A while back I saw a story that caught my eye: a Taiwanese game called Shi Yong Xi Shao Nü got rejected from Steam for having too much porn and other objectionable content. Not exactly breaking news, really. Everyone and their dog wants to get on Steam these days, including a whole lot of straight-up porn games and stuff that’s just skirting the line. Steam is a US platform run by white dudes, so that kind of child-endangerment material was always going to get the hammer. So I looked into this Shi Yong Xi Shao Nü thing, and it turned out to be nothing like what I expected… It looks like softcore, but the game itself isn’t a visual novel… or at least not that kind of eroge-style text game. There’s actual stuff to do. To put it bluntly… it’s primarily a management sim. Which actually made me interested in it. The dev is Taiwanese, though, and their official site banned all mainland IPs, and since Steam won’t take it, the game’s only sold on physical disc. I had no idea how I’d even play it… But with a buddy’s help, I got my hands on a copy, so I started playing.

I played 40 visual novels in 2018 — even fewer than 2017. On one hand that means my real life got more fulfilling; on the other, it means the industry really is done for these days. Looking back, most of what I played was in the first half of the year. The second half was thin — barely anything out there, and nothing that made me want to pick it up. Which is fine. Probably even fewer next year. And honestly I hope the industry croaks soon, so more kids can be freed from it and face reality properly. Still, I did play some. So, as usual, here’s what I think is worth recommending.

Whether or not you’re like me and couldn’t care less about the various works under Type Moon’s banner, you have to admit the same thing I do: The Fate series under Type Moon is the most successful visual novel ever made. What counts as success? It’s when a product’s fan effect is so strong that all they have to do is keep reheating leftovers to keep raking in money—where even some slapped-together spinoff with no real connection to anything is a cash-printing machine. If that’s not success, I don’t know what is. From 2004 to 2018, the Fate series has gone through two anime adaptations, a prequel novel adaptation, countless movie adaptations, and all sorts of spinoff games, spinoff manga, spinoff anime, and so on—all the way up to the current mobile game Fate/Grand Order, which still gets hordes of otaku throwing money at it by the fistful. Sure, the Fate brand has now spread into every corner imaginable, but I wonder how many people still remember that the Fate series started as a game—a visual novel, and an 18+ one at that. I know the thing was originally a novel by scenario writer Kinoko Nasu, and it got turned into a visual novel out of necessity to get it to market, but its debut was, in fact, in visual novel form. A whole world expanded out of a single visual novel, reaching the point it has now—if that’s not massive success, what is?

Some guy with a screw loose once laid out the whole “old school” vs. “new school” thing. Of course, a guy with a screw loose doesn’t talk like a human being, so what he meant was Old School and New School. Put bluntly: “new type” and “retro type.” You see this pattern in other games, you see it in music genres, so naturally you also see it in the eroge space. Remember what the earliest eroge were like? You’d have a male lead meet a pretty girl, and after about two lines they’d start fucking, and then it was over. Same as what Carmack the Great said about FPS games: “The game is the porn, the story is superfluous.” The subtext: games exist to make you feel good, so why the hell bother with plot and authorship? If it doesn’t get you off, why the hell are you playing it? Normal games are already pigeonholed that clearly, so what about eroge? What’s an eroge for? So you can watch it like porn! So why the hell go through all that asinine setup and payoff? Just drop the pants and get to it!

Butterfly Seeker (バタフライシーカー) came out back in March, and I only just finished it recently. The main reason I didn’t want to touch it at first was the scenario writer: Nozomu Kaihara (海原望). Kaihara is, I believe, a Liar-soft person. I’ve played a few things he worked on. I wouldn’t call them bad — it’s just that they always leave me with this strong sense of discomfort. Not from the art or the setting, more from the way the script and dialogue are written. So when I saw his name on Butterfly Seeker, I immediately didn’t want anything to do with it. But I had literally nothing to play. I don’t like moege, I don’t like the stuff everyone else hypes to the heavens, and what I actually want is traditional mystery / puzzle-solving / story. Looking around, the only thing left from the first half of the year was Butterfly Seeker. So I played it. And since there was nothing else I wanted to play, I played it pretty seriously. After clearing everything, my impression was: actually pretty good. This might be the first Kaihara game I’ve been able to get through? Some people say Kaihara is a pen name of Meteo Hoshizora… but I’m not familiar with Meteo Hoshizora so whatever, lol.

A long time ago there was this game that blew up because the title was so ridiculous: Onii-chan, You Are Forbidden from Using Your Right Hand (お兄ちゃん 右手の使用を禁止します) It’s a pure siscon game. The protagonist has a name, but his presence is pathetically low. Several sisters orbit around him, and the OP is an absolute earworm. The game sold because it had a gimmick. That’s it.

