Play enough galgames, step in enough pitfalls, eat enough shit, and looking back you start to notice a lot of interesting things. Most galgame fans got their start with fan-translated versions. First it’s anime and manga, then they hear some games have lewd stuff in them, so they go try those out. A few end up stumbling into plot-heavy galgames that way, but the majority just permanently equate galgame with porn. Even today, if you ask someone what a galgame is, probably 80% will say “Nekopara”… another 18% might say Steins;Gate, and only that remaining 2% might actually bring up Memories Off. Yes, I’m saying right here that Nekopara is trash. It’s a pure porn game with zero substance and nothing worth discussing, and personally I don’t even like the art style—can’t even jerk off to it, which is why I’ve played maybe 2 minutes total. What’s more depressing is how many newbies get drawn in by Nekopara and straight-up equate it with galgame as a whole. Makes me sigh just thinking about it. Sure, plenty of galgames have porn elements, but a galgame with nothing but H has no legs to stand on. If you want to understand galgames, you need some more interesting works to break you in. The Memories Off series is a solid entry point. It’s also the most honest, unpretentious example of what makes galgame its own genre—the music is fine, the story’s actually decent, not exactly massive waves but plenty of ups and downs, and it genuinely suits most people’s first exposure. If someone gets interested in galgames because of it and goes looking for “more games like that,” that’s when the problems start piling up.