even with the anime that recently ended) so it's unlikely that a company like JAST USA will pick it up. ._.[/quote]

Np

The market for visual novels in NA is very small unfortunately, even some of those who watch DO watch anime as a hobby wouldn't touch an eroge or h-game. it's basically a niche in a niche. Unfortunately not many groups decide to translate VNs since it's a lot of work and time consuming for a lot of ungrateful people too... Only very popular titles get localized, even Danganronpa only recently got localized.

But yes, the project was stalled for a very long time and only recently picked up I think. I don't remember when it was since I only checked recently to find it finished and was quite surprised myself. I thought it got dropped a while ago, but apparently the latter half of their translations are very rough. You'll probably have an okay experience until around 70% or 80% of the visual novel where it may be more difficult to read. If you like White Album then I think you should give it a shot. I'm really only interested in closing chapter since I hear that's where the good stuff begins.

@Irony Thanks for the info! Had no idea the project started moving again. At some point, progress was stalled at 90-something percent for so long that I stopped checking for updates. I also had no idea the translations were "god awful", which is kinda tragic considering it was supposed to be very eloquently written in Japanese. I think the fanbase is fairly small too (even with the anime that recently ended) so it's unlikely that a company like JAST USA will pick it up. ._.

introduction chapter recently finished its translated phase, but most of the later translations are god awful and lack fluidity because the lines havent been read over or checked past a certain point

closing chapter will, if it ever comes out, take years
@Amuro

http://visualnovelaer.fuwanovel.org/2014/04/white-album-2-introductory-chapter-translation-complete/

good info to have i guess

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duCiKfcMNOA]Steins Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram[/url]
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1cIUkPcGw]White Album 2: Closing Chapter[/url]

As far as I know, neither of these have been translated, so I haven't actually played them. But I do like them a lot.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJ3eY-hfc4]dat symbolism. Can't freaking wait for the anime[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r48DDPZCl0c]Not as good[/url]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o0y-MNqdQU

I played like 3 visual novels, and 2 of them were danganronpa and the other one was toradora.