Around this time last year… a game came out… called 9-nine- Kokonotsu Kokonoka Kokonoiro. I didn’t rate it highly back then, because honestly there wasn’t much to rate. The story barely moved at all, it just laid out the setting. That game was really just the start of a series. 9nine is a project sold in volumes, and my initial guess is there are three heroines, one volume each, so at least three volumes total. I already talked about the first volume here: the protagonist gets dragged into a battle between espers. There are villainous espers, and righteous ones like the protagonist and heroine. Some people kill, and someone else stops them, that kind of thing… Except in the first volume the esper murderer was never unmasked at all. It just ended unresolved, so a year later the second volume shows up again. The main romanceable character in volume two is the protagonist’s little sister: Niimi Sora (新海天), so the title changed to something built around her name, Sorairo Sorauta Soranooto.

Kikuzakura is a beautiful girl, with pretty pink hair, fair skin, and a sweet smile. She doesn’t remember her original surname. She doesn’t even know who her parents are. For as long as she can remember she’s lived with her grandmother. “Grandmother” is only the woman who took her in, not real blood relation. Kikuzakura has asked her many times: “Where are my mom and dad?” Grandma always smiles, strokes Kikuzakura’s head, and says slowly: “You’re still young. When you’ve grown up, I’ll tell you.” Time flies. In the blink of an eye Kikuzakura is an adult, eighteen years old. On her eighteenth birthday, after they finish the cake, Grandma gives her a present. The little box is heavy, and she can’t tell what’s inside. Kikuzakura wants to tear it open right away, but Grandma stops her. “After the cake, tonight, in your room. Look at it slowly, by yourself.” Grandma’s expression is full of a kind of helplessness… as if there’s something she can’t say. Kikuzakura nods… ………… An autumn night, cool breeze blowing. Kikuzakura sits at the desk by the window and opens this Pandora’s box. Inside is a notebook… the paper between the layers has already yellowed a little, but the cover is thick enough that the contents should still be fine. She lifts the first page. Tucked inside is a photograph: a pink-haired woman holding a baby, smiling at the camera. Kikuzakura understands. There’s news of her parents in here, and the person in the photo is her mother. She keeps flipping. It’s a diary… a story from the past, unfolding before Kikuzakura page by page.

If you listen to a lot of erotic audio… oh wait, I mean ASMR, dummy head recording, whatever you call those drama tracks for stress relief and sleep, you’re probably familiar with the word “soine”. Even if you don’t know Japanese, you recognize the character for “sleep,” so you can guess it means “sleeping together” recordings. So yeah, Sizhai is truly disgusting. Can’t find a partner, so he relies on games to get him a girl; and when he does find a girl in a game, he just stands there waiting for her to throw herself at him; and even when she does, he’s picky about her; and not just picky—his criteria are absurd: too ugly, no; bad voice, no; not a virgin, no; non-human but doesn’t end up with the protagonist, no; damaged goods, no; a ghost that gets exorcised, no. Most importantly, she has to bang the protagonist quickly no matter what. And not just bang—some even demand she sleep with him. Kidney-level isn’t enough; it has to be heart-level. And heart-level isn’t enough; the service has to be perfect. So as Sizhai gets pickier, games get more complex, and the ideal moe girl is born: one who unconditionally throws herself at a total loser, sleeps with him until he dozes off, and does it all for nothing. Just think about it! But even though otaku are tighter with their wallets than fujoshi, there are still some suckers with more money than sense, so many eroge makers deliberately cater to them, scamming otaku out of their cash. Look, here’s another game that pops up with a clear goal: draw a cute girl, then tell you—buy our game and this cute girl will sleep with you! The game is called Soine Kano Gyutto Dakishimete, which means “close-up girlfriend, hugging you super tight.” Buy it or not?! We’re asking you, buy it or not! With Ameda Yuki on art and Natsumi Wako as the lead heroine’s voice actress, such an insane lineup—buy it or not! Just buy it!

I personally recommend Kage no Umi no Apeiria because it’s full of surprises and genuinely novel. Unfortunately, despite all my hype, it seems the game didn’t sell well last year — apparently it couldn’t even beat some other game’s FD. Still, Kage no Umi no Apeiria announced a sequel. Except it’s really just an FD, as you can tell from the title and cover art: Kage no Umi no Apeiria Casablanca no Kishi — the suffix is “Casablanca no Kishi” (The Knight of Casablanca). Normally, a fan disc gives you after-stories for the original cast plus new routes for characters who didn’t have one. That’s what I assumed Casablanca no Kishi would be, especially since the cover features those two side characters. Calling them side characters isn’t entirely fair — they did interact a lot with the protagonist in the main game, and one of them is the nurse connected to another main heroine, Mashiro. But in the virtual world, they’re two female knights. After playing it, though, I’d say this is less a fan disc and more an append disc.