Hiya, anime thread! VN's get discussed here too, right?
I have been working my way through VN's from the most popular list on the vndb (mainstream ftw! 
), and I was wondering what order I should be playing/ reading the muv-luv series in? Alternative is literally the best rated VN on the site and I wanted to give it a go some day, but I don't want to spoil myself if I end up liking the characters and wanting more 
.
Other than that, any recc's on what I should have a look at? I have read (off the top of my head) all KEY VN's bar rewrite and kanon (fakeedit: oh! and Air); finished Steins;Gate a few hours ago; Saya no Uta was done last week, as was Katawa- and Karano- Shoujo. Hey, it's summer break; I have lots of free time that I should be spending socializing (or so my classmates would have me believe).
Damn you work fast.
Okay, Leafsnail pretty much answered the other stuff but Rewrite isn't actually that bad. If you could tolerate all of the other Key games you'll probably look at Rewrite as that "really odd F/sn wanna-be", that's not to say every scene is a blast to read either though. I'd also like to say it's longer than F/sn which is just ridiculous.
Saya no Uta is okay, make sure to check out Hanachirasu and Kikokugai as well. I especially like Kikokugai.
I would definitely check out Higurashi and Umineko too of course. And maybe some Higanbana and Rose Guns Days after for good measure.
Fate/hollow and Mahoyo should be coming soon too!
Franken Fran does spring to mind as a manga with legitimately disturbing artwork sometimes, but it's a weird sort of dark comedy series. Definitely NSFW, but also potentially traumatizing for small children.
Claymore also counts, but is a fantasy series. The monsters get progressively more bizarre as it goes along.
Dorohedoro? The main character is a lizardman with a face inside his mouth who goes around biting people's heads and asking them questions.
Parasyte, about aliens taking over people's bodies.
Dorohedoro is
very good. Parasyte is pretty good too. I haven't read Franken Fran or Claymore yet.
I actually caught up with Onepunch Man last night. It's pretty good I wasn't expecting a super hero parody even though that should be obvious...I like how all the generics get some sort of detail or treatment even though most of them are bit players.
As for other stuff uh...watched LotGH over the summer (incredibly great), read and watched JoJo over the summer (pretty goooood), read a bunch of manga I've probably forgotten (like Watashitachi blah blah). I also finished Hoshimemo a few months ago, it's not very good. Like probably the worst I've read besides Little Busters.
I played a lot of Symphonic Rain and YU-NO waiting for stuff to come out since they're literally the last high-rated VNs in English I haven't touched much of. I've finished two routes in both before Grisaia no Kajitsu got its patch.
So I'm only like half done with both, but I'd probably want to give my mid-way impressions.
Symphonic Rain - a rather boring, if not sometimes moving story with a really fucking hard rhythm mini-game. I hear there's some big twists in the true route stuff, but I can't imagine it getting too much better. It's not that bad though.
YUNO - YUNO is just ridiculous. It's a PC-98 adventure game (which I've played quite a few at this point *cough* every single Alicesoft one *cough*) with I can't say the most appealing art but the story can be pretty good and I've been spooked at least once a route and that's cool. My worst compliant is it's way too ecchi with a lot of CGs having panty shots or something retarded. Everything else is pretty good. I like adventure games...
Anyway, started Grisaia around the time of the patch (I played the demo last year as I was oddly curious) and well...I don't know.
Grisaia no Kajitsu has many many many many VN traits I do not like. Akabesoft fall into this too. Voiceless protagonist, a harem setting, very shiny cutesy graphics, but Grisaia is weird. I've finished Yumiko's route and I'm quite a ways into Makina's route and by gods what is this being.
The writing/translation is incredible. I dislike most of the characters most of the time, the art and audio vary between okay and displeasing, the storytelling is usually either non-existent or melodramatic and contrived, but
gods be gods the writing man. I've cried playing both of the routes I've done in Grisaia now. I'm not sure if that's because I'm an emotionally broken and sensitive person or if I'm in a rut right now and it's picking at my wounds, but every route has impressed me so far with its thought-provoking breakdowns, internal monologues and anecdotes, bizarre happenstances and occurrences. It's the surrealist thing ever. You think it wouldn't affect you, but it does and when you explain it to somebody they're like "what the fuck is this shit? sounds dumb lol" and you just sigh loudly.
Welp there's my impression, not sure how it'll change in the coming weeks.
