I find just from browsing around the internet, usage of -kun, -san, -chan and so on really gets annoying. Besides being unnecessary, it seems that it makes something not flow as nicely, and more difficult to read.
THANK YOU. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who hates that shit. Japanese honorifics have no place in English, outside of a textbook.
You're not, but you're definitely in the minority unfortunately. If only the whole translation scene had more people who thought that way... as it stands, most are now past just shoving honorifics in, we're now getting random Japanese words too! Most fansubs don't bother translating 'bento' now for example. Normally when you read an English translation you don't expect to have to know random bits of Japanese the 'translator' thought you should, but that's how it seems to work these days. As for the honorifics, it's even more ridiculous when they're included in things blatantly not set in Japan. Like recently one studio decided to make an anime based on Les Miserables... yup, you guessed it. Romeo and Juliet will probably be the same.
So anyway, visual novels. I've generally enjoyed what I've tried, though most of my wanted list is out of reach at the moment. Ever17, while it had some memorable moments (Tsugumi's ending, especially) was brought down by the fact that half the character development was really, really dull, half the music was equally boring (but then some tracks were great) and the plot twists near the end were beyond ridiculous. It had great potential but didn't quite live up to it. Phantom of the Inferno I've bought, but haven't bothered with due to the horrible DVD system - I'd be a lot more interested if they had a proper PC version, but apparently it didn't sell well enough... ah well. Planetarian was a mixed bag. I couldn't stand Reverie for half the story, then got into it more after loving the Planetarium scene, but then felt the conclusion was dragged out too much. It felt like the writer was poking me with a stick saying 'Are you crying yet? Huh?' every few seconds. I wasn't.
Where's Narcissu on that list though? It only lasts just over an hour but that was probably the second most memorable VN I've read because of the beautiful music, simple but effective visuals and the fact the story never felt heavy handed unlike Planetarian. It was a sad story, but never really felt forced. Finally, Tsukihime. It's a shame a proper copy is so hard to come by ($250 on Yahoo Japan Auctions... yay?) because it was a really great story even the translation felt quite stiff. Vampires are easy to make a boring story out of because they've been done so many times, but the further you get in it to the more you realise why it did so well despite first being released at a little table at a convention. Can't wait for the Fate/stay night translation to be completed to read more of Nasu's work.
As for the complaints about adolescents and school settings, yeah, you definitely have a point. The situation at least seems to be getting slightly better, though. The market's become so oversaturated with small companies thinking they can make a quick profit that if you want to sell a decent amount of copies, you have to stand out in some way. As a result we get VNs like Scarlett, which is set across half the world, Moonlight Carnival (a town in Italy), Katahane, Utawarerumono and such, then those that unfortunately keep the school setting but have their interest focused elsewhere, like Higurashi and Fate/stay night. Yes, the majority remain boring and generic, but it's not like wading through crap to find hidden gems is anything new or exclusive to visual novels in any way.
Zaratus, I'd love to produce a huge list of recommendations that don't have those problems but well... I can't. The only translation group I can think of that doesn't have a straight 'all honorifics must stay' policy is Insani who do mostly demo translations but also handled Narcissu and Planetarian, neither of which had any as far as I can remember, but they're both pretty short. The genre probably would have something for you... if the translators actually translated instead of bringing things to a state where 'someone trying to learn random bits of Japanese from anime will appreciate it even if it sounds really stiff as a result'. I've just learnt to deal with it because I still enjoy quite a lot of anime, VNs and such, much as it still frustrates me.
Were any of the al|together titles any good by the way, X-Calibar? I'm guessing at least a few were, but don't really feel like going through all of them one by one to find out.
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