"eroge" is the Japanese term for any 18+ game -- I'm not especially knowledgeable about them, but from what I understand most are visual novel-type games.  Not all, though, I think Nitro+'s eroge are fighting games or other styles.

I've heard a lot of good things about Key's games (Clannad, Air, and Kanon especially) although all of those are published in all-ages versions for console systems -- these might actually be better because they often have voice acting for everything.  (However, from what I've heard these aren't really "sex themed" games.  I suspect that eroge visual novels may sell better than other visual novels on the PC market so sometimes the makers simply insert explicit scenes into the story, which can then be removed for an all-ages version if it's popular.)

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2012 October 30, 8:47 pm)

I know a lot of people into Visual Novels in general. This won't help you acquire said games, but if you want to know what exists, check out vndb.org. There is also a big thread on neogaf that has a lengthy list of recomendations. The NSFW stuff aside, 999 for the DS is very good, but the text speeds are quite slow. And I've heard very good things about Ever 17, Higurashi and narcissu from my friends. All of which are at the top of the neogaf thread. I'll also note that narcissu is freeware, so it's an easy one to grab, and it's supposedly a short read.

Also, ITG can hook onto the text events of one of these games so you can use a dictionary or online translation with ease... Granted, I've never tried it myself.

Oh yeah, Chunsoft is bringing out their sound novels like Kamaitachi no Yoru for mobile pretty soon.

Daichi wrote:

I know a lot of people into Visual Novels in general. This won't help you acquire said games, but if you want to know what exists, check out vndb.org. There is also a big thread on neogaf that has a lengthy list of recomendations. The NSFW stuff aside, 999 for the DS is very good, but the text speeds are quite slow. And I've heard very good things about Ever 17, Higurashi and narcissu from my friends. All of which are at the top of the neogaf thread. I'll also note that narcissu is freeware, so it's an easy one to grab, and it's supposedly a short read.

Also, ITG can hook onto the text events of one of these games so you can use a dictionary or online translation with ease... Granted, I've never tried it myself.

Oh yeah, Chunsoft is bringing out their sound novels like Kamaitachi no Yoru for mobile pretty soon.

That thread is recommendations based on what's translated (IE not aimed at Japanese learners) though.

Wasn't there a thread here in the past that categorized some popular VNs based on reading difficulty level?

yudantaiteki wrote:

They're all going to be relatively difficult -- for something with as much text as a VN it's probably more important that you're interested in the material than the difficulty of the text, which is somewhat hard to gauge in any case.

Relatively difficult to what? I heard はなひら! is very easy and is often recommended for beginner readers.

ryuudou wrote:

yudantaiteki wrote:

They're all going to be relatively difficult -- for something with as much text as a VN it's probably more important that you're interested in the material than the difficulty of the text, which is somewhat hard to gauge in any case.

Relatively difficult to what? I heard はなひら! is very easy and is often recommended for beginner readers.

Relatively difficult for a language learner, although it really depends on what stage of learning you're at.  Anything with a large amount of text written for a native speaker audience is going to have some minimum threshold of difficulty no matter what.  Some are probably easier than others although I still suspect that if you're at the level where it's possible to make your way through a VN, having an interest in the material is more important than a supposed difficulty level.  I could be wrong, though.

The voice acted ones would be for PS2, PSP, or PS3 so you could get them new from a site like play-asia, but I've always found for not-new import games, ebay has the best prices.

(The original 18+ PC versions don't have any voice acting.)

Be sure to check out Anime Games Text Hooker https://sites.google.com/site/agthook/
As it can help you copy the text out of the games so you can look up words more quickly.

Some of that list seems suspect; one game supposedly has 3100+ unique kanji but only 13,000 characters in the whole script.  Unless they accidentally included the font layout in their count I don't see how that's possible.

Daichi wrote:

I already noted it in the thread, but I think ITH is preferred since it's still being maintained. AGTH hasn't seen any updates in over a year.

Ah I didnt see that. Good to know there is an alternative that might be better.

You might find this guide helpful,

How to read Visual Novels in Japanese in 2 years time
https://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/20 … -or-anime/

It's based on the Anki/Heisig method

I also found it useful to start with one of the games that have been translated, like little busters. see http://fuwanovel.org/novels
you can do side-by-side comparisons.

Roslyn wrote:

Also if you are looking to find the visual novels, try this http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/201 … al-novels/

If you want physical copies, be prepared to pay through your nose!
because Japan is forbidden from selling their games to overseas customers. So you have to use a middleman. I have a copy of 'Rewrite' sitting on my shelf here that says, 'For sale in Japan ONLY'. And even if I insert my DVD & install it, it doesn't play anyway, because it doesn't play on any non-japanese copy of windows.

Might want to try using Vistalizator. http://www.froggie.sk/

And for anyone who find that their Japanese level is still too poor for most of the real visual novels out there, I honestly can't recommend Little Charo for the Nintendo DS enough. It's a bilingual visual novel for teaching english, and all of the text can be toggled between english and japanese at the touch of a button.  I also posted a thread a while back where I had ripped the games script so that it can easily be converted into anki cards